New Product Development (NPD) Success Factors: A Review of the Literature

This paper reviews the literature on managerially actionable new product development success factors and summarises the field in a classic managerial framework. Because of the varying quality, breadth and scope of the field, the review only contains post-1980 studies of tangible product development that are of a rigorous scientific standard. Success is interpreted as a commercial success. The field has gained insight into a broad set of factors that vary in scope, abstraction and context. Main areas that contribute to NPD success are top management support exhibited through resource allocation and communicating the strategic importance of NPD in the organisation. The right projects need to be selected for investment at the beginning of the process and should be aligned to the organisation's internal competencies and the external environment. The NPD process should use cross-functional teams and a competent project champions. Marketing research competency is crucial, as an understanding of the market, customers and competitors is repeatedly highlighted. Product launch competency was also consistently shown to be important. In terms of controlling the NPD process, strict project gates are required to maintain control.

Mentorointi ja sen kehittämismahdollisuudet S-ryhmässä

Tutkielman tavoitteena oli analysoida mentorointia, sen teoriaa ja menetelmää sekä miten sitä käytetään S-ryhmässä ja millä tavalla mentoroinnin käyttöä voidaan edistää johtamisen tukena S-ryhmässä. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin mentorointia menetelmänä, jolla edistetään toisilta oppimista. Mentorointia analysoidaan myös hiljaisen tiedon, tietopääoman johtamisen ja kehittyvän johtajan ominaisuuksien näkökulmista. Osatavoitteiksi asetettiin kahdella eri tavalla toteutettujen mentorointiohjelmien erojen selvittäminen tuloksiltaan ja vaikutuksiltaan sekä mentoroinnin avulla tapahtuva oppimisen tehostaminen S-ryhmässä. Tutkielmassa käytetty konstruktiivinen metodologia valittiin tutkimusongelman perusteella, koska tarkoituksena oli kehittää S-ryhmään mentoroinnin hyödyntämiseen sopiva malli. Tiedonkeruumenetelmänä käytettiin sekä kyselytutkimusta että tietoverkossa tapahtuvaa strukturoitua teemahaastattelua. Tutkimuksen teoriaosa perustuu alan kirjallisuuteen, aihetta käsitteleviin kotimaisiin ja ulkomaisiin tutkimuksiin sekä tieteellisiin lehti- ja muihin artikkeleihin. Aikaisemman teoreettisen tutkimuksen perusteella laadittiin teoreettinen viitekehys, joka muodosti perustan tutkimuksen empiiriselle osalle. Empiirinen osa koostuu S-ryhmän mentorointiprojektia koskevasta materiaalista, mentorointiprojektiin osallistuneiden henkilöiden kyselytutkimuksista sekä S-ryhmän johtoon kuuluvien yhdeksän johtajan haastattelu-tutkimuksesta. Tutkimuksen päätuloksena oli se, että mentorointi sopii erinomaisen hyvin kehitysmenetelmäksi osaamisen ja kokemustiedon siirtämiseen vanhemmilta johtajilta nuorille potentiaalisille johtajille. Tämä tulos on erityisen merkittävä S-ryhmälle johtajaosaamisen kehittämisessä, kun ryhmään ollaan parhaillaan kasvattamassa uutta johtajasukupolvea. Empiirinen tutkimus tukee myös sitä näkemystä, että mentoroinnin toteuttamiseen S-ryhmässä on olemassa erilaisia tapoja. Keskeisenä tavoitteena toteutuksissa on henkilöiden kehittyminen ja oppiminen. Tutkimustuloksissa korostuivat myös nuoremman eli mentoroitavan tarve päästä kahdenkeskiseen, avoimeen ja luottamukselliseen keskusteluun kokeneemman henkilön kanssa. Näiden tutkimustulosten perusteella päädyttiin seuraaviin johtopäätöksiin: S-ryhmä tarvitsee oman mentorointijärjestelmän, joka toteutetaan ohjatun mentorointimallin mukaisesti. S-ryhmään on tärkeä perustaa oma mentorointipooli, jossa on halukkaita, eri osa-alueita osaavia mentoreita ja meklari, joka yhdyttää osapuolet toisiinsa.

Finna - Opening Access to Cultural Heritage and Scientific Information

Aki Lassilan esitys Europeana työpajassa 20.11.2012 Helsingissä.

Scientific creativity and diversity of physical work environment: framework development

The aim of this research was to develop a framework to analyze how physical environment influences scientific creativity. Due to the relative novelty of this topic, there is still a gap in the unified method to study connection between physical environment and creativity. Therefore, in order to study this issue deeply, the qualitative method was used (interviews and qualitative questionnaire). Scientists (PhD students and senior researchers) of Graduate School of Management were interviewed to build the model and one expert interview was conducted to assess its validity. The model highlights several dimensions via which physical environment can influence scientific creativity: Comfort, Instruments and Diversity. Comfort and Instruments are considered to be related mostly to productivity, an initial requirement for creativity, while Diversity is the factor responsible for supporting all the stages of scientific creative process. Thus, creative physical environment is not one place by its nature, but an aggregative phenomenon. Due to two levels of analysis, the model is named the two-level model of creative physical environment.

Targeted Annotation of Scientific Literature and Data Resources in Invenio Digital Libraries

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Self-deposit, discovery, and delivery of scientific GIS datasets using GeoHydra

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Development of Measurement Systems in Scientific Research: Case Study

In recent years, technological advancements in microelectronics and sensor technologies have revolutionized the field of electrical engineering. New manufacturing techniques have enabled a higher level of integration that has combined sensors and electronics into compact and inexpensive systems. Previously, the challenge in measurements was to understand the operation of the electronics and sensors, but this has now changed. Nowadays, the challenge in measurement instrumentation lies in mastering the whole system, not just the electronics. To address this issue, this doctoral dissertation studies whether it would be beneficial to consider a measurement system as a whole from the physical phenomena to the digital recording device, where each piece of the measurement system affects the system performance, rather than as a system consisting of small independent parts such as a sensor or an amplifier that could be designed separately. The objective of this doctoral dissertation is to describe in depth the development of the measurement system taking into account the challenges caused by the electrical and mechanical requirements and the measurement environment. The work is done as an empirical case study in two example applications that are both intended for scientific studies. The cases are a light sensitive biological sensor used in imaging and a gas electron multiplier detector for particle physics. The study showed that in these two cases there were a number of different parts of the measurement system that interacted with each other. Without considering these interactions, the reliability of the measurement may be compromised, which may lead to wrong conclusions about the measurement. For this reason it is beneficial to conceptualize the measurement system as a whole from the physical phenomena to the digital recording device where each piece of the measurement system affects the system performance. The results work as examples of how a measurement system can be successfully constructed to support a study of sensors and electronics.

Finnish doctoral dissertations of nursing education research

Nursing education research has confirmed its place in the discipline of nursing and caring sciences being one of the most central research areas. However, extensive and systematic analysis of nursing education research has been lacking both nationally and internationally. The aim of this study was to describe the focus of nursing education research in Finnish doctoral dissertations in the field of nursing and caring sciences between the years 1990–2014. In addition, the characteristics (i.e. methods, study informants and reporting of validity, reliability, and research ethics) of the dissertations were described. Also, international reviews (N=39) focusing on nursing education research were analysed for a background literature. A literature review was carried out. Altogether 51 (=N) Finnish doctoral dissertations of nursing and caring sciences in the field of nursing education research were included in the final analysis. The data for this research was collected from the open publication lists of each university offering education in nursing and caring sciences in Finland. The dissertations were published in 1990–2014. The data were analysed by content analysis both deductively and inductively. This study consists of a scientific article manuscript and a background literature review. Nursing education research has focused both nationally and internationally on four main areas: structural factors in nursing education, nurse teacherhood, teaching activities, and learning and learning outcomes in nursing education. In Finland, the most central focus area was learning (84.3 %) whereas nurse teacherhood and structural factors in nursing education were studied the least. Students were the predominant study informant group while nurse staff including nurse mentors were next and nurse educators only the third. Surveys and interviews were the most common data collection methods. In the findings there were a lot of similarities with international reviews of nursing education research. Finnish nursing education research has been very student-centred yet studies focusing on the education of other nursing based professions or different levels of education are rare. Future research about nurse teacherhood, curricula and structural factors in nursing education is recommended. There is also a need for experimental designs. In addition, nursing education research should focus on the central phenomena of nursing education and working life. All in all, more nursing education research is needed. Nursing education dissertations cover only 12.3 % of all the dissertations of nursing and caring sciences in Finland.