PhD, DBA, and MSc by research theses (SoM)

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Browsing PhD, DBA, and MSc by research theses (SoM) by Supervisor "Adams, Richard"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Customer insights generation at the front end of innovation: an exploration within a medical device company
    (Cranfield University, 2023-06) Grant, Stuart Russell; Goffin, Keith; Adams, Richard
    It is generally agreed that product innovation happens when innovation teams conduct market research to uncover customer needs. It has also been reported that customer needs and customer insights are essential for radical innovation. Over the last 40 years, research into customer needs has defined needs as either articulated or unarticulated, with associated market research methods to uncover needs and insights, such as surveys, questionnaires, observation, interviews, and a repertory grid. Though customer needs are well-defined, customer insights need an adequate definition. Although definitions exist in the marketing and psychology literature, they are unclear or often conflicting within the product innovation field. For example, customer insights are either a separate concept from a need or a component of needs. As such, how both these concepts relate to radical innovation remains unclear. Furthermore, the process of uncovering customer needs has been well defined; conversely, the process that links the uncovering of customer needs and discovering customer insights requires an improved framework. Nevertheless, does understanding the relationship and process between needs and insights matter and warrant being studied? If, as suggested, finding customer needs leads to incremental innovation and customer insights lead to radical innovation, then understanding this is worthwhile. This is because, firstly, for academics, investigating what innovation teams are doing during the front end of innovation (FEI) will allow them to analyse the data from case studies research more effectively. Secondly, practitioners will better appreciate the FEI process and be able to categorise their findings from market research into needs and insights, which will assist with considering the type of innovation being pursued. Therefore, understanding the relationship between a need and an insight is required. A fuller understanding of the process of discovering insights in the FEI is needed. Through a systematic literature review (SLR) and an exploratory case study, the research attempts to investigate this conceptualisation of customer insight in product innovation and understand the relationship between needs and insights. The SLR reviewed the extant literature on the definitions of, the methods used for finding, and the relationship between needs and insights. The exploratory case study investigated the process of discovering customer insight with innovation teams in a global medical technology company. The research had two strands – retrospective and longitudinal. Five retrospective cases were conducted immediately after the FEI had finished: four interviews per case, totalling 20 interviews. Four longitudinal cases followed the FEI for ten months; an interview was conducted with the participants at 1-, 4-, and 10-month intervals throughout the front end process; this totalled 45 interviews with 15 participants from the four cases. In addition to the interview data, documentation was also collected from all nine cases. The data was collected and analysed based on coding from the literature. The research extends the body of literature on customer needs and insights. From a theoretical perspective, the study provides a clearer understanding of the definition of customer needs and insights. It also suggests the relationship between the concepts of need and insight. The framework proposed that discovering insights produces a better understanding of the front end process. This process is iterative, whereby finer needs are uncovered, and deeper insights are discovered as the team further understands the customer and the market research. From a practice perspective, the study assists innovation in better appreciating the interaction of needs and insights. The research also helps product innovation teams better categorise their market research findings into needs and insights that may drive more radical innovations.
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    The role of the social system in the diffusion of innovation in low to middle income countries: the case of be he@lthy, be mobile.
    (Cranfield University, 2021-07) Ihasz, Orsolya; Adams, Richard; Vyakarnam, Shailendra
    Actors across the private, public and third sector are increasingly embracing the idea of promoting the use of externally developed social innovations to address important social challenges globally. Successful diffusion of these types of innovations has the potential to offer long term solutions to grand challenges. However, when diffusing innovations into low to middle income countries (LMICs), significant problems arise, particularly due to lack of cross-sectoral alignment in financial and technical resource deployment. This thesis contributes to the understanding of how multiple actors engage in activities to support the diffusion of externally developed social innovations into LMICs. We argue that through purpose-led alignment around a mission-orientated goal that is focused on solving social challenges and through the combining resources and knowledge across all sectors, through the active empowerment of civil society in creating value and continuous feedback loops, externally developed social innovations can contribute greatly to the emergence of new innovation ecosystems in LMICs. A systematic literature review illuminates the role of the social system in successfully enabling widespread diffusion, especially in creating value from the use of the innovation. We propose that the social system perspective, which conceptualise diverse actors engaged in a dynamic process, permits a systems view of diffusion in which long term collaborations and the integration of indigenous knowledge into communication processes are associated with successful diffusion. The role of social systems in value creation is been further investigated through an in-depth case study of the World Health Organization’s Be He@lthy, Be Mobile initiative across three different countries (Senegal, Sudan and India). The case highlights how civil society drives the diffusion process through its ability to manoeuvre across the social system and to actively search for innovative solutions. While our research has implications for the introduction of improved strategic investment across sectors it also contributes to the theory of innovation diffusion by moving away from an innovation- centric view and instead adopting a systems-centric view. It hence allows us both to view diffusion as a co-creation process and to reconfigure adopter and diffuser communities into one conceptual field.
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    Sustainable entrepreneurship as a community of practice.
    (Cranfield University, 2022-12) Mera, Christine Elena; Adams, Richard; Wilson, Hugh; Macdonald, Emma K.
    Sustainable entrepreneurship literature at the micro-level of individual enterprises identifies several issues hampering their growth, such as lack of funding and other resources, and psychological and/or geographical isolation. Macro-level research identifies attempts at supportive policy, such as new enterprise funding and incubation hubs; however, sustainable entrepreneurs often find these resources inaccessible or insufficient. There is very limited research, however, examining the impact of the meso-level context of sustainable entrepreneurs, and whether this level can help address their challenges. This study’s motivating objective is therefore: To examine the phenomenon of sustainable entrepreneurship at the meso-level, in order to better understand how it can be enabled. Initial field immersion in an EU-funded research project led abductively to the observation that actors in the sustainable entrepreneurship field appear to interact at the meso-level to address issues collaboratively. This led to the overarching research question: Does a community of practice form around sustainable entrepreneurship, and if so, what does it look like? Three more specific questions were: RQ1: What drives the formation of a sustainable entrepreneurship community of practice? RQ2: What shared practices does the sustainable entrepreneurship community of practice enact? And RQ3: What outcomes arise from these practices, and for whom? These questions were explored through analysis of data-collection episodes over a three-year period that the author attended as a participant observer alongside sustainable entrepreneurs and allied stakeholders. A key finding is that a sustainable-entrepreneurship community of practice exists: actors with a shared commitment to the domain of sustainable entrepreneurship collaborate as part of a community to solve problems by sharing practice and learning from one another. Four drivers for this community of practice are identified: perceived isolation, a lack of resources, reduced government, and prosocial motivation. The community participates in four high-level practices: network building, resource sharing, evolving business models, and re-shaping the sustainable entrepreneurship infrastructure. Four categories of outcome from the community of practice emerge: individual empowerment, enterprise scaling and proliferating, civil society strengthening, and mainstreaming sustainable entrepreneurship. Collectively, these practices can reduce some of the issues facing sustainable entrepreneurs, such as limited funding and resources. This thesis contributes to communities of practice theory by demonstrating that the feature of situated learning (Lave and Wenger, 2011) via the four shared practices creates social capital, highlighted in the entrepreneurship literature as a key factor for success (Honig and Davidsson, 2003). In this way, this thesis provides a novel contribution to theory by indicating how participation in the community of practice can help sustainable entrepreneurs address the issues identified and thereby develop, scale and replicate triple-bottom-line business models. They do so, not just solving problems but supporting the wider multistakeholder members to maximise opportunities and positively influence the societal and political environment for SE. It also shows how situated learning about the domain more widely is both a motivation and desired outcome of CoP membership. Through the social capital generated, this community can influence the macro-level and thereby further mainstream the phenomenon of sustainable entrepreneurship.
**Copy of record** Please note that the electronic theses currently available on this server have been originally submitted in a paper format. In all cases the bound paper thesis is the copy of record.