Decision-making of employees in tech-driven R&D: An exploratory study on effectuation theory within the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation.
(2019) ENTN19 20191Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Problem - Uncertainty greatly burdens innovation in tech-driven industries which has made decision-making an art-like navigation, especially within the Fuzzy Front End of operations. This has motivated previous researchers to study the effectual decision-making principles originated by Sarasvathy in regard to a wide variety of audiences such as entrepreneurs, start-ups and top management. Employees on an operational level have mostly been left outside of the researchers’ scope whilst these employees are crucial within the early stages of idea generation and their decision-making logic, therefore, needs to be better understood.
Purpose - This qualitative study has caught the effectual and causal decision-making logic of employees as the... (More) - Problem - Uncertainty greatly burdens innovation in tech-driven industries which has made decision-making an art-like navigation, especially within the Fuzzy Front End of operations. This has motivated previous researchers to study the effectual decision-making principles originated by Sarasvathy in regard to a wide variety of audiences such as entrepreneurs, start-ups and top management. Employees on an operational level have mostly been left outside of the researchers’ scope whilst these employees are crucial within the early stages of idea generation and their decision-making logic, therefore, needs to be better understood.
Purpose - This qualitative study has caught the effectual and causal decision-making logic of employees as the unit of analysis and thereby broadens the use of effectuation theory. There was a specific focus on three effectual principles to enhance the depth of the study, namely the Bird-in-hand, Crazy Quilt and Lemonade principles.
Methods - In-depth findings have been gathered through Think-aloud protocols from the perspective of employees that are active within the Fuzzy Frond End of technology Research & Development (R&D). This is proven to be an effective data collection method that has been used in the very foundation of effectuation theory. Protocol analyses has been conducted on the empirical findings, where semantic chunks from the protocols were analysed and categorised into codes that are in line with the respective effectual or causal principle orientation.
Results - The results are clustered according to the effectual principles and show overlapping effectual and causational decision-making logic in which a discrepancy has been found between effectual decision-making and the context in which the employees are present.
Implications – These findings implicate the importance of a suitable environment in which employees can express beneficial effectual decision-making logic within environments that deal with high levels of uncertainty. This leads to the suggestion of further research related to effectuation and contextual factors in order to establish a more accurate framework to fully understand the FFE of technology R&D, viewed from the perspective of employees. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8984351
- author
- Postma, Joep LU and Kindstrand, Daniel LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- ENTN19 20191
- year
- 2019
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Fuzzy front end, effectuation, causation, effectual, Think-aloud protocol, R&D, innovation, idea generation, logic, decision-making, uncertainty, creativity and principles.
- language
- English
- id
- 8984351
- date added to LUP
- 2019-07-04 16:18:38
- date last changed
- 2019-07-04 16:18:38
@misc{8984351,
abstract = {{Problem - Uncertainty greatly burdens innovation in tech-driven industries which has made decision-making an art-like navigation, especially within the Fuzzy Front End of operations. This has motivated previous researchers to study the effectual decision-making principles originated by Sarasvathy in regard to a wide variety of audiences such as entrepreneurs, start-ups and top management. Employees on an operational level have mostly been left outside of the researchers’ scope whilst these employees are crucial within the early stages of idea generation and their decision-making logic, therefore, needs to be better understood.
Purpose - This qualitative study has caught the effectual and causal decision-making logic of employees as the unit of analysis and thereby broadens the use of effectuation theory. There was a specific focus on three effectual principles to enhance the depth of the study, namely the Bird-in-hand, Crazy Quilt and Lemonade principles.
Methods - In-depth findings have been gathered through Think-aloud protocols from the perspective of employees that are active within the Fuzzy Frond End of technology Research & Development (R&D). This is proven to be an effective data collection method that has been used in the very foundation of effectuation theory. Protocol analyses has been conducted on the empirical findings, where semantic chunks from the protocols were analysed and categorised into codes that are in line with the respective effectual or causal principle orientation.
Results - The results are clustered according to the effectual principles and show overlapping effectual and causational decision-making logic in which a discrepancy has been found between effectual decision-making and the context in which the employees are present.
Implications – These findings implicate the importance of a suitable environment in which employees can express beneficial effectual decision-making logic within environments that deal with high levels of uncertainty. This leads to the suggestion of further research related to effectuation and contextual factors in order to establish a more accurate framework to fully understand the FFE of technology R&D, viewed from the perspective of employees.}},
author = {{Postma, Joep and Kindstrand, Daniel}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Decision-making of employees in tech-driven R&D: An exploratory study on effectuation theory within the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation.}},
year = {{2019}},
}