Concurrent Engineering, Knowledge Management, and Product Innovation

Abstract

Evidence has shown that organizations seldom achieve the advantages offered by concurrent engineering (CE) practices. This may be attributed to the fact that the concept of CE is vague in terms of core elements and needs further investigation. In addition, despite the importance of CE and knowledge management in the context of product innovation, empirical investigation in this area is lacking. To this end, the goal of this research is to identify the critical dimensions of CE and empirically investigate the linkages between CE, knowledge management, and firm's innovation. Based on a comprehensive literature review, the study conceptualizes the dimensions of CE as technical and social dimensions. Resource-based view of the firm and knowledge-based view are used to relate CE dimensions, knowledge management, and product innovation. Structural equation modeling was used for the testing of hypotheses. Empirical testing of the hypotheses was carried out by collecting data from 220 pharmaceutical firms operating in India. The findings of the study indicate that social dimensions of CE had a significant impact on knowledge management. Interestingly, the technical dimensions of CE did not have a significant impact on knowledge management. Furthermore, knowledge management was found to have a significant impact on product innovation. The implications of the findings for academicians and practitioners are discussed and directions for further research are also presented.

Concurrent Engineering Model for the Implementation of New Products in the Textile Industry: A Case Study

“…In addition, the staff were able to concentrate on planning the implementation test. These findings coincide with some authors [32,48,51,52], who indicated that the early disclosure of information reduces uncertainty and promotes the detection of problems within the system.…”

“…For this reason, the team determined that it is essential to include operational leaders in the planning stage so that the empirical knowledge of the staff and the knowledge acquired from the administrative staff complement each other. Doing this delivers improvements on resources, time, money, administration, equipment, and design method, as stated by some authors [35,51].…”

Strength of culture and transfer of knowledge in organizations

“…The literature most often cites the work of Davenport and Prusak (2000), and De Long and Fahey (2000), which presumed that knowledge is crucial for the organization, defining the relationship between knowledge at the member level and organization levels, developing appropriate social interaction in the organization, and enhancing the willingness of employees to use new knowledge. The literature has highlighted the importance of organizational culture power (Brown, 1998;De Long and Fahey, 2000) to achieve the desired results of knowledge transfer in organizations (Deshpande, 2019;Pascale, 1984). Thus, several studies have reported that employees expect and prefer a stronger organizational culture (De Long & Fahey, 2000; Tobin, 2000); employees believe that strong culture supports their knowledge transfer (Argote & Ingram, 2000;Brown, 1998) and that stronger organizational culture accelerates the transfer of knowledge in organizations (Hansen et al, 1999;Zheng et al, 2010).…”

“…This was followed by empirical research on the importance of several basic organizational cultures in comprehensive knowledge development, different types of knowledge, and possible solutions for acquiring and achieving individual goals in organizations (Abdelrahman & Papamichail, 2016;Senge, 1995;Zheng et al, 2010). These studies have provided initial evidence about the meaning of organizational culture in knowledge development and established a broader picture of their relations (Deshpande, 2019;Nellen et al, 2020).…”

Moderated Mediation Analysis of Leader Technology Orientation: A Study of Operations and Manufacturing Leaders of India

“…As found in this study, human aspects (information orientation) did matter in organizational overall performance. Deshpande (2018) had observed that organizational knowledge management did matter in product innovation. In this study, the authors, in the context of organizational technology orientation, noted a similar theme.…”