Logistics service innovation management - evidence from two longitudinal case studies at Deutsche Post
This study aims at exploring ways to better manage organisational development andchange in practice. For project managers like myself it is important to gain a solidunderstanding about the drivers or inhibitors in these developments and changeprocesses. I was particularly interested in those development and change processesaimed at the achievement or maintenance of competitive advantage within an industry.One way of achieving or maintaining competitive advantage may be based on servingthe customer’s strategic needs through innovation (Chapman et. al., 2003).Various process models propose how service innovation projects in general should bemanaged. However, large and mature organisations in particular may encounterdifficulties in their implementation (Dougherty and Hardy, 1996). From a practitioner’spoint of view, this is an especially dire situation as service innovations, particularlythose driven by strategic intent, are under great pressure from decision-makers tosucceed. Along these lines Dougherty (1996) suggests a shift of focus, to a focus on thefact that innovation activities have inherent ‘tensions’. She defines ‘tensions’ aschallenges that have to be dealt with during an innovation project.Drawing on the evidence of three sequential projects conducted at DHL Express, theparcel branch of Deutsche Post, I tried to investigate the nature of service innovationsand their inherent tensions.By longitudinally tracking the activities and their inherent tension’s life cycle in anexploratory case study, I tried to get a better understanding of how tensions appear ininnovation projects, as well as the dynamics of these tensions. The evidence of this firstcase study was used to theorise about an optimised sequence of activities, as well asfirst propositions about how tensions might be managed. The first set of propositionsderived from the exploratory case was then given a trial in a second longitudinal casestudy.The activities of the first logistics service innovation project included a major‘information engineering’ component. According to Davenport (1993) ‘informationengineering’ deals with description of an already conceptualised process ininformational terms, such that a system can be rapidly and rigorously constructed tosupport the new process design. Hence, the set of activities proposed in this studyinclude the capability to include an information system component as a serviceinnovation deliverable; a capability long recognised to be essential for exhortingpositive influences on the operation of logistics systems (Kent, 1996).This research was conducted in the context of a number of unusual opportunities. Firstand foremost, both case studies had similar stakeholders and objectives. Secondly, allstakeholders contributing to the first case study were willing and able to collaborativelycontribute to improvements in the management of activities and their inherent tensions.Finally, all inquiry participants then implemented those propositions into the followingcase study for inspection.Based on the evidence of the second case study, I show how managing activities andtensions with congenerous dedication exploited all four tensions to improve theprobability of innovation projects to deliver.
Year of publication: |
2005-11-23
|
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Authors: | Kohler, Thomas |
Other Persons: | Harrison, Alan (contributor) ; Bessant, John (contributor) ; Hemmingway, Chris (contributor) |
Publisher: |
Cranfield University / Cranfield School of Management |
Saved in:
freely available
Saved in favorites
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