Managing Open Technology Development : Adapting Stage-Gate Processes to Partner Types

• Firms are increasingly reliant on collaborating with external partners to drive their technology development efforts in light of increasing pace of development and global competition. However, many firms struggle with managing the inherently uncertain and ambiguous process of technology development with external actors because these may not share the same technological understandings, processes and goals. Accordingly, we argue that further research is required to better understand the management of joint projects with different types of partners within technology development. To fill this gap this study examines the adaptation of traditional stage-gate processes for technology development projects with science-based and market-based partners in three large technologies oriented firms. Our results shows that open technology development projects are often problematic because firms lack partner understanding and have difficulty aligning their development processes with external partners. To address these problems we found that our firms adapted their processes by implementing externally oriented stages, gates and roles to suit the contingencies of collaboration with science-based and market-based partners respectively. Our results provide implications for theory and management practice concerning the management of open innovation and stage-gate processes.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Annan teknik -- Övrig annan teknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Other Engineering and Technologies -- Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Open technology development

pen innovation

technology development

science-based partners

market-based partners

stage-gate

Entreprenörskap och innovation

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)