Firms are increasingly relying on collaborating with external partners to drive technology development. Many firms struggle with managing the inherently uncertain and ambiguous technology development process, however, especially with external actors involved, because they may not have or share the same project management practices concerning coordination and control activities. To address this gap, this study examines appropriate project management practices for market- and science-partnerships in three large technology intensive firms. Our results suggest that interorganizational technology development is problematic because firms lack sufficient partner understanding and struggle with aligning their project management practices with those of their partners. To address these problems, we identify project management practices of coordination and control to fit the contingencies of each type of partner collaboration. Our results provide implications for theory and managerial practices related to managing interorganizational technology development.

This study seeks to answer two key questions about the front-end innovation: when do idea generation activities involving internal and external partner’s payoff, and which organizational capabilities support idea generation activities for achieving high front-end performance?

The front-end phase is the early phase of new product development (NPD), which starts with an idea for a new product, and ends when the firm has developed a robust product concept (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1997). Numerous studies recognize the importance of front-end for successful NPD (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Florén and Frishammar, 2012). However, prior research has shown that early NPD often has a dynamic and interactive nature and consists of complex information processing, ad hoc decision-making, and conflicting organizational pressures caused by high degrees of complexity and uncertainty (Akbar and Tzoukas, 2013; de Brentani and Reid, 2012). This leads to operational challenges such as missteps, time delays, and product failure in the front-end (Goldenberg et al., 2001).

Although the literature on the subsequent NPD phases is strong and well developed (see e.g. Brown and Eisenhardt, 1995; Cooper et al., 2002), practical insights are still short about how firms achieve proficient management of operations in the front-end phase. In fact, most prior studies have proposed laundry lists of successful factors (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1997), but provide limited insights into unique resources and capabilities critical to operations. Building on the resource-based view (Barney, 1991), we undertake an explorative study to identify such unique resources and capabilities that enable front-end operational competitive advantages. More importantly, we also investigate how resources and capabilities interact and jointly provide different operational advantages in front-end of NPD. 

This article examines the context of the front-end process in a multinational Brazilian firm that manufactures electric motors. By adopting an in-depth case study method, this article evaluates the front end as a strategic and tactical process within the Brazilian firm studied. The competitive arena, consisting mainly of Asian competitors, encouraged the Brazilian firm to review the stages of the front-end process and include new activities, such as (i) involving abstractive practices in the first stages; (ii) developing cross-functional capabilities in the research and development department; (iii) adopting tear-down activities of competitors' products concerning all business segments; and (iv) defining a priori the boundary conditions of financial constraints.

Este artigo analisa as configurações do processo de captação de novas oportunidades para o desenvolvimento de produtos numa indústria multinacional de origem brasileira fabricante de Motores Elétricos Industriais, ganhadora do prêmio FINEP de inovação. Numa abordagem qualitativa, foi estudada a evolução do processo em níveis estratégicos e táticos, desde sua fundação em 1970, buscando investigar oportunidades de aprimoramento à luz dos modelos teóricos. Os resultados demonstram a necessidade de um novo paradigma organizacional que possibilite novas orientações à captação de oportunidades. A saúde financeira e a capacidade técnica da empresa lhe asseguraram posição de destaque no cenário internacional. No entanto, as mudanças no contexto oriundas em especial no mercado chinês apontam para a necessidade de uma reformulação do processo de captação de novas oportunidades. Considerando o modelo teórico adotado, constataram-se as seguintes oportunidades de melhoria: (i) aprimoramento da fase inicial para uma etapa mais criativa, abstrata, multidisciplinar e com perspectiva de longo prazo; (ii) desenvolvimento de habilidades multifuncionais pelos departamentos de pesquisa e desenvolvimento; (iii) análise do potencial tecnológico dos concorrentes com base em práticas de tear-down para todos os segmentos de negócio; e (iv) indicação a priori de macrodiretivas pelo grupo diretor.

Firms are increasingly reliant on collaborating with external partners to drive their technology development efforts in light of increasing pace of development and global competition. However, many firms struggle with managing the inherently uncertain and ambiguous process of technology development with external actors because these may not share the same technological understandings, processes and goals. Accordingly, we argue that further research is required to better understand the management of joint projects with different types of partners within technology development. To fill this gap this study examines the adaptation of traditional stage-gate processes for technology development projects with science-based and market-based partners in three large technologies oriented firms. Our results shows that open technology development projects are often problematic because firms lack partner understanding and have difficulty aligning their development processes with external partners. To address these problems we found that our firms adapted their processes by implementing externally oriented stages, gates and roles to suit the contingencies of collaboration with science-based and market-based partners respectively. Our results provide implications for theory and management practice concerning the management of open innovation and stage-gate processes.

This article investigates the vital and often underemphasized front end of innovation. It aims to explore how firms utilize organizational capabilities to manage multiple sources of fuzziness (uncertainty, equivocality, and complexity). In so doing, we use the capability- and knowledge-based view to examine the use of firms’ capabilities to navigate the front end process from vague ideas towards corroborated product definition. In our qualitative case of seven manufacturing firms, we explore practices, methods, and routines for managing the front end. We explain that new product ideas can be classified according to different degrees of fuzziness, which implies that not all product ideas can or should be treated in the same way. In fact, certain capabilities are more important for managing the development of ideas at low (i.e. process management and idea refinement) and high (problem formulation and problem solution) levels of fuzziness. Ultimately, we suggest a theoretical framework that elucidates how firms use two distinct paths (i.e. tolerance-based or reduction-based) to transform early new product ideas into corroborated product definitions. In doing so, our results guide project members in matching the magnitude of knowledge problems with organizational capabilities and thereby increase front-end performance.