Exploring the Relationships Between Product Development and Environmental Turbulence: The Case of Mobile TLC Services^*

Abstract

Managing innovation in turbulent environments (e.g., in environments with extreme uncertainty and complexity in market needs and technological opportunities) is a major challenge. A recent stream of studies in the management literature has suggested that when facing turbulent environments, firms should deploy more flexible development processes. This paper approaches this issue by looking at the Italian mobile telecommunications (TLC) industry. Nine in-depth case studies were conducted in five different companies. Data analysis showed some important results. First of all environmental turbulence should be considered to be project specific rather than company or industry specific. Moreover, it can come from both shift in the market needs and in the technology. Nevertheless, it seems clear that having rapid changes is not enough to have environmental turbulence. If rapid changes can be somehow foreseen, there is no turbulence at all. Hence, when approaching projects in potentially turbulent environments, managers should assess both rapidity and unpredictability of the environment. Finally, looking at the in-depth cases, the paper points out what of the main practices to increase flexibility that are described in literature are actually adopted by companies. In case of turbulence (both in the market and/or in the technology) companies delay concept freezing point. Moreover, in the case of technological turbulence, they also leverage on rapid project iterations, whereas in case of market turbulence they more likely adopt early experiments involving customers, formal and cross-functional project teams, and flat organizational structures.

A Structural Equation Model for Analyzing the Impact of Environmental Turbulence on Non-Financial Performance

“…In the current study the researcher depended in determining ET variables on (Buganza, Dell'Era, & Verganti, 2009) and (Tsai & Yang, 2014) including market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competitive intensity.…”

Unveiling the Potentialities Provided by New Technologies: A Process to Pursue Technology Epiphanies in the Smartphone App Industry

“…A number of recent studies take a stance against the assumption that incumbents are cursed, and identify situations in which established firms actually have significant advantages in turbulent environments. Different key attributes have been identified, such as cultivating dynamic capabilities, possessing visionary leaders, working on absorptive capacity and adopting platform-based technologies with positive externalities showing how companies can actually leverage on complementary assets (e.g., Cohen and Levinthal, 1990;Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000;Hill and Rothaermel, 2003;Zahra and George, 2002;Iansiti et al, 2003;MacCormack and Iansiti, 2009;Buganza et al, 2009). …”

“…Von Hippel, 1986;Urban and Von Hippel, 1988;Vandermerwe and Rada, 1989;Porter et al, 1991;Martino, 1992;Ransley, 1996;Treacy and Wiersema, 1997;Kappel, 1998;Bucher, 2003;Lüthje and Herstatt, 2004;Baines et al, 2007 COST Cohen and Levinthal;Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000;Rothaermel, 2001a;Rothaermel, 2001b;Zahra, and Gerard, 2002;Rothaermel and Hill, 2003;Iansiti et al, 2003;Buganza et al, 2009;MacCormack and Iansiti, 2009INFLUENCING REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS Farrell and Saloner, 1988David and Greenstein, 1990;Besen and Farreell, 1994  Consortia  Lobbies  Collaboration with companies  Collaboration with universities Grossman and Helpman, 1992;Weiss and Cargill, 1992;Chiesa and Manzini, 1998;Damania and Fredriksson, 2000;Guan and Zhao, 2013 TECHNOLOGY EPIPHANY Verganti, 2009 Literature Gap …”

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