Authors: Kristin Balslev Munksgaard
Summary:
This dissertation contributes to an existing and on-going academic discussion on the complex task of organising product development in interaction with external partners. The aim of the dissertation is to refine existing theory and deepen our general understanding of collaborative product development. The value of the contribution is to be seen in the light of the special setting of the Danish Food Industry. The dissertation studies how food-producing companies in collaboration with their customers define, divide and coordinate the joint product development effort. Furthermore, it ascertains how Danish food companies build routines for organising collaborative product development activities, and offers explanations of why this may restrict product innovativeness. Insights are obtained of product development as a negotiated process where partners’ strategic intentions collide, influenced by the relationship atmosphere and the involved parties’ pictures of their surrounding network setting. The dissertation findings suggest that interdependencies between product development activities and other activities are standardised and organised through routines to a degree that seems to hinder radical product development, also in cases of high customer involvement.
Publish Year: 2009