Long Paper
Not Invented Here: Organizational misalignment as a barrier to innovation implementation in service organisations
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08:15PM
Please be aware that multiple presentations will take place during this session commencing at 07:15PM AEDT and share the same zoom link. Check how presentations are clustered in the program spreadsheet when adding the calendar.
To build and sustain the legitimacy of design as an approach to service innovation, we need an improved understanding of how and why service organizations fail to implement design-led service concepts. As service innovation implementation requires the synchronous interplay of service operators, customers and indirect stakeholders, challenges exceed the dichotomous relationship between design and production that informs much of the existing knowledge. In this study, we aim to diagnose what organizational conditions function as barriers to innovation implementation in the context of a large service organization. We present findings from a 14-month action research study. The first author immersed himself in a large airline and engaged with employees from different levels of the organization to conduct actions as part of reflective, collaborative research cycles and to perform formal and conversational interviews. We find that implementation requires collaboration between three instead of two organizational units: (1) an exploration hub; (2) a support partner and; (3) an operational unit. We reveal how conflicting organizational logics between these units obstructs implementation, not at a specific hand-over moment, but throughout the innovation process. Misalignment between units regarding what constitutes a legitimate priority, design approach and project scope results from these conflicts. This misalignment informs a not-invented-here response from units whose resources are required for implementation. We suggest that managing misalignments between organizational units requires institutional work in various layers of the organization and that organizations take a risk when they leave the challenge of managing these conflicts completely to individual champions.
Europe (CET): 2nd February 2021 9:15 am to 10:15 am
US (EST): 2nd February 2021 3:15 am to 4:15 am
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J.B. Klitsie is a PhD candidate at the Delft University of Technology at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (Department of Design, Organisation and Strategy). Barend studies how the infrastructure of service organisations can be (re)designed to realize design driven organisational transformation. His research topics include innovation implementation, organisation- and service design, the Valley of Death, transformation through design and design innovation. In his PhD research, Barend is practice-driven and uses an Action Research methodology.
Dr. Rebecca Anne Price is an Assistant Professor of Transition Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. Educated and practiced as an industrial designer, Rebecca was quickly drawn to the strategic potential of design as source of resilience. Rebecca completed a PhD in design-led innovation at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Now at TU Delft, Dr. Price works with public and private organisations to support the application of design upon complex innovation challenges. While the predominant domain of her work to date has been mobility (aviation, automotive, urban transport), her methodological research in particular holds increasing value to domains related to public health and energy transitions that stem from a socio-technical perspective of the possibilities of design.
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Impact, transitions, speculations
Prof. dr. Sicco C. Santema is Professor of Networked Innovation at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Sicco studies the role of design in bridging the barriers for the implementation of innovations in networks, at organisational, departmental/team and individual level. His research covers Organisation Science, New Institutional Economics and Design, including the effect of digitalisation. He is head of the People in Transit research group.