Customer involvement in new service development

This case study aims at filling the research gap in the literature, by researching how customers experience customer involvement in new service development, in addition to giving insight on what are the organisational customers’ motivations to become involved in service development. These subjects are studied by conducting three interviews. The thesis gives a review of previous findings regarding customer-driven new service development, customer involvement, customer roles, modes of involvement, communication in the involvement process, what is the role of customer engagement and what are the motivational drivers for customers. The thesis also explains what new service development is and makes a distinction between new service development and new service design. The results revealed that organisational customers want to be involved throughout the development process, with active involvement in the beginning and end phases. Moreover, customers prefer face-to-face methods and active and bidirectional communication throughout the process. The findings propose seven motivational factors, a new framework for customer-driven new service development and communication process map. The managerial implications list five themes for service providers to take into consideration when involving customers to the service development process.

Para uma pedagogia do reconhecimento: da concriação à pratica vocativa

Esta dissertação assume, na sua maior abrangência, a feitura de uma articulação entre a sustentação originária e constitutiva do ser humano, a manifestação concreta do sentido existencial do ato pedagógico e os seus modos de realização: dialógico, comunitário, personalista e humanista. Neste sentido, a nossa proposta passa inicialmente por uma procura do sujeito através do alcance da pessoa, do homem ao indivíduo (nas suas diversas vicissitudes), até à sua concretização numa consciência pedagógica precursora do agir, do conhecer, do sentir e, fundamentalmente, do ato de “Reconhecer”, este tido, por nós, como o processo fundamentador e fomentador de uma Pedagogia do Reconhecimento. É um percurso inovador na medida em que parte de uma Antropologia Filosófica e de uma Antroposofia, passando pelos meandros processuais da consciência lonerganiana e da fenomenologia buberiana da relação, pretendendo promover, no seu culminar, uma ambiência cultural de pedagogia dialógica inserida num topos comunitário, pressuposta e implicitamente proposta numa Teoria do Reconhecimento, que se situa na geografia disciplinar da Filosofia da Educação, e nas “Dinâmicas das Relações Interpessoais”. Temos, pois, que o seu epílogo é o reconhecimento: como resultado radical e subtil manifestado na intersubjetividade. A Pedagogia do Reconhecimento como concriação e ação vocativa está fundamentada num itinerário de estruturas idiossincráticas de sustentação do modo como “ser-aí” se faz (constrói e realiza). Partiremos da desaxialização do “Eu” tópico (anthropos) para uma estrutura transversal dialógica. Entendemos que toda a vida verdadeira é relação, afirmação buberiana que, só por si, derruba a clássica fronteira tópica e abre espaço à condição dialógica e essencial do fazer do ser humano. O papel do reconhecimento do “outro”, no homem, é um fenómeno de dialogicidade que abole as fronteiras dialéticas da pura argumentação e permite o brotar da reciprocidade; Abstract: This dissertation intends, in its greater scope, to make a link between the original and constitutive support of the human being, the concrete manifestation of pedagogical act's existential sense and its embodiments: dialogical, personalistic, communitarian and humanist. Our proposal initially goes through a search of the Self through the achievement of the person, from Man to the individual (in its various vicissitudes), till its development in a pedagogical conscience that is a precursor of action, knowing, feeling and, fundamentally, of the act of “Recognize”, as a justifying and instigating process of a Pedagogy of Recognition. It is an innovative path in the sense that it initiates itself from a Philosophical Anthropology and from an Anthroposophy and it continues through the procedural intricacies of lonerganian consciousness and buberian phenomenology of relation, intending to promote, in its culmination, a cultural ambience of dialogic pedagogy, inserted in a communitarian topos, presupposed and implicitly proposed in a Recognition Theory, that places itself in the disciplinary geography of Philosophy of Education and in the “Dynamics of Interpersonal Relationships”. Therefore, the epilogue is the recognition: as a radical and subtle outcome, expressed in the intersubjectivity. The Pedagogy of Recognition as co-creation and vocative practice is based on a route of idiosyncratic structures of support of the way in how to be there is done (built and accomplished). We start from the de-axialization of the topic “Self” (anthropos) to a transversal dialogical structure. We defend that all true life is relationship, a buberian statement that all alone drops the topical classical border and makes room for the dialogical and essential condition of doing of the human being. The role of recognition of the “other”, in Man, is a dialogical phenomenon that abolishes the dialectic borders of pure argument and allows the sprouting of reciprocity.

Implementation and Operation of Collaborative Manufacturing Networks

Part 6: Engineering and Implementation of Collaborative Networks

Sales–marketing encroachment effects on innovation

The role of sales has changed dramatically during the last two decades, with sales becoming increasingly strategic and encroaching on domains that traditionally belong to marketing. Many studies address the role of marketing in new product development (NPD) success, but research on the increasing importance of sales, its changing role and changing dynamics with marketing is scarce. This empirical study of 296 Hungarian firms addresses this gap and shows that the extent to which sales encroaches on marketing's tasks is influenced by interface relations, exchange processes and sales' capabilities. The effect of sales–marketing encroachment on NPD financial success is partially mediated by customer involvement, while its effect on market success is fully mediated by customer involvement. These findings suggest that firms may improve their NPD financial performance by letting sales encroach on marketing tasks, but need to establish customer co-creation initiatives to benefit from sales–marketing encroachment in terms of superior NPD performance compared with competitors.

Social network analysis applied to knowledge creation and transfer in the portuguese agricultural R&D field: an exploratory study

Paper presented at the 9th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK, 4-5 Sep. 2008. URL: http://academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2008/eckm08-home.htm

Danny e o profundo mar azul: introdução da técnica da Meisner em Portugal pela Below de Belt Teatro Co.: relatório de estágio

Relatório de Estágio submetidoà Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinemapara cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Artes Performativas- especialização em Teatro-Música

High-frequency linkage of co-expressing T-DNA in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana transformed by vacuum-infiltration of Agrobacterium tumefaciens

The efficiency of co-expression and linkage of distinct T-DNAs present in separate Agrobacterium tumefaciens was analysed in Arabidopsis thaliana transformed by the vacuum infiltration method. Co-expression was monitored by the synthesis of three bacterial proteins involved in the production of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) in the plastids. Out of 80 kanamycin-resistant transgenic plants analysed, 13 plants were co-transformed with the two distinct T-DNAs and produced PHB. Of those, 7 lines had a kanamycin-resistance segregation ratio consistent with the presence of a single functional insert. Genetic linkage between the distinct T-DNAs was demonstrated for all 13 PHB-producing lines, while physical linkage between the distinct T-DNAs was shown for 12 out of 13 lines. T-DNAs were frequently linked in an inverted orientation about the left borders. Transformation of A. thaliana by the co-infiltration of two A. tumefaciens containing distinct T-DNAs is, thus, an efficient approach for the integration and expression of several transgenes at a single locus. This approach will facilitate the creation and study of novel metabolic pathways requiring the expression of numerous transgenes.

LdShake: learning design solutions sharing and co-edition

Two important challenges that teachers are currently facing are the sharing and the collaborative authoring of their learning design solutions, such as didactical units and learning materials. On the one hand, there are tools that can be used for the creation of design solutions and only some of them facilitate the co-edition. However, they do not incorporate mechanisms that support the sharing of the designs between teachers. On the other hand, there are tools that serve as repositories of educational resources but they do not enable the authoring of the designs. In this paper we present LdShake, a web tool whose novelty is focused on the combined support for the social sharing and co-edition of learning design solutions within communities of teachers. Teachers can create and share learning designs with other teachers using different access rights so that they can read, comment or co-edit the designs. Therefore, each design solution is associated to a group of teachers able to work on its definition, and another group that can only see the design. The tool is generic in that it allows the creation of designs based on any pedagogical approach. However, it can be particularized in instances providing pre-formatted designs structured according to a specific didactic method (such as Problem-Based Learning, PBL). A particularized LdShake instance has been used in the context of Human Biology studies where teams of teachers are required to work together in the design of PBL solutions. A controlled user study, that compares the use of a generic LdShake and a Moodle system, configured to enable the creation and sharing of designs, has been also carried out. The combined results of the real and controlled studies show that the social structure, and the commenting, co-edition and publishing features of LdShake provide a useful, effective and usable approach for facilitating teachers' teamwork.

Tailoring Magnetic Properties of Co-Fe Thin Films by Topographical Modifications Using Thermal Annealing and Swift Heavy Ion Irradiation and Fabrication of Magnetoelectric Multilayers for Device Applications

Magnetism and magnetic materials have been playing a lead role in improving the quality of life. They are increasingly being used in a wide variety of applications ranging from compasses to modern technological devices. Metallic glasses occupy an important position among magnetic materials. They assume importance both from a scientific and an application point of view since they represent an amorphous form of condensed matter with significant deviation from thermodynamic equilibrium. Metallic glasses having good soft magnetic properties are widely used in tape recorder heads, cores of high-power transformers and metallic shields. Superconducting metallic glasses are being used to produce high magnetic fields and magnetic levitation effect. Upon heat treatment, they undergo structural relaxation leading to subtle rearrangements of constituent atoms. This leads to densification of amorphous phase and subsequent nanocrystallisation. The short-range structural relaxation phenomenon gives rise to significant variations in physical, mechanical and magnetic properties. Magnetic amorphous alloys of Co-Fe exhibit excellent soft magnetic properties which make them promising candidates for applications as transformer cores, sensors, and actuators. With the advent of microminiaturization and nanotechnology, thin film forms of these alloys are sought after for soft under layers for perpendicular recording media. The thin film forms of these alloys can also be used for fabrication of magnetic micro electro mechanical systems (magnetic MEMS). In bulk, they are drawn in the form of ribbons, often by melt spinning. The main constituents of these alloys are Co, Fe, Ni, Si, Mo and B. Mo acts as the grain growth inhibitor and Si and B facilitate the amorphous nature in the alloy structure. The ferromagnetic phases such as Co-Fe and Fe-Ni in the alloy composition determine the soft magnetic properties. The grain correlation length, a measure of the grain size, often determines the soft magnetic properties of these alloys. Amorphous alloys could be restructured in to their nanocrystalline counterparts by different techniques. The structure of nanocrystalline material consists of nanosized ferromagnetic crystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix. When the amorphous phase is ferromagnetic, they facilitate exchange coupling between nanocrystallites. This exchange coupling results in the vanishing of magnetocrystalline anisotropy which improves the soft magnetic properties. From a fundamental perspective, exchange correlation length and grain size are the deciding factors that determine the magnetic properties of these nanocrystalline materials. In thin films, surfaces and interfaces predominantly decides the bulk property and hence tailoring the surface roughness and morphology of the film could result in modified magnetic properties. Surface modifications can be achieved by thermal annealing at various temperatures. Ion irradiation is an alternative tool to modify the surface/structural properties. The surface evolution of a thin film under swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation is an outcome of different competing mechanism. It could be sputtering induced by SHI followed by surface roughening process and the material transport induced smoothening process. The impingement of ions with different fluence on the alloy is bound to produce systematic microstructural changes and this could effectively be used for tailoring magnetic parameters namely coercivity, saturation magnetization, magnetic permeability and remanence of these materials. Swift heavy ion irradiation is a novel and an ingenious tool for surface modification which eventually will lead to changes in the bulk as well as surface magnetic property. SHI has been widely used as a method for the creation of latent tracks in thin films. The bombardment of SHI modifies the surfaces or interfaces or creates defects, which induces strain in the film. These changes will have profound influence on the magnetic anisotropy and the magnetisation of the specimen. Thus inducing structural and morphological changes by thermal annealing and swift heavy ion irradiation, which in turn induce changes in the magnetic properties of these alloys, is one of the motivation of this study. Multiferroic and magneto-electrics is a class of functional materials with wide application potential and are of great interest to material scientists and engineers. Magnetoelectric materials combine both magnetic as well as ferroelectric properties in a single specimen. The dielectric properties of such materials can be controlled by the application of an external magnetic field and the magnetic properties by an electric field. Composites with magnetic and piezo/ferroelectric individual phases are found to have strong magnetoelectric (ME) response at room temperature and hence are preferred to single phasic multiferroic materials. Currently research in this class of materials is towards optimization of the ME coupling by tailoring the piezoelectric and magnetostrictive properties of the two individual components of ME composites. The magnetoelectric coupling constant (MECC) (_ ME) is the parameter that decides the extent of interdependence of magnetic and electric response of the composite structure. Extensive investigates have been carried out in bulk composites possessing on giant ME coupling. These materials are fabricated by either gluing the individual components to each other or mixing the magnetic material to a piezoelectric matrix. The most extensively investigated material combinations are Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) or Lead Magnesium Niobate-Lead Titanate (PMNPT) as the piezoelectric, and Terfenol-D as the magnetostrictive phase and the coupling is measured in different configurations like transverse, longitudinal and inplane longitudinal. Fabrication of a lead free multiferroic composite with a strong ME response is the need of the hour from a device application point of view. The multilayer structure is expected to be far superior to bulk composites in terms of ME coupling since the piezoelectric (PE) layer can easily be poled electrically to enhance the piezoelectricity and hence the ME effect. The giant magnetostriction reported in the Co-Fe thin films makes it an ideal candidate for the ferromagnetic component and BaTiO3 which is a well known ferroelectric material with improved piezoelectric properties as the ferroelectric component. The multilayer structure of BaTiO3- CoFe- BaTiO3 is an ideal system to understand the underlying fundamental physics behind the ME coupling mechanism. Giant magnetoelectric coupling coefficient is anticipated for these multilayer structures of BaTiO3-CoFe-BaTiO3. This makes it an ideal candidate for cantilever applications in magnetic MEMS/NEMS devices. SrTiO3 is an incipient ferroelectric material which is paraelectric up to 0K in its pure unstressed form. Recently few studies showed that ferroelectricity can be induced by application of stress or by chemical / isotopic substitution. The search for room temperature magnetoelectric coupling in SrTiO3-CoFe-SrTiO3 multilayer structures is of fundamental interest. Yet another motivation of the present work is to fabricate multilayer structures consisting of CoFe/ BaTiO3 and CoFe/ SrTiO3 for possible giant ME coupling coefficient (MECC) values. These are lead free and hence promising candidates for MEMS applications. The elucidation of mechanism for the giant MECC also will be the part of the objective of this investigation.

From evolution to co-evolution – An empirical study of the role of innovation, policy and public research in industrial dynamics

In the past decades since Schumpeter’s influential writings economists have pursued research to examine the role of innovation in certain industries on firm as well as on industry level. Researchers describe innovations as the main trigger of industry dynamics, while policy makers argue that research and education are directly linked to economic growth and welfare. Thus, research and education are an important objective of public policy. Firms and public research are regarded as the main actors which are relevant for the creation of new knowledge. This knowledge is finally brought to the market through innovations. What is more, policy makers support innovations. Both actors, i.e. policy makers and researchers, agree that innovation plays a central role but researchers still neglect the role that public policy plays in the field of industrial dynamics. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to learn more about the interdependencies of innovation, policy and public research in industrial dynamics. The overarching research question of this dissertation asks whether it is possible to analyze patterns of industry evolution – from evolution to co-evolution – based on empirical studies of the role of innovation, policy and public research in industrial dynamics. This work starts with a hypothesis-based investigation of traditional approaches of industrial dynamics. Namely, the testing of a basic assumption of the core models of industrial dynamics and the analysis of the evolutionary patterns – though with an industry which is driven by public policy as example. Subsequently it moves to a more explorative approach, investigating co-evolutionary processes. The underlying questions of the research include the following: Do large firms have an advantage because of their size which is attributable to cost spreading? Do firms that plan to grow have more innovations? What role does public policy play for the evolutionary patterns of an industry? Are the same evolutionary patterns observable as those described in the ILC theories? And is it possible to observe regional co-evolutionary processes of science, innovation and industry evolution? Based on two different empirical contexts – namely the laser and the photovoltaic industry – this dissertation tries to answer these questions and combines an evolutionary approach with a co-evolutionary approach. The first chapter starts with an introduction of the topic and the fields this dissertation is based on. The second chapter provides a new test of the Cohen and Klepper (1996) model of cost spreading, which explains the relationship between innovation, firm size and R&D, at the example of the photovoltaic industry in Germany. First, it is analyzed whether the cost spreading mechanism serves as an explanation for size advantages in this industry. This is related to the assumption that the incentives to invest in R&D increase with the ex-ante output. Furthermore, it is investigated whether firms that plan to grow will have more innovative activities. The results indicate that cost spreading serves as an explanation for size advantages in this industry and, furthermore, growth plans lead to higher amount of innovative activities. What is more, the role public policy plays for industry evolution is not finally analyzed in the field of industrial dynamics. In the case of Germany, the introduction of demand inducing policy instruments stimulated market and industry growth. While this policy immediately accelerated market volume, the effect on industry evolution is more ambiguous. Thus, chapter three analyzes this relationship by considering a model of industry evolution, where demand-inducing policies will be discussed as a possible trigger of development. The findings suggest that these instruments can take the same effect as a technical advance to foster the growth of an industry and its shakeout. The fourth chapter explores the regional co-evolution of firm population size, private-sector patenting and public research in the empirical context of German laser research and manufacturing over more than 40 years from the emergence of the industry to the mid-2000s. The qualitative as well as quantitative evidence is suggestive of a co-evolutionary process of mutual interdependence rather than a unidirectional effect of public research on private-sector activities. Chapter five concludes with a summary, the contribution of this work as well as the implications and an outlook of further possible research.