Managing program impacts in new product development: An exploratory case study on overcoming uncertainties

Managerial Political Behavior in Innovation Portfolio Management: A Sensegiving and Sensebreaking Process

“…Thereby, this study connects the theoretic constructs of giving and breaking sense with managerial political behavior. The article shows that although political behavior may be covert, it also can be a functional process enabling different interests groups to overcome collaboration barriers (Beverland et al, ; Laine et al, ). For instance, formalized processes' inflexibility and time restrictions could lead to managers' insufficient understanding of an innovation project and the associated decisions that, in turn, can be overcome by shaping the understanding of an innovation project (sensegiving) politically.…”

“…Firms developing innovative new products tend to supplement cross‐functional sensemaking efforts with a collective process that integrates market and technology knowledge as complementary factors instead of categorizing market and technology construction's meaning into separate knowledge factors (Dougherty, Borrelli, Munir, and O'Sullivan, ). To make mutual sense of the uncertainties in portfolio management and different functions' understandings, managers use expressions of consensus building, such as acknowledging and strengthening others' opinion, and of consensus destruction, such as competitive sensemaking (Laine et al, ).…”

“…Summing up, it is very likely that managers' or groups' interests guide the sensemaking process, resulting in a social process of meaning negotiation and (de) construction (Blichfeldt and Eskerod, ; Laine et al, ). Although literature indicates that sensemaking is a highly suitable lens for understanding IPM, less is known about managers' political efforts to make sense (Kreutzer et al, ; Maitlis and Christianson, ; Maitlis and Sonenshein, ).…”

“…Sensemaking describes a social and dynamic process through which individuals construct the meaning of novel, unexpected, or confusing events (Maitlis and Christianson, ). This lens is particularly suited for investigating political behavior in IPM, because IPM is characterized by an uncertain and a complex innovation portfolio where managers with potentially different interests and objectives have to collaborate in order to make decisions (Laine et al, ). Different parties are, therefore, likely to campaign, to negotiate, and to compete in order to make sense of IPM decisions and to have their relevant preferred sense accepted.…”

The Role of Institutional Pillars on Mobile Learning Adoption in a Developing Country'S Higher Education Institution

“…A single-case study design backed by an exploratory strategy was used [48]. Though findings cannot be generalized it enables institutional constructs to provide fresh insights into m-learning adoption [49]. Unreported non-technical aspects of m-learning adoption can be revealed.…”