Vol20 - 3
What are management tools made of? The “listic” structure of managerial artifacts
Régis Martineau.
Pages : 239-265
The literature on management tools has shown that they are composed of three interacting elements: a managerial philosophy, simplified view of organizational relationships, and technical substrate (Hatchuel & Weil, 1992). This article focuses on the latter, which is rarely taken as a specific research object, and explores the “artifactual” dimension of management tools. Using the work of the anthropologist Jack Goody (1977) on the evolution of oral societies toward written societies, this article shows that some management artifacts are based on a “listic” structure, which leads to: (1) a description of the structuring dynamics of these management artifacts, which evolves between rationalization and contextualization according to an ordering principle of the list; (2) a distinction between open tools and closed tools, two genres that call for different modes of design and implementation; (3) a renewal of critical research around three typical phenomena of the list—“gap-spotting,” “table-of-contentism,” and “don juanism”; and (4) two lines of research on the appropriation and design of management artifacts.
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Does strategy formalization foster innovation? Evidence from a French sample of small to medium-sized enterprises
Marc Fréchet, Hervé Goy.
Pages : 266-286
Despite abundant research, the relationship between strategy formalization and innovation remains unclear. Some acknowledge a positive impact of strategy formalization on innovation while others consider it an impediment to novelty and creation. Going beyond the conflicting views over the influence of formalization, we combine open innovation and socio-material perspectives. This study aims to contribute to the debate by considering the possibility that formalization is a means of benefiting from openness with respect to innovation. Therefore, we predict that formalization might positively moderate the impact of openness on innovation. Relying on a unique sample of 555 SMEs, we investigate the effects of strategy formalization and openness—according to their various facets and interactions—on new product innovation. We find a positive influence of formalization (whether it is approached as a process or as a strategic tool) on product innovation. Our findings also support the idea that formalization increases the effectiveness of openness on innovation performance. Implications are discussed, and future research directions are outlined at the end.
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Vol19 - 2
Organisational creativity and the creative territory: The nature of influence and strategic challenges for organisations
Bérangère Szostak, Gaëlle Dechamp.
Pages : 61-88
This research considers the nature of the influence of the creative territory, examined from the perspective of three levels (the underground, middleground and upperground), on the endogenous factors of organisational creativity (individual commitment, organisational context and the organisation’s ability to renew itself). The qualitative analysis of 18 SMEs involved in a competition for ideas highlights the fact that each level of the creative territory tends to have a different (either positive or negative) influence on the endogenous factors of organisational creativity. In order to understand these differences, this research identifies, among other things, four specific properties of the creative territory: the production of discourse, the creation of opportunities to transform the idea into a project, the roll-out of the project, and the protection of the idea and the project. The discussion takes a look at organisations’ openness to their environment and the role of the individual and intellectual property in this openness. This work ultimately validates the value of integrating the creative territory into models of organisational creativity.
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Vol19 - 4
Technological innovation, organizational change,and product-related services
Arman Avadikyan, Stéphane Lhuillery, Syoum Negassi.
Pages : 277-304
The literature regarding the determinants of servitization emphasizes the role of organizational change and usually overlooks the role of technological change. Using an original sample of 1,129 German manufacturing firms, we reverse the hierarchy: Product novelty is a main driver of product-related service (PRS) activities. It especially boosts consulting and training services. The structure of the PRS portfolio is dependent on product novelty. Organizational changes toward a more flexible company or the adoption of new advanced manufacturing processes are found, with few exceptions, hardly to influence the decision to offer a product-related service. Our results suggest however, that process innovation is positively linked to the breadth of service surrounding products, whereas organizational innovation is more prone to lead to a larger breadth of services surrounding customer offerings. Product, process, and organizational innovation are not found to be complementary drivers of product-related service offerings.
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Vol18 - 2
Barriers to Environmental Innovation in SMEs: Empirical Evidence from French Firms
Amandine Pinget, Rachel Bocquet, Caroline Mothe.
Pages : 132-155
Recent literature has explored the determinants of environmental innovation (EI) but has rarely addressed obstacles to this innovation. To our knowledge, no previous study accounts for the antecedents of EI to explore the
various perceived barriers to EI for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Noting the importance of SMEs in European economies, this article identifies the extent to which SMEs perceive there to be barriers to EI and considers their type, number, and intensity. With a merged data set of 435 French SMEs, we investigate different perceptions of environmentally innovative SMEs, compared with those of technologically innovative SMEs and non-innovative ones, using a multiple treatment model that integrates the antecedents. We thereby analyze SME CEOs’ perceptions of barriers to EI. The barriers are not only more numerous but also more important for SMEs that engage in EI activity compared with those that introduce only technological innovation (TI) or those that do not undertake any innovation activity (NI – non-innovation).
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Paradoxical Tensions in Learning Processes : Exploration, Exploitation and Exploitative Learning
Frédéric Garcias, Cédric Dalmasso, Jean-Claude Sardas.
Pages : 156-178
Research on organizational paradoxes, notably the learning/performing paradox, have demonstrated the potential value of a detailed analysis of tensions resulting from the need to develop future capabilities, while simultaneously guaranteeing success in the present. But analyzing this paradox exclusively from the perspective of the antagonism between exploration and exploitation masks tensions of a different nature linked to phenomena concerning the transmission, extension and replication of existing capabilities. In this article we apply a concept deriving from the field of project management, namely exploitative learning, which provides a broader appreciation of the diversity of learning processes located in the grey area between exploration and exploitation. Empirically, we will focus on the study of tensions between exploitative learning and performing perceived by the actors in an industrial infrastructure engineering unit simultaneously developing a number of different projects and taking on new recruits. It transpires that learning processes associated with the development of teams for new projects and the training of numerous recruits can, at the macro- and micro-structural levels, run counter to short-term logics of performance, thereby threatening the development of future capabilities. Our study makes it possible to broaden the terms by which the learning/performing paradox is defined. It also enriches our understanding of exploitative learning situations by demonstrating that they require both an allocation in terms of human resources and an investment in terms of time, approaches that are hard to reconcile with short-term goals.
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Vol18 - 5
Strategic Relational Sequences: Microsoft's Coopetitive Game in the OOXML Standardization Process
Saïd Yami, Hervé Chappert, Anne Mione.
Pages : 330-356
The research question dealt with in this article is the following: can a leader use coopetition as its market control strategy? The study addresses how Microsoft managed relational modes in the situation of coopetition within the AFNOR Technical Committee to present the French position on its new standard OOXML draft. A dynamic perspective is considered. The results show that the leader can use coopetition as its market control strategy. They analyze the game of the leader along the standardization process that is characterized by a subtle management according to key sequences using relational modes (cooperation, competition and coopetition) that allow it to achieve its goals.
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Vol17 - 3
Organizing for Open Innovation: Incorporating the Externality of Control with Diversity of Contribution
Ludivine Chaze-Magnan, Christophe Haon, Poonam Oberoi.
Pages : 180-192
With whom should firms join forces (diversity of contributions, DoC) and how should they share decision-making power with external actors (externality of control, EoC)? Despite the growing importance of open innovation, there is no unifying framework explaining the different ways in which firms can organize to acquire external contributions and exploit them. This conceptual article introduces a new framework according to which the relationship between DoC and a firm’s innovative performance is moderated by (1) the characteristics of a project, such as the disparity between a specific problem and the firm’s existing knowledge base, the problem’s modularity, and the tacitness of the anticipated solution; and (2) EoC. With regards to project characteristics we argue that (a) the disparity between a specific problem and the firm’s existing knowledge base moderates the DoC–performance relationship positively; (b) the problem’s
modularity moderates the DoC–performance relationship positively; and (c) the tacitness of the anticipated solution moderates the DoC-performance relationship negatively. We argue that EoC moderates DoC’s impact on performance positively.
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Vol17 - 4
Innovative Supply Chain Practices (ISCP) in Supply Chain Management: Development and Validation of a Measurment Scale
Blandine Ageron, Olivier Lavastre, Ludivine Chaze-Magnan, Alain Spalanzani.
Pages : 263-298
Innover est devenu aujourd’hui un élément déterminant dans la
performance des entreprises. Une des voies de l’innovation passe par le
management ses relations inter-organisationnelles. Pour cela, les organisations
doivent aller au-delà de la conception traditionnelle de l’innovation technologique
et produit, en développant l’innovation managériale. L’émergence, ces dernières
années, de pratiques de Supply Chain Management (SCM), telles que le CPFR
(Collaborative Planning, Forcasting and Replenishment), la GMA (Gestion
Mutualisée des Approvisionnements), le Kanban fournisseur ou le MAF (Magasin
Avancé Fournisseur), témoigne de l’engouement managérial pour ce type
d’innovations et doit pousser les chercheurs à les étudier. Pour comprendre de
telles pratiques, il est nécessaire de disposer d'un instrument de mesure. Or,
dans le cas de notre objet d'étude, l'instrument de mesure n'existe pas, car les
échelles utilisées dans la littérature sont peu adaptées. L'objectif de notre
recherche est donc de développer et de valider un instrument de mesure des
Pratiques Inter-organisationnelles Innovantes (P2I) dans le Supply Chain
Management (SCM). Cet instrument de mesure se compose de trois échelles de
mesure : les conditions et le contexte de déploiement, la capacité d'innovation de
l'organisation, et la performance de l'innovation. Pour chacune d'elles, nous
avons suivi la démarche méthodologique canonique en trois étapes :
construction, purification et validation.
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Vol16 - 2
Join patenting in R&D Alliances: Control rights & ressource attributes
Hélène Delerue, Mary Ann Feldheim.
Pages : 113-140
In this paper, an attempt is made to provide a clearer understanding of the motives that lead firms to share intellectual property rights in their innovative efforts, through joint patents in R&D alliances. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 116 biotechnology R&D alliances, and explain variation in joint patenting activities. Our results show that the characteristics of the resources held by the firms, and the ex-ante allocation of control rights, can influence joint patenting activity.
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Vol14 - 3
Protecting innovation: the exclusive and combined use of protection methods by French firms
Marc Fréchet, Aude Martin.
Pages :
Cette recherche s’intéresse aux choix des entreprises en matière de protection
de leurs innovations. La littérature antérieure a eu tendance à suivre deux
perspectives rarement combinées, et consistant à mettre l’accent soit sur la
rivalité entre les différentes méthodes, soit sur l’intérêt de les combiner. Nous
nous efforçons de combiner ces perspectives pour expliquer le choix des méthodes
de protection. Quatre modalités sont étudiées : la protection par des
méthodes informelles, la protection par le brevet, la combinaison de ces deux
formes et le choix de n’opter pour aucune d’entre elles. L’analyse est menée
sur les données de l’enquête communautaire CIS3. Nous explorons notamment
l’homogénéité des méthodes informelles. Nous mettons ensuite en évidence
trois types d’influences sur les préférences de choix selon que les variables
favorisent exclusivement les méthodes informelles, favorisent le brevet
seul ou en combinaison, ou favorisent une combinaison de méthodes, sans
préférence pour l’une d’elles.
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Résumé
