Paper info

Routines for coordinating inter-organisational incremental product development activities - a case study from the Danish food industry

Kristin B. Munksgaard

The paper was published at the 24th IMP-conference in Uppsala, Sweden in 2008.

An inherent part of collaborating with and involving customers in product development activities is to provide a basis for adapting and customise new product offerings. The notion of adaptation is therefore a vital part of understanding company interaction for product development as well as in business interaction in general. Due to the associated costs and resources as well as potential conflicting issues related to adaptation, companies may, however, have an incentive to limit the degree and scale of adaptations related to involving customers in product development activities. This paper presents a case where a company is making an effort for building and maintaining internal product development routines while collaborating with customers. Building on a set of internal routines, the company is offering value creating activities to customers intended to contribute to customers' product development activities. In other words, the company is trying to standardise activities in an effort to create routines for product development with the main issue of coordinating the product development effort with various involved customers and configuring the collaboration for product development. The case is framed by the special setting of the Danish food industry, where product development in most instances is characterised by rudimentary change of functional products in a low-technology situation.