Purpose

The purpose of the present study is to assist academics and practitioners in supporting and managing digital production innovation projects using managerial controls. The focus is on projects that deliver innovations containing new combinations of physical, digital and/or cyber-physical components, developed to be used within a production system. More specifically, this paper aims to explore the applicability of different managerial controls for managing and supporting digital production innovation projects, i.e. projects that are characterized by high levels of complexity and uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a multiple-case study in which interview data was collected from five digital production innovation projects in two manufacturing firms. The empirical data was used to analyze success factors, challenges and obstacles in different phases of the studied projects, and to connect these to the application of different types of managerial controls.

Findings

The findings provide an increased understanding of who to control, what to control and how to control in digital production innovation projects.

Research limitations/implications

This paper is focused specifically on the perception of managerial controls in digital production innovation projects and has not explicitly focused on manufacturing companies' intended usage of managerial controls. This paper's focus on manufacturing companies with producing customers and on projects developing solutions for their respective customers' production systems also encourages further studies at other companies undergoing a comparable transition. Given the necessary system perspective on managerial controls that is being highlighted, this paper emphasizes further research needs on how firms can also apply managerial controls to support external collaborations.

Practical implications

The results have a number of managerial implications regarding digital production innovation projects. The most prominent findings revealed the importance of giving attention to the managerial controls related to the decision-making process and the involvement from stakeholders outside the organization itself. In particular, it was shown that managerial controls securing a more holistic involvement in the decision-making process should be applied, and that managerial controls suitable for customers and partners need to be developed.

Originality/value

The study is among the first studies to focus on the application and perceived effectiveness of managerial controls in digital production innovation projects. The ways in which managerial controls are applied to collaborations with customers and partners and the ways in which action, cultural and personnel controls are combined and aligned to support the corporate decision-making process particularly stand out as essential for manufacturing companies' Industry 4.0 transition.

In an attempt to remain competitive, manufacturers increasingly offer integrated product-service systems (PSSs). This transition from physical products to PSSs calls for new ways of working, for example in the product development process. However, so far only limited attention has been put on capabilities needed to succeed with PSS innovation in the very early development phases – often referred to as the fuzzy front end (FFE). This article, therefore, has a dual aim: first, to further our understanding of capabilities for PSS innovation in the FFE, and second, to determine how these capabilities are linked to PSS innovation capabilities needed in subsequent development phases. Empirical data were collected from an ongoing industrial project developing an innovative PSS offering in a large manufacturing company. Individuals connected to the project reported major challenges, both experienced in the FFE and anticipated in later phases, which provided valuable information regarding capabilities needed to succeed with the endeavour. Findings reveal four links of PSS innovation capabilities: (1) adapting vocabulary and mental models to PSS, (2) handling the ‘intangible aspect’, (3) bridging organisational structures, and (4) managing new business models. PSS innovation capabilities in the FFE are also found to be of higher order (dynamic) compared to capabilities in later development phases

The importance of innovation for sustained competiveness is well stated in the literature. However, most product innovation research has so far focused on large firms or small high tech, start-up or spin-off companies. This study investigates innovation process practices in small established firms through the use of five managerial levers considered to determine the process. Based on a case-study design involving eight small established firms with growth ambitions, the results show that the levers “mission, strategy and goal” and “organizational learning” are important throughout the process, and that the lever “resource allocation” is directed towards the later phases of the process. The levers “structure and systems”, as well as “organizational culture” are less emphasized. By developing and testing an analysis model based on the innovation process and managerial levers, this paper contributes with insights of innovation in established small firms valuable for further research.

Social networks in organizations have been identified as important both in terms of increasing our understanding of innovation and for organizations to realize innovation outcomes. While previous studies have informed us of the importance of networks for innovation, we know little of how companies intentionally can design and utilize networks to achieve continuous innovation. The aim of this paper is to explore how a network for continuous innovation can be established and managed. A longitudinal case study has been performed using data covering the establishment and subsequent management of a network for supporting continuous innovation, spanning the product management and R&D department of a large multinational company. The results reveal the potential to use intra-organizational networks to invoke organizational pressure conducive for making innovation happen. This pressure is induced by autonomy and self-organizing in the network and consists of reciprocal expectations and demands between the top (management) and the bottom (employees involved in the network) of the organizational hierarchy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

This paper presents an investigation of how critical situations enabling and hindering the realization of a radical innovation idea in an established and large company are managed. By gaining access to rich data through interviews with key stakeholder associated to a recently launched radical innovation the study is able to bring light to why uncertainties and complexities in a radical innovation project varies over time and how the combination of different novelty dimensions is contributing. The critical situations identified are found to all relate to events or periods when people inside the organization either are or are not convinced about and motivated by the potential and feasibility of the innovation. This observation is emphasizing a need to better understand how the management of internal resistance to radical innovation can be improved. Particularly how, when and what roles, different management functions or other people in the organization play over time.

Previous research in the field of product innovation management has focused on large firms. This is unfortunate because small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have features that clearly distinguish them from their larger counterparts and also play an important role in the global economy. In addition, SMEs often have more varying control of the whole innovation process-from identification of a customer need to delivering customer value-compared to larger companies. This article addresses this research gap by exploring how SMEs with growth ambitions, and varying degree of control, can leverage their innovation process. The article outlines results from a SWOT analysis utilizing data from a multiple case study of eight SMEs. Both 'product owning' companies (with either in-house or outsourced manufacturing) as well as manufacturing industry subcontractors were sampled. The results show indications of the influence of varying degree of control of the innovation process-relating to different phases, how knowledge and competence are considered and being reliant on others-and how SMEs and their offerings can be considered as parts of larger systems.

This study explores how managers’ goal setting can enable individuals to pursue both explorative and exploitative activities, i.e. individual ambidexterity. The study is based on multisource data covering the goal-setting approaches of 28 managers and perceptions of the ambidextrous climate from their departments. The results show that managers prefer different task-goal attributes when setting goals for innovation and operational activities. Innovation goals were more challenging, ambiguous, learning oriented, self-generated, long term, without a specific deadline and non-quantifiable compared to goals set for operational activities. Managers in departments characterized by a high-ambidexterity climate were also inclined to distinguish more between goals set for innovative and operative activities than other departments, particularly for the goal attributes "Attainable versus Challenging" and "Time-bound versus No specific deadline". We can therefore conclude that the way individual goals for innovation and operational activities are set relates to the level of ambidexterity on both individual and departmental levels.

Early involvement of production can on the one hand create products better adapted for realization, but on the other hand introduce the risk that incremental adjustments of existing operations and processes is favoured at the expense of more radical ones. The research reported in this paper aims to explore how innovative projectteams manage this paradox of early production involvement and innovativeness. Results show that a number of separation strategies at the micro level in the organization play an important role in practice.

Ideas and concepts are the carriers of innovation, which many regard as a critical source of competitive advantage. At the same time, an initial idea is untested and unrealized, i.e., it is always surrounded by a lack of knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different types of ideas develop and interact with knowledge, by focusing on remediating activities performed by design teams. Results are based on a retrospective interview study involving respondents from eight projects, all selected for their high degree of innovativeness. The analysis emphasized two types of ideas (product ideas and concept ideas) and three spaces of design knowledge (the why-space, the what-space, and the how-space). The results reveal two possibilities: either the content of the knowledge space differs depending on the type of idea, or different knowledge spaces exist. Moreover, activities conducted to improve the idea have different characteristics depending on the type of idea. It is thus important to distinguish between different types of ideas and to choose corresponding mitigation activities to support idea development.