Front-end of innovation: roles and integration mechanisms

• Autor(a) principal: Schreiner, Lilian Cristina
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/12/12139/tde-13072018-154023/
• topic: Brokering; Brokering; Front end of Innovation; Front end of innovation; Fuzzy front end; Fuzzy front end; Incremental innovation; Inovação incremental; Integration mechanisms; Mecanismos de integração de papéis

The Front End of Innovation (FEI) is the early phase of the Product Development Process, responsible for the concept generation and an important driver of innovation success. The FEI is characterized by roles\' dynamism, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Several authors divide the FEI into other sub-phases in order to organize its activities, roles, and understand the function of each role. Despite the growing research about the FEI in recent years, there is a need for further research on the theme to better understand the dynamics and help to reduce the uncertainty in the critical concept phase. The formal processes designed for the front end are insufficient, the rules and roles are not fully described, and it is necessary to balance the interactions between the activities in the FEI to get a better-structured New Product Development - NPD - later. The main FEI models developed at the literature have discussed some key roles such marketing, engineering, customers, but they do not discussed the role of design, which is critical in creative activities which, in turn, are the nature of the new product development process. The literature also has not discussed the external integration in the FEI, that is, how the Brand Owners integrate the partners, especially the suppliers and design agencies, in this critical and uncertain phase. To tackle this issue, this research aims to examine the FEI in a dynamic industry, examining the integration of roles in an iterative process. The objective of this research is to identify the roles that play in the Front End of Innovation and the mechanisms of integration, whether internal through cross-functional teams; or external through interfirms integration. The main question that guided this research is \"What roles are involved in each FEI activity and what are the mechanism that integrate these roles in the FEI?\". This is qualitative and exploratory research, based on multiple-cases-studies. For this study, the packaging industry was selected because of its value chain in the concept phase, which has a complex set of relationships among its parties, Brand Owner, Design Agencies and Packaging Producers. The consumers buy the product by the performance of the same and also by the packaging. Packaging is considered a second product at the point of sale and a vital buying decision factor. Brand Owners understand that they need to integrate suppliers into the FEI to assist them in identifying opportunities, ideation, and conceptualization. Five brand owners were interviewed, and the FEI has been divided into five activities: Opportunity Identifications and Analysis, Idea Generation, Idea Enrichment, Idea Selection, and Concept Development.