Authors: Svein Minde
The thesis conceives the embedding process as it did appear for several cooperating companies involved in the international space industry when new technology in terms of a production system and various associated products was conceived to form a feasible techno-economic concept for development. The embedding process comprises what has been dubbed courses of actions, which the companies may employ cooperatively over successive stages when new technology is connected to and integrated with its resource-related context consisting of an intricate web of industrial companies, funding organizations, and technological artifacts. The chosen courses of actions are carried out in relation to the idea world, and they may focus on one or a few aspects of the ideas about the new technology such as development costs. The possible courses of actions seem to be the adding, removal, substitution, and adaptation of technological and organizational resources as well as the ignoring of any connecting and integrating problems. The courses of actions are applied particularly to address the problematic or difficult-to-establish contact points between the new technology and its resource-related network context. Characteristics of the problematic contact points seem to affect the choice of courses of actions.
As the subject of the thesis has not been studied as such previously, the conceiving of the embedding process together with some of its important aspects and relationships is the main contribution to the research community and in particular to the IMP school. As the embedding process is assumed to be part of the process of developing new technology, the thesis may also contribute to the innovation literature in general. However, due to the single case research design, the potency of the results of the thesis is dependent on further studies.
The research associated with the thesis was carried out as a qualitative single case study. The data was analyzed by the adoption of a resource-related perspective or, more specifically, the 4R model of the IMP school.
Publish Year: 2008