Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 366–373
www.elsevier.com/locate/
a
Technical University of Berlin, Institute for Technology and Innovation Management, Straße des 17. Juni 135, H71, 10623 Berlin, Germany
b
University of Graz, Institute for Technology and Innovation Management, 8010 Graz, Austria
c
McKinsey & Company, Inc., Prinzregentenstr. 22, 80538 München, Germany
Abstract
(1) What is project autonomy, how can it be measured, and how much autonomy is given in NPD projects?
(2) Does project autonomy increase with project innovativeness?
(3) Is project autonomy positively related to success of NPD projects?
(4) Does the positive relationship between project autonomy and project success increase with innovativeness of NDP projects?
Theses hypotheses are tested using a sample of 104 highly innovative NPD projects, gathered in the first wave of the research
project INNOVATION COMPASS. The results show that instruments which are advocated in the mainstream innovation
and venture management literature are more frequently used with increasing innovativeness. However, they do not increase suc-
cess of NPD projects, even not for highly innovative ones. Instruments derived from the organizational behavior tradition are not
used more often with increasing innovativeness, but they do significantly improve NPD project success, particularly for very inno-
vative ones. We conclude: Firms should not easily follow fashions, which are derived from prominent case studies. Rather, they
should also take into account possible negative consequences of the recommendations. Researchers should lay more stress in dis-
cussing and empirically analyzing negative effects of popular recommendations.
Ó 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd and IPMA.
1. Project autonomy sovereign state which has the right for self-organizing its
rules.
Autonomy is a characteristic of a social system. The A social system will have autonomy if it has (1) Goal-
word autonomy has a Greek origin and means indepen- defining autonomy: the authority to set its own goals and
dent, free, self-governing, self-organizing, living accord- their ordering; (2) Structural autonomy: its own social
ing to its own rules. It is an important characteristic of a identity and boundaries to other social systems; (3) Re-
source autonomy: resources to fulfill its tasks and survive
*
until the task is completed; and (4) Social autonomy:
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 30 314 26090; fax: +49 30 314
freedom for self-organizing the behavior of its members,
26089.
E-mail address: hans.gemuenden@tim.tu-berlin.de (H.G. Gemün- including possibilities for its members to interact with
den). each other.
1.1. Ad (1) Goal-defining autonomy 3. Most innovation projects are designed as R&D-pro-
jects, with the emphasis on new technologies. How-
Project organizations usually do not have (full) ever, if completely new markets or new business
autonomy to define their goals. The definition of project models have to be addressed, then an innovation pro-
goals is usually the right of the project owner(s) and ject dominated by R&D managers will not be suffi-
other powerful stakeholders, particularly the project cient. Therefore, special units which also have the
customers. Project leaders may have an influence on dedicated mission to build up new marketing forces
project goals in the decision process for setting up a pro- are needed.
ject. Even after the formal start, goals are not fully gi- 4. The fourth argument applies for so called ‘‘white ele-
ven, rather they have to be learned and clarified phant’’ projects. Drawing on case studies, the venture
during the process, particularly, for highly innovative management literature argues, that highly innovative
ventures [25]. In this process, project leaders and project ventures which do not fit well with the strategy of a
members can further influence goal changes. The extent single business unit, but may have a large potential
of such a goal-defining autonomy is hard to measure; di- for the whole corporation, will sorted be out very
rect questions will probably not solve the problem. early, so that they will not even become a small exper-
Therefore we have not tried to do so in our interview imental project documenting customer value and
study. technical feasibility.
Project Innovativeness
Project Autonomy
Structural Autonomy
Project
Success
Resource Autonomy
Locational Autonomy
Having conceptualized project autonomy, we are able (e.g., hydrogen filling stations), regulatory changes or
to formulate our research frame which is shown in Fig. changes of value systems.
1.
3. Hypotheses
2. Project innovativeness
3.1. Main effects of autonomy on innovation success
Recent state-of-the-art reviews show that innovative-
ness is best understood as a multidimensional phenomenon The TIM, PM and VM literature usually postulate a
[2,5,16,20,24,28,43,44] relating to technology, market, positive influence of project autonomy on project suc-
organizational change and environmental alterations. cess. However, despite this generally favorable attitude,
The innovation is radical in the market dimension if the cost and risk associated with increasing levels of
the innovation satisfies unsatisfied needs for the first autonomy are also articulated in a smaller fraction of
time. There is a quantum leap in customer value. The contributions. This leads us to our first general
new product may require considerable attitudinal and hypothesis:
behavioral changes, inducing customer inertia. A com- Hypothesis 1: Success of NPD projects will first in-
pletely new market may be created. However, market crease and then decrease with increasing levels of
risk is also high; because large market investments are autonomy.
needed, and many yet unknown competitors may also We assume that this n-shaped relationship holds for
enter. all four types of project autonomy, although the inflec-
The innovation can be called radical in the technolog- tion points may occur at different levels of autonomy.
ical dimension if the knowledge about the product archi-
tecture or its components significantly differs from 3.2. Interaction effects of autonomy and innovativeness on
existing knowledge [1]. Existing knowledge often be- innovation success
comes obsolete. The innovation often relies on com-
pletely new technological principles, new architectures, The basic question of our INNOVATION COM-
or new materials. PASS research project is weather success factors that
The innovativeness in the organizational dimensions have been found to discriminate between successful
relates to the internal change of the innovating organiza- and failed projects of low to medium degrees of innova-
tion. Changes may be required in strategy, structure, tiveness also apply to projects with a high degree of
processes competences, incentive systems, or culture. innovativeness. Under conditions of higher uncertain-
Organizational innovativeness also refers to the (in)- ties, more intensive learning processes are required.
experience the company has in the field of the specific The required processes of new knowledge generation re-
innovation and to the organizational risks. quire closer and longer cooperation of more diverse
In addition to these dimensions, we suggest a fourth teams, and more intensive cooperation with lead-users,
dimension relating to environmental alterations, such as and lead-researchers outside the organization. There is
the required establishment of a new infrastructure a higher uncertainty about know-who, know-what,
H.G. Gemünden et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 366–373 369
and know-how. Thus, social, intellectual, and financial NPD projects. In total, 276 companies were contacted
capital has to be build up and exploited in flexible of which 104 agreed to participate in the survey with
way. Self-organization of the innovating actors has to one ongoing or recently market launched innovation
be enabled and supported. Structural autonomy appears project. We focused the following five industries: auto-
to be necessary in order to attach the innovators to a motive (18.4%), assembly (28.2%), electronics (26.2%),
high-ranked entrepreneur who can take the responsibil- software (17.5%) and biotech (9.7%) – the majority
ity, and protect the innovation against bureaucratic bar- operating in a B2B environment. The sample included
riers of not being allowed to innovate. Resource companies of all sizes; 37.8% generate revenues of more
autonomy appears to be necessary in order to perform than 500 Mio Euro, 35% less than 50 Mio Euro, the
feasibility studies, to build prototypes and experiment residual group in between.
with alternative designs. Locational autonomy appears Intensive separate personal interviews by a researcher
to be necessary that key innovators can work together team of at least two interviewers with the technical
face-to-face in small groups, in order to intensively ex- responsible and the marketing responsible of the project
change with each other and build up a common problem were conducted in 2001 about their specific innovation
space, mutual trust, and identification with common projects. One of them had to be the project leader. This
goals. We assume that these needs increase with the de- was usually a person with technical background.
gree of innovativeness. Therefore, we postulate the fol-
lowing hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: The impact of project autonomy on 4.2. Measures
project success will increase with increasing levels of
project innovativeness. 4.2.1. Autonomy
Fig. 2 shows the dimensions of project autonomy
which have been measured in INNOVATION
4. Research design and measures COMPASS.
Organizational separation was measured an ordinal
4.1. Data sources and sample scale with three levels: (1) project organization; (2) loca-
tion in a separate special unit within the organization;
In order to secure that innovation projects with a (3) location outside the organization.
very high degree of innovativeness are included in our Reporting level of the project was measured with five
sample, we took a stepwise approach: First, we asked levels: (1) Supervisor; (2) Head of R&D; (3) Head of
over 20 experts to point out specific technological areas Business Unit; (4) Venture Board; (5) Corporate Board.
of strong research and advanced development activity Size of resource base includes several aspects:
with great potential for radical innovations, and to iden-
tify leading industrial corporations. We then asked tried 1. extent of access to resources of the main organization
to convince these corporations to participate in our (‘‘full access’’);
study. We contacted further industrial corporations 2. extent of financial means (‘‘sufficiency’’);
which had won prices because of their very innovative 3. extent of Integration of experts from functional units.
Project Autonomy
Freedom of using resources measured the degrees of of a stage is then calculated as the mean score of these
freedom in using these resources. three items in the respective stage.
All scales were measured with 7-point-rating-scales. Project success of the traditional triple constraints:
Locational autonomy was measured by a simple ques- For each criterion-time, budget, and quality-success is
tion whether the team was co-located or not. calculated as the mean score of the up to three stage-
assessments.
Internal success: is calculated as the mean score of
4.3. Project innovativeness technical success, competence gains, and meeting target
cost of the new product.
Project innovativeness was measured with the follow- External success: is calculated as the mean score of
ing dimensions and items: financial success, (expected) meeting of market shares,
image gain, and (expected) meeting of regulatory
1. Market dimension requirements of the new product.
(a) creates totally new customer benefit; Respondents were always asked to evaluate project
(b) change in customer attitude and behavior needed; performance on Likert-scales in relation to their specific
(c) improvement of firmÕs market position; goals.
(d) extent of market uncertainty at the beginning of
the three stages (average).
2. Technology dimension 5. Results
(a) new technological principle;
(b) quantum leap in performance; 5.1. Structural autonomy
(c) squeeze out of existing technology;
(d) extent of technological uncertainty at the begin- Organizational separation is significantly positively
ning of the three stages (average). correlated with project innovativeness. Each of the four
3. Organizational dimension dimensions shows a significant positive correlation with
(e) reorientation of corporate strategy; organizational separation taking place in at least one of
(f) new organizational structure; the project stages. Firms appear to follow the propo-
(g) new qualification of employees; nents of organizational separation, particularly in the
(h) fundamental change in corporate processes; venture management literature which advocates for a
(i) few experience with new production processes and protection and support of development of new ventures.
equipment; How does structural autonomy influence success? Find-
(j) major change of organizational culture; ings for organizational separation document: there is
(k) intensive cooperation with external partners; not a single significant correlation. Additional tests on
(l) new financial need for project; curvilinear relationship give the same finding: not a sin-
(m) major changes in value chain, some stages can be gle significant relationship.
eliminated. Reporting level shows some significant correlations:
4. Environmental dimension Attainment of time and budget goals is improved,
(n) creation of a new infrastructure (e.g., filling sta- but the influence on quality goals is a negative one.
tion for hydrogen); The short communication distance to senior manage-
(o) alterations in regulation required in order to ment may help to overcome administrative obstacles,
implement innovation; but there appears to be less time for the experts to
(p) critical debate of innovation in society. do things as the highly innovative task demands. A test
for curvilinear relationships did not show n-shaped
The scores of the four dimensions of innovativeness curves.
were then calculated as the mean score of the respec- Hypothesis 2 postulates a positive moderator influ-
tive items. The four dimensions only show moderate ence of project innovativeness. Our moderated regres-
positive correlations between 0.09 and 0.39. Therefore, sion analyses document: There is not a single
it makes sense to analyze four different moderator significant interaction term. Therefore, we may con-
effects. clude: Organizational separation does not improve project
success, even not for highly innovative projects.
Project success of different phases: For each stage per- Resource autonomy usually does not show significant
formance on the triple constraints time, budget, and correlations with the four dimensions of project innova-
overall quality were assessed on Likert-scales. Success tiveness. In particular, degree of integration of the
H.G. Gemünden et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 366–373 371
Table 1 Table 2
Degree of organizational separation and project success (Pearson Co-location and project success (Pearson correlations)
correlations)
Co-location
Degree of organizational separation
Ba Phase I Phase II Phase III
Ba Phase I Phase II Phase III
Project success
Project success Phase I 0.216* 0.177
Phase I 0.086 0.039 Phase II 0.151 0.131 0.172
Phase II 0.061 0.037 0.034 Phase III 0.401* 0.229 0.314* 0.402*
Phase III 0.116 0.025 0.123 0.101
Quality 0.141 0.075 0.183 0.061
Quality 0.112 0.076 0.160 0.104 Time 0.252* 0.175 0.249* 0.311*
Time 0.090 0.023 0.092 0.027 Budget 0.215* 0.099 0.214* 0.231*
Budget 0.014 0.097 0.022 0.161
Internal 0.255* 0.117 0.277* 0.370*
Internal 0.108 0.027 0.116 0.088 External 0.041 0.050 0.065 0.141
External 0.007 0.155 0.030 0.010 *
Significance level of 5%.
1. Separation creates new interfaces leading to commu- ger ones. It appears to be that mature large organizations
nication problems and conflicts with existing units. need a fundamental change of their innovation culture
2. Access to complementary resources is more difficult and control systems, and delegate more responsibility
for separated units than for embedded units. to innovation promotors in the middle management,
3. Failures of separated units become more and quicker allowing them to set up more dedicated co-located inno-
visible, there is a higher risk, particularly for radical vation teams early on.
innovations, that projects are terminated or ‘‘frozen’’. Last, but not least, we want make a plea that innova-
4. Disengagement from separated units is easier; middle tion management theory should become more innova-
managers do not trust top-managers that they will tive, i.e., perform more rigid tests by using samples
give long-term support to the radical innovation pro- with truly innovative projects, and by developing more
ject, particularly in times of poor overall company balanced theories which consider positive and negative
results and budget cuts. effects of ‘‘success’’ factors.
5. There are other reasons for organizational separation
than theory assumes. Separate units are implemented
because the existing organization is poorly managed, References
and good managers create a new institution in order
to bypass the poorly managed ‘‘mother’’ organiza- [1] Afuah A. Innovation management strategies, implementation,
tion. Such a running-away strategy will not help in and profits. New York: Oxford; 1998.
[2] Avlonitis GJ, Papastathopoulous PG, Gounaris SP. An empiri-
the long run. As soon as the separated unit needs fur- cally-based typology of product innovativeness for new financial
ther (complementary) resources from the ‘‘mother’’ services: Success and failures scenarios. J Prod Innovat Manag
organization, the management flaws will also hinder 2001;18:324–42.
the development of the separated organization. It is [3] Balachandra R, Friar JH. Factors for success in R&D projects
then very likely that the good managers completely and new product innovation: A contextual framework. IEEE
Trans Eng Manag 1997;13:245–56.
leave the poorly managed firm, and not just move [4] Barczak G. New product strategy, structure, process, and
into a separate organizational unit. performance in the telecommunications industry. J Prod Innovat
Manag 1995;12:224–34.
These arguments have to be tested in further investi- [5] Billing F. Koordination in radikalen Innovationsvorhaben. Wie-
gations. We have some evidence for the last argument: sbaden: Gabler DUV; 2003.
[6] Block Z, McMillan IC. Corporate venturing – creating new
Best-in-industry performing firms use organizational sep- business within the firm. Boston (MA): HBS Press; 1993.
aration less often than poor performing firms. The latter [7] Bower JL, Christensen CM. Disruptive technologies – catching
ones use it with increasing frequency as the projects de- the wave. Harvard Business Rev 1995;73:43–54.
velop, particularly by using external units. [8] Burgelman RA. Designs for corporate entrepreneurship in estab-
Let us take a look at co-location. Since we have mea- lished firms. Calif Manage Rev 1984;26:154–67.
[9] Burgelman RA. Managing the internal corporate venturing
sured this variable rather crudely, we assume that our process. Sloan Manage Rev 1984;25:33–48.
finding understates the real effects. Additional analyses [10] Burgelman RA. Managing the new venture division – research
showed that co-location was significantly related to so- findings and implications for strategic management. Strategic
cial autonomy, in terms of more mutual support, higher Manage J 1985;6:39–54.
[11] Calantone RJ, Benedetto CA, Divine R. Organisational, technical
willingness to take risks, higher openness for new ideas,
and marketing antecedents for successful new product develop-
and higher self-responsibility. This is in line with other ment. R&D Manag 1993;23:337–51.
publications documenting that team-work quality in- [12] Calantone RJ, Schmidt JB, Benedetto CA, Divine R. New
creases with co-location, and showing a positive influ- product activities and performance – the moderating role of
ence of co-location on project success, which increases environmental hostility. J Prod Innovat Manag 1997;14:179–89.
with project innovativeness [31–34]. [13] Charitou CD, Markides CC. Responses to disruptive strategic
innovation. Sloan Manag Rev 2003;44:55–63.
Co-location thus turns out to be the more effective [14] Christensen CM, Overdorf M. Meeting the challenge of disruptive
than organizational separation. It is also a much more change. Harvard Business Rev 2000;78:67–76.
flexible instrument, and it costs less than creating a [15] Damanpour F, Gopalakrishnan S. Theories of organizational
new organizational unit. Considering the risks of highly structure and innovation adoption – the role of environmental
innovative ventures, it appears to be better to invest a change. J Eng Technol Manag 1998;15:1–24.
[16] Danneels E, Kleinschmidt EJ. Product innovativeness from the
smaller amount several times than to invest a large firmÕs perspective: ItÕs dimensions and their relation with project
sum only one time in order to increase the value of the selection and performance. J Prod Innovat Manag
innovation portfolio. We advocate setting up small co- 2001;18:357–73.
located teams early on, which are fully dedicated to the [17] Ernst H. Success factors of new product development – a review
of the empirical literature. Int J Manag Rev 2002;4:1–40.
innovative task.
[18] Fast N. The rise and fall of corporate new venture units. Ann
Although larger corporations have more resources to Arbor (MI): Umi Research Press; 1978.
do so, this advice is significantly less often followed in [19] Galbraith JR. Designing the innovating organization. Organ.
large and mature corporations than in smaller and youn- Dyn. 1982;10:5–25.
H.G. Gemünden et al. / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 366–373 373
[20] Garcia R, Calantone R. A critical look at technological innova- [34] Högl M, Weinkauf K, Gemünden HG. Inter-team coordination,
tion typology and innovativeness terminology: A literature project commitment, and teamwork: A longitudinal study. Organ
review. J Prod Innovat Manag 2002;19:110–32. Sci 2004;15:38–55.
[21] Gemünden HG. Erfolgsfaktoren des Projektmanagements – eine [35] Johne AF, Snelson P. Auditing product innovation activities in
kritische Bestandsaufnahme der empirischen Untersuchungen. manufacturing firms. R&D Manag 1988;18:227–33.
Projektmanagement 1990;1:4–15. [36] Knöpfel H, Gray C, Dworatschek S. Projektorganisationsformen:
[22] Gemünden HG, Lechler Th. Success factors of project manage- Internationale Studie über ihre Verwendung und ihren Erfolg.
ment: the critical few. In: PICMET: portland international Proj Manag 1992;1:3–14.
conference on management of engineering and technology, [37] Larson E, Gobeli D. Relative effectiveness of different project
Portland, July 27–31; 1997. p. 375–7. structures. Proj Manag J 1987;2:81–5.
[23] Gerwin D, Moffat L. Withdrawal of team autonomy during [38] Might R, Fischer W. The role of structural factors in determining
concurrent engineering. Manag Sci 1997;43:1275–87. project management success. IEEE Trans Eng Manag
[24] Green SG, Gavin MB, Aiman-Smith L. Assessing a multidimen- 1985;2:71–7.
sional measure of radical technological innovation. IEEE Trans [39] Montoya-Weiss MM, Calantone R. Determinants of new product
Eng Manag 1995;42:203–14. performance: A review and meta-analysis. J Prod Innov Manag
[25] Grün O. Taming giant projects. Management of multi-organiza- 1994;11:397–417.
tion enterprises. Berlin and others: Springer; 2004. [40] Morris P, Hough G. The anatomy of major projects. Chiches-
[28] Hauschildt J, Schlaak T. Zur Messung des Innovationsgrades ter: Wiley; 1987.
neuer Produkte. Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft 2001;71: [41] Murphy D, Baker N, Fisher D. Determinants of project
161–82. success. Boston: Boston College, National Aeronautics and
[29] Heller T. Loosely coupled systems for corporate entrepre- Space Administration; 1974.
neurship – imagining and managing the innovation project [42] Pinto J. Project implementation: a determination of its critical
and host organization interface. Entrep Theor Pract success factors, moderators, and their relative importance across
1999;23:25–31. the project life cycle, Dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh,
[30] Henard DH, Szymanski DM. Why some new products are more Pittsburgh; 1986.
successful than others. J Market Res 2001;38:362–75. [43] Schlaak TM. Der Innovationsgrad als Schlüsselvariable: Pers-
[31] Högl M, Gemünden HG. Teamwork quality and the success of pektiven für das Management von Produktentwicklungen. Wie-
innovative projects: A theoretical concept and empirical evidence. sbaden: Gabler; 1999.
Organ Sci 2001;12:435–49. [44] Salomo S. Konzept und Messung des Innovationsgrades –
[32] Högl M, Parboteeah KP, Gemünden HG. When teamwork really Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie zu innovativen Ent-
matters: Task innovativeness as a moderator of the teamwork– wicklungsvorhaben. In: Schwaiger M, Harhoff D, editors. Empirie
performance relationship in software development projects. J Eng und Betriebswirtschaft, Entwicklungen und Perspektiven. Stutt-
Technol Manag 2003;20:281–302. gart: Schäffer-Poeschel; 2003. p. 399–427.
[33] Högl M, Proserpio L. Team member proximity and teamwork in [45] Wheelwright S, Clark K. Revolutionizing product develop-
innovative projects. Res Pol 34 [in press]. ment. New York: Free Press; 1992.