No abstract

Front-end activities largely influence the outcomes of new product development processes, because it is here that firms create new ideas, give them direction, and set them in motion. We show that the front end can be understood as comprising three core activities: idea/concept development, idea/concept alignment, and idea/ concept legitimization, which allow firms to create corroborated product definitions. This article provides important implications for managers interested in front-end management. It devotes specific attention to the differences between incremental and radical front-end development and to the front end in the light of increasingly open innovation processes.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to describe the basic characteristics and qualities of managerial work in small firms.Design/methodology/approachThe article draws on a summary and synthesis of five studies from the “managerial‐work research tradition” that investigates the behaviour of top managers in small firms by means of direct observation. Studies are evaluated by using research on managers' jobs in general, and some needs as well as guidelines for future research on entrepreneurial and managerial work in small firms are suggested.FindingsManagerial work in small firms is described by discussing: how managers divide their time between different activities; managerial interaction and communication, and the elements of managerial work in small firms. Three limitations of existing studies are identified: they are difficult to compare; they adopt a simplistic conception of the constituents of managers' jobs, and more specifically of the relation between the managing actor and the context in which he/she works; and they fail to recognise to the value of inductive analysis.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies of managerial work in small firms have much to gain by considering the development that has been taking place within general management theory and in the study of managers' jobs. This article contributes a first step towards bringing research on managers' jobs into the small‐business research community.Originality/valueThe paper initiates a better understanding of the basics of managerial work in small firms, which has not previously been elaborated upon and is an important step in exploring the dynamics of small business management.

The literature on the front end in the New Product Development (NPD) literature is fragmented with respect to the identification and analysis of the factors that are critical to successful product development. The article has a two-fold purpose. First, it describes, analyses, and synthesizes those factors through a literature review of the research on the front end in NPD. Second, it conceptualizes a framework that features two types of success factors: foundational success factors (common to all the firm's projects) and project-specific success factors (appropriate for the firm's individual projects). The article makes recommendations for the management of this important phase of product development, discusses limitations of relevant previous research, and offers suggestions for future research. The article makes a theoretical contribution with its analysis and synthesis of the reasons for success in front-end activities and a practical contribution with its conceptual framework that can be used as an analytical tool by firms and their product managers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how learning in collaborative approaches ± in this paper labeled`c ollaborative approaches to management learning'' (CAML) ± can support the learning situation of small firm owner-managers. Drawing on a socio-cognitive learning framework, the context of the small firm and its consequences for management learning are framed and discussed. Drawing on four episodes of management learning in CAML, it is suggested that CAML establishes a new context in which old truths can be questioned and new insights can be created. In CAML the owner-managers are offered a position on the periphery of practice of the other managers and other network visitors, where trust among the network participants provides the foundation for admitting and openly facing lack of knowledge on different issues, something that is prohibited within their enterprises, due to the lack of peers and expected omniscience of the owner-manager.