1,720,987 research outputs found
Traditional and environmentally friendly attributes in products of highly design-oriented firms: an exploratory study in the perception of Italian entrepreneurs
Get PDFPurpose – The aim of this study was to empirically examine how much traditional attributes and green attributes characterize products within design-oriented firms. Further, we explored how these attributes relate to the perceived level of innovation of the firms.
Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory research was carried out in 86 Italian manufacturing companies that are members of the Industrial Design Association. Using the questionnaire method, the entrepreneurs’ perceptions have been analyzed. Data have been treated with hierarchical cluster analysis.
Findings – The analysis shows that environmental sustainability is the least important attribute of a design product and four clusters of highly design-oriented firms differ by design-product attributes. Further, the least green firms are also the least innovative in terms of incremental and general innovation.
Research limitations/implications – The small size of the sample and the provenance of firms from a single country imply limited generalizability, and further research on the topic is recommended.
Practical implications – Design-driven innovation based on traditional design attributes provides many competitive advantages to firms. However, given the growing concern about environmental challenges, investing in green attributes in design products allows for remaining competitive and more effective in innovation.
Originality/value – This study, for the first time, reveals the heterogeneity among design-oriented firms, particularly regarding the presence and assortment of traditional design attributes, as well as the incorporation of environmentally friendly attributes in their products. Moreover, the study uncovers the relationship between varying levels of green attributes in the offerings and the perception of the firm’s innovativeness
Strategic Acting as Stagesetting: The Case of Industrial Design
No full textRecent research in strategy, organization theory and industrial marketing is emphasizing the new complexities of gaining a dynamic resource-advantage that can reinvent and differentiate the industrial firm's offerings. This paper examines the dynamic capabilities contributed through industrial design and product innovation. An expanded understanding is needed to capture the specifics of industrial design expertise and its role in developing products as well as business organizations. Industrial design is an intensive transforming and mediating "technology" and the expertise is highly tacit, mobile, and relates to emergent realities of notyet-embodied knowledge. It tends to be embedded in dyads as well as multiple networks that construct new path-dependencies and can enact market, consumer and technological shifts in the business environment. The paper therefore extends the exploration of firm-specific dynamic capabilities to a relational-expressive level by focusing on the collaboration with (partly) independent design partners. Based on in-depth case studies of five Scandinavian firms and their allied industrial designers, a set of potential strategic gains is identified and these relates to four design-strategic processes, which are discussed. Finally, a new framework is presented that may capture how these dynamics between design and innovation actually is constituted and staged through a creative "relational constructing" within new design/business hybrids
Strategic Acting as Stagesetting: The Case of Industrial Design
Get PDFRecent research in strategy, organization theory and industrial marketing is emphasizing the new complexities of gaining a dynamic resource-advantage that can reinvent and differentiate the industrial firm's offerings. This paper examines the dynamic capabilities contributed through industrial design and product innovation. An expanded understanding is needed to capture the specifics of industrial design expertise and its role in developing products as well as business organizations. Industrial design is an intensive transforming and mediating "technology" and the expertise is highly tacit, mobile, and relates to emergent realities of notyet-embodied knowledge. It tends to be embedded in dyads as well as multiple networks that construct new path-dependencies and can enact market, consumer and technological shifts in the business environment. The paper therefore extends the exploration of firm-specific dynamic capabilities to a relational-expressive level by focusing on the collaboration with (partly) independent design partners. Based on in-depth case studies of five Scandinavian firms and their allied industrial designers, a set of potential strategic gains is identified and these relates to four design-strategic processes, which are discussed. Finally, a new framework is presented that may capture how these dynamics between design and innovation actually is constituted and staged through a creative "relational constructing" within new design/business hybrids
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Heritage Craft Entrepreneuring in ‘the Wild’: The Role of Entrepreneurial Placemaking for Rural Development
Get PDFThis chapter investigates heritage craft entrepreneurship ‘in the wild’, creative start-ups emerging within a rural context in Norway and the UK. The research asks how entrepreneurs accomplish heritage craft entrepreneuring. To answer this question, we apply relational ontology, conceptualising entrepreneurship as the ongoing accomplishment of entrepreneurial activities, labelled entrepreneuring. We compare two rural heritage craft entrepreneuring accomplishments: Running a spinnery located on a farm in a valley in Norway and a tweed based textile creating organisation, co-located with other artisan entrepreneurs positioning in a community-led craft heritage building in the UK. Both entrepreneuring settings employ heritage craft in their businesses and engage in various forms of collaborations and placemaking in their creative entrepreneuring. This chapter unpacks three facets of artisan entrepreneuring through the lens of placemaking - connecting, organising, and co-developing in rural settings. We contribute to the entrepreneurship-as-practice and creative entrepreneurship literature and highlight the implications of placemaking for rural development
Heritage craft entrepreneuring in 'the wild': the role of entrepreneurial placemaking for rural development
Get PDFThis chapter investigates heritage craft entrepreneurship ‘in the wild’, creative start-ups emerging within a rural context in Norway and the UK. The research asks how entrepreneurs accomplish heritage craft entrepreneuring. To answer this question, we apply relational ontology, conceptualising entrepreneurship as the ongoing accomplishment of entrepreneurial activities, labelled entrepreneuring. We compare two rural heritage craft businesses: Running a spinnery located on a farm in a valley in Norway and a tweed-based textile creating organisation, co-located with other artisan entrepreneurs positioning in a community-led craft heritage building in the United Kingdom. Both entrepreneuring settings employ heritage craft in their businesses and engage in various forms of collaborations and placemaking in their creative entrepreneuring. This chapter unpacks three facets of artisan entrepreneuring through the lens of placemaking – connecting, organising, and co-developing in rural settings. We contribute to the entrepreneurship-as-practice and creative entrepreneurship literature and highlight the implications of placemaking for rural development.acceptedVersio
Reimagining Sustainable Organization
Get PDFThis open access book reimagines a deeper sustainability in dynamic organization. Offering multiple perspectives on arts, design thinking, leadership, knowledge and project management, Reimagining Sustainable Organization addresses our need for thinking and coping differently when facing the many unknowns of real-life enterprises in society. Drawing on process philosophy, real-world case studies, and examinations of business practices as well as management research, the authors explore knowledge creation towards reimagining sustainable organization. The book includes frameworks and conceptual tools as well as insights for further explorations. This book will be of interests to students, scholars and teachers, and practitioners who are studying sustainable organization, greener management, leadership ideas, or knowledge and project management. It covers future pressing issues also for the professionals involved in co-creative work across organizational boundaries. This is an open access book
Reimagining Sustainable Organization
Get PDFThis open access book reimagines a deeper sustainability in dynamic organization. Offering multiple perspectives on arts, design thinking, leadership, knowledge and project management, Reimagining Sustainable Organization addresses our need for thinking and coping differently when facing the many unknowns of real-life enterprises in society. Drawing on process philosophy, real-world case studies, and examinations of business practices as well as management research, the authors explore knowledge creation towards reimagining sustainable organization. The book includes frameworks and conceptual tools as well as insights for further explorations. This book will be of interests to students, scholars and teachers, and practitioners who are studying sustainable organization, greener management, leadership ideas, or knowledge and project management. It covers future pressing issues also for the professionals involved in co-creative work across organizational boundaries. This is an open access book
«De måske egnede»: En diskurs om organisasjons- og ledelsesfag i siviløkonomutdanningen
Get PDFVersjon i BI Brage er som publisert i tidsskriftets papirutgave. Forlagets e-utgave er tilgjengelig fra www.magma.noSiviløkonomenes utdanning er sterkt knyttet til opplæring i teori, analytiske ferdigheter og forståelse innen økonomi og administrasjon. Studiet er attraktivt, og mange av kandidatene får etter hvert lederjobber eller posisjoner der de gir faglige råd til ledere. Siviløkonomer får tidlig i studiet basisopplæring i ledelse og organisasjon, men er de dermed godt rustet for fremtidig ledelse? Artikkelen identifiserer tre mulige problematiske forhold for de fremtidige kandidatene, «de måske egnede». Mange vil, kan og tør bli ledere. Tidligere studier viser at dette fagområdet er grunnleggende utfordrende og forutsetter teoretisk, praktisk og etisk refleksjon. Likevel undervises det til unge studenter i hovedsak i store klasserom. Vår daglige kontakt med studenter i én handelshøyskolekontekst tyder på at avstanden mellom teori og praksis fortsatt kan oppfattes som stor. Med andre ord er det usikkert hvordan mulighetene til å kunne forstå og øve på ledelsesrelevante aktiviteter i deres læring håndteres.
Artikkelen går videre nærmere inn på disse utfordringene for fremtidig siviløkonomutdanning. Vi tar utgangspunkt i at arbeids- og næringsliv er i omfattende transformasjon. Dette stiller nye og økte krav til fagene i ledelse og organisasjon som vi bare delvis kan forutse. Gjennom eksempler på hvordan ulike relevante parter – utdanningsinstitusjoner, studenter og noen fremvoksende, innovasjonsaktive tredjeparter – ser på fremtidige læringsbehov, avdekker artikkelen noen samstemte og usamstemte forventninger til fremtidig utdanning på fagområdet. Materialet vi trekker på, signaliserer at både arbeidsgivere og studenter ser teamarbeid som et viktig kompetanseområde. Artikkelen konkluderer med at samarbeid mellom aktørene kan bringe frem noen viktige aspekter ved fremtidig utdanning – ikke bare i læringens form, men i dens fremtidige innhold og premisser.1, O
The Inclusive Knowledge Philosophy: Understanding practices through Deweyan and Naessian philosophical lenses
Get PDFThis conceptual paper discusses the inclusive knowledge philosophy fundamental for different modes of experiencing living enterprises. The American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey pointed to the importance of restoring the continuity between the refined and intensified experiences in our practices and everyday doings. He based this restoring on “the inclusive philosophic idea”. By this idea he was acknowledging the possibilities of imagination and associations among the social, technological-physical, natural, and mental modes. Another philosopher, the Norwegian Arne Naess, also highlighted imaginative experience and the human/nature interconnectedness including its potential joy and perseverance for individuals as well as organizations. • We combine these two related philosophical lenses to enable fundamental understanding of concerted practices and strategic accomplishments for knowledge management (KM) studies. We propose inclusive association and imagination are necessary for the arts of exhibiting and experiencing new or improved offerings. • We provide examples drawing on our own studies in the businesses of art organizations as knowledge-based, complex practices. Given that rich knowledge endeavours are necessary to develop arts for society, how can valuable arts/business practices be accomplished in inclusive, resourceful ways? Specifically, we investigate how arts business exhibition strategies develop in art museum contexts as illuminating examples of this process. • The necessity of art is giving a societal meaning to the process of knowing based upon the experience of art. The reflection and dialogue based on art-as-experience can contribute to knowledge management by the shared ingredients involved in creating and participating in more fulfilling experiencing in the business offering process. • The paper introduces a philosophical framework for how this might work. Dynamic art, design, and innovation processes are imaginative practices where the past, the present, and the future melt together. The imaginative experiencing might be crucial not only for the creation, but also for the make-believe of sustainable businesses and societies. We conclude that understanding the inclusive dynamic knowledge processes might be mutually beneficial for art and innovative businesses.acceptedVersio
Leadership for sustainability: the importance of sustaining imaginative work
Get PDFSustainability thinking in enterprise strategies has emerged as a new concern for leaders in many industries and countries. It has spread like a virus in abstract corporate visions communication. We propose that more attention be devoted to leveraging the concrete developmental work from an action-based leadership for sustainability perspective. Our conceptual paper seeks to understand sustainability and change thinking in micro-practices, which can open for reusing resources, transforming core processes and offerings, and innovating in corporate missions. For this conceptual aim, we combine processual philosophy and sustainabilityoriented design thinking with exemplary practices in one specialized business enterprise to help us understand how and why micro sustainability practices can be born, formed, and shaped and how they can evolve into something foundational for an entire value-creation. The focused enterprise in this paper, Flokk, has pioneered sustainability thinking in both its design and development and its entire philosophizing towards the users. In contrast to prevailing management beliefs towards unconstrained creativity, enduring imaginative design and development efforts and leading with some concrete constraining criteria can become beneficial for leveraging sustainable practices, as shown in this puzzling office chair-maker case.acceptedVersio
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