Empowerment climate, supervisory support for creativity and work role performance in new product development settings: A team level investigation

This thesis is an examination of how organisational context variables affect the performance of new product development (NPD) teams. Specifically, the extent to how team empowerment climate and supervisory support for creativity impact NPD team performance. Moreover, this thesis is a step forward in the ongoing development of work role performance theory by examining Griffin et al.'s (2007) work role performance model in the context of NPD teams. This thesis addresses the lack of research exploring work role performance dimensions in NPD teams and the extent to which a team empowerment climate and supervisory support for creativity impact NPDs performance.

Constructing Stability in Software Product Development during Organizational Restructurings

We all have fresh in our memory what happened to the IT sector only a few years ago when the IT-bubble burst. The upswing of productivity in this sector slowed down, investors lost large investments, many found themselves looking for a new job, and countless dreams fell apart. Product developers in the IT sector have experienced a large number of organizational restructurings since the IT boom, including rapid growth, downsizing processes, and structural reforms. Organizational restructurings seem to be a complex and continuous phenomenon people in this sector have to deal with. How do software product developers retrospectively construct their work in relation to organizational restructurings? How do organizational restructurings bring about specific social processes in product development? This working paper focuses on these questions. The overall aim is to develop an understanding of how software product developers construct their work during organizational restructurings. The theoretical frame of reference is based on a social constructionist approach and discourse analysis. This approach offers more or less radical and critical alternatives to mainstream organizational theory. Writings from this perspective attempt to investigate and understand sociocultural processes by which various realities are created. Therefore these studies aim at showing how people participate in constituting the social world (Gergen & Thatchenkery, 1996); knowledge of the world is seen to be constructed between people in daily interaction, in which language plays a central role. This means that interaction, especially the ways of talking and writing about product development during organizational restructurings, become the target of concern. This study consists of 25 in-depth interviews following a pilot study based on 57 semi-structured interviews. In this working paper I analyze 9 in-depth interviews. The interviews were conducted in eight IT firms. The analysis explores how discourses are constructed and function, as well as the consequences that follow from different discourses. The analysis shows that even though the product developers have experienced many organizational restructurings, some of which have been far-reaching, their accounts build strongly on a stability discourse. According to this discourse product development is, perhaps surprisingly, not influenced to a great extent by organizational restructurings. This does not mean that product development is static. According to the social constructionist approach, product development is constantly being reproduced and maintained in ongoing processes. In other words stable effects are also ongoing achievements and these are of particular interest in this study. The product developers maintain rather than change the product development through ongoing processes of construction, even when they experience continuous extensive organizational restructurings. The discourse of stability exists alongside other discourses, some which contradict each other. Together they direct product development and generate meanings. The product developers consequently take an active role in the construction of their work during organizational restructurings. When doing this they also negotiate credible positions for themselves

'... the walls fell down but the blokes just coded ...' - Varieties of stability in software product development during organizational restructurings

Many Finnish IT companies have gone through numerous organizational changes over the past decades. This book draws attention to how stability may be central to software product development experts and IT workers more generally, who continuously have to cope with such change in their workplaces. It does so by analyzing and theorizing change and stability as intertwined and co-existent, thus throwing light on how it is possible that, for example, even if ‘the walls fall down the blokes just code’ and maintain a sense of stability in their daily work. Rather than reproducing the picture of software product development as exciting cutting edge activities and organizational change as dramatic episodes, the study takes the reader beyond the myths surrounding these phenomena to the mundane practices, routines and organizings in product development during organizational change. An analysis of these ordinary practices offers insights into how software product development experts actively engage in constructing stability during organizational change through a variety of practices, including solidarity, homosociality, close relations to products, instrumental or functional views on products, preoccupations with certain tasks and humble obedience. Consequently, the study shows that it may be more appropriate to talk about varieties of stability, characterized by a multitude of practices of stabilizing rather than states of stagnation. Looking at different practices of stability in depth shows the creation of software as an arena for micro-politics, power relations and increasing pressures for order and formalization. The thesis gives particular attention to power relations and processes of positioning following organizational change: how social actors come to understand themselves in the context of ongoing organizational change, how they comply with and/or contest dominant meanings, how they identify and dis-identify with formalization, and how power relations often are reproduced despite dis-identification. Related to processes of positioning, the reader is also given a glimpse into what being at work in a male-dominated and relatively homogeneous work environment looks like. It shows how the strong presence of men or “blokes” of a particular age and education seems to become invisible in workplace talk that appears ‘non-conscious’ of gender.

Trends in Pharmaceutical Product Development 2000-2010

Merkittävä osa alkuperäislääkevalmistajien tutkimus- ja tuotekehityskuluista näyttää olevan suunnattu olemassa olevien lääkkeiden kehittämiseen. Tämä voi oletettavasti johtaa kiinnostaviin formulaatiokehitysstrategioihin. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, voidaanko farmaseuttisen tuotekehityksen trendejä havaita myönnettyjen myyntilupien perusteella. Tutkimuksen mielenkiinnon kohteena olivat myös suurimpien lääkeyritysten käyttämät elinkaaren hallinnan keinot, joilla suojataan myyvimpiä tuotteita geneeriseltä kilpailulta ja varmistetaan markkinaosuus. Tutkimuksen painopiste oli kiinteissä oraalisissa lääkevalmisteissa. Laadullisten ja määrällisten menetelmien yhdistelmää käytettiin laajan näkökulman saamiseksi tutkittavaan aiheeseen. Suomalaisten myyntilupaviranomaisten haastatteluja käytettiin keräämään taustatietoa tutkimuksen määrällistä osaa varten. Määrällinen osa koostui myyntilupatietokannoista, jotka käsittivät kaikkien menettelyjen kautta Suomessa myönnetyt myyntiluvat, keskitetyn menettelyn kautta EU:ssa myönnetyt myyntiluvat ja maailman kymmenen suurinta lääkeyritystä USA:ssa. Tutkimustulosten perusteella rinnakkaislääkkeiden määrässä tapahtui merkittävä nousu Suomessa kaikkien menettelyjen kautta myönnetyissä myyntiluvissa ja EU:ssa keskitetyn menettelyn kautta myönnetyissä myyntiluvissa vuosina 2000-2010. Tämä muutos saattaa ainakin osaksi johtua lainsäädännöllisistä muutoksista, joilla luotiin kannustimia rinnakkaislääkkeiden käyttöön ja valmistukseen, kuten lääkevaihto ja viitehintajärjestelmä. USA:n tiedot osoittivat suurten lääkevalmistajien kiinnostuksen elinkaaren hallintaan: suurin osa maailman kymmenelle suurimmalle lääkeyritykselle myönnetyistä myyntiluvista vuosina 2005-2010 oli tähän tarkoitukseen. Elinkaaren hallinnan suhde uusiin lääkeaineisiin oli lähes 4:1. Kiinteä oraalinen lääkemuoto on kiistatta kaikista suosituin tapa annostella lääke, minkä vahvistivat sekä arvioijien haastattelut että myyntilupatiedot. Kiinteiden oraalisten rooli oli entistäkin korostuneempi rinnakkaislääkkeiden kohdalla. Kun innovatiivisuutta mitattiin epätyypillisten annosmuotojen määrällä, USA:n tiedot kiinteistä oraalisista lääkemuodoista osoittivat vahvaa innovatiivisuutta Suomen ja EU:n tietoihin verrattuna. Tämä saattaa heijastaa suurten lääkeyritysten innovatiivista tuotevalikoimaa. Epätyypillisten kiinteiden oraalisten annosmuotojen osuus oli huomattavasti pienempi rinnakkaislääkkeissä kuin alkuperäislääkkeissä kaikilla alueilla. Elinkaaren hallinnassa käytetyimmät strategiat olivat uusi formulaatio, uusi vahvuus ja uusi yhdistelmä olemassa olevasta valmisteesta. Kiinteiden oraalisten lääkemuotojen osalta kaksi kolmasosaa uusista elinkaaren hallinnan formulaatioista oli säädellysti vapauttavia valmisteita. Elinkaaren hallinta on olennainen osa suurten lääkeyritysten liiketoimintastrategiaa, ja sen tärkeyttä havainnollistettiin Coreg-tablettien tapausesimerkillä.

The Future of Product Development in India

A product is reflects the constraints, beliefs and aspirations of a society. Product development both influences and is influenced by the growth of a society and its economy. India is a fast growing economy. We use a brief historical, socioeconomic account of India as a backdrop to detect the drivers and roadblocks to its economic and social growth. In this context, current and future trends of PD practice, education and research are sketched. Products are taken as artefacts of the act of designing, without limiting to only those created by industry in a market-economic context.