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In this chapter, we posit that identity integration, an individual difference variable measuring the degree to which multiple and disparate social identities are perceived as compatible, moderates the relationship between team diversity and innovation. Prior research shows that individuals with higher levels of identity integration exhibit higher levels of innovation on tasks that draw from identity-related knowledge systems. In this chapter, we extend this research to examine how innovation can be increased in cross-functional teams. We propose that reinforcing the compatibility between functional identities within a team facilitates access to functionally unique knowledge systems, which in turn increases team innovation.

High-technology firms often institute cross-functional teams to manage product innovation initiatives. The assumption is that (a) creative and successful products from new technologies must reflect the integration of multiple talents, therefore the innovation process will require integration among people who possess them, and (b) when people with multiple talents are placed in teams, they will interact, cross-fertilize ideas, and collaborate to produce creative new products from new technologies faster and cheaper than those produced by alternative structural arrangements. While teams are easy to institute, fostering high levels of collaboration among participants has proved harder in practice. While some teams achieve high levels of collaboration, others merely replicate rivalries that exist in the organization and breed cynicism.

Based on our study of product innovation processes in high-technology industrial manufacturers, this chapter discusses the differences between high- and low-collaboration teams. Specifically, we report the key (a) developmental milestones in the process by which groups of people from diverse functional areas become high-collaboration teams and create new products faster and cheaper, and (b) factors associated with participants, team leaders, senior management, and the organizational culture that seem to shape the emergence of collaboration in teams.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

Teams are an important component to the success of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship. However, innovation teams often suffer because management fails to develop a change strategy and prepare managers and participants to work in teams. This chapter provides a discussion of the critical elements needed to prepare team member, including reviewing the team development process and offering insights on how to manage communication, conflict resolution, creative problem solving, and decision-making to enhance team performance. Additionally, research on the use of innovation teams is presented along with some recommendations for management to implement innovation teams in organizations.

This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or service delivery) model.

The evidence used in this chapter principally comes from the author’s own work, especially research for the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and draws upon academic literature where possible.

This chapter argues that HR directors should guard against three sets of fragmentation risks. Firstly, HR shared services should be properly connected to the rest of HR to offer customers an integrated service to avoid the structure’s division of labor inducing incoherence. Second, to guard against this risk, HR directors should exercise care in outsourcing/offshoring beyond individual, discrete services because contractually or spatially separating services risks exacerbating this tendency to fragmentation. Outsourcing/offshoring may focus too much on cost savings and insufficiently on quality. So, third, HR should argue for the distinctiveness of its activities and fight commoditization that is also implied in the creation of cross-functional shared service centers.

The arguments in this chapter could be better supported by academic research. In-depth case studies of management decision making and shared services operation would help support or challenge the chapter’s conclusion, as could quantitative evidence on the benefits/disbenefits of outsourcing/offshoring/cross-functional shared services centers.

We have highlighted a number of reported problems with HR shared services operation, besides the three principal risks noted above, but we have suggested possible solutions that could be adopted by practitioners.

HR managers may find this chapter helpful in designing new HR structures or in assessing the effectiveness of shared services that goes beyond the typical key performance indicator measures.

Present research on Concurrent Engineering (CE) mainly focusses on technological aspects like information sharing, and common communication platforms, or coordination systems such as CE-Tools like CAD, CAM, DFA or QFD. In the European context, the implementation of Concurrent Engineering certainly involves changes of organizational management and people. traditional way of work. For the success of Concurrent Engineering, organizational, managerial and human issues are very important.

This chapter presents the results of a current research project that is being carried out at the Chair and Institute of Industrial Engineering and Ergonomics of the University of Technology in Aachen, Germany. It shows the results of a study about cross functional teams in a Concurrent Engineering environment. Based on a multi-dimensional model of self directed work organization for teams in Concurrent Engineering, preconditions were generated to design and develop learning organizations which use Concurrent Engineering. Based on this team model for a learning organization in CE, requirements for soft skill qualification for team members were developed.

In the core of the Concurrent Engineering Team research, there are three levels: individual issues, team issues and organizational issues. Individual issues focus on the differences among team members that may influence the cooperation in the team (different specialization, different work departments, different values, different socializations etc.). The team level issue focusses on the internal management of a CE team (goal system, distribution of tasks, sharing of team rules, interaction style, interpersonal relations, team leadership etc.). Finally, the organizational level can be regarded as a team-external support environment for team management (management, commitment and involvement, empowerment of the team leader etc.). The individual and organizational levels influence the team level factors.

But cross functional organization effectiveness in a Concurrent Engineering environment is more than the design of teams. The implementation of Concurrent Engineering must change the whole organization. An effective organization can be based on eight principles of the Learning Organization, as pointed out by Senge or Probst. The objective for the design of this organization is to be self-organized.

To reach these principles in a CE team environment, the involved team members must be qualified to be prepared for new work in a crossfunctional organization. A soft skill qualification system for Concurrent Engineering will be presented at the end of the research project. Contents of this qualification model include communication in teams, techniques of group discussion and project management.

The wide use of self-managing teams is creating a “new division of labor” where team members are expected to learn tasks beyond their own in order to perform cross-functionally. Interviews with members of four service-oriented, mixed-sex self-managing teams revealed that while teams recognized and discussed the importance of learning each others' job tasks, barriers to fully cross-functional task sharing emerged when sex segregated occupations were brought together. Although cross-training and cross-functionality are generally seen as central to the greater efficiency and effectiveness expectations for teams, full reallocation of work tasks was impeded as men in technical professions resisted taking on less-skilled, feminized clerical and relational work. We propose that for self-managing teams to become truly cross-functional, organizations should take into account gender (as well as class) biases that can present an obstacle to task integration in teams, particularly when masculine and feminine - highskilled and low-skilled - occupations are combined.

This study investigates the role of functional area-specific managerial schemas on the attempt of strategic renewal at a large medical devices developer and manufacturer during a period of high environmental dynamism. Using data from a 16-month field study on managerial work related to the strategy process, I examine how functional area managers attempted to (re)configure organizational capabilities in response to various environmental challenges. While I did not find any disagreement between functional area managers related to what those challenges were, I did find fundamental disagreements related to what capabilities the organization can muster as a response. More specifically, disagreements surfaced in relation to how these capabilities should be assembled, and ultimately acted as triggers for the contestation of existing shared frames between functional area managers. These findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that there exist large differences between how managers within an organization interpret what the organization is capable of, and more specifically link these differences to the organization’s ability to adapt to environmental changes by showing how they impact the assembly of new capabilities deemed necessary for a successful response.

Strategy Question: How can I keep my performance goals relevant and continually driving proper action and achievement?

Summary: We have never been smart enough to know in January what will be business critical next December. Strategy also needs to adapt to a changing environment. How many times have we found our people working in December on a goal with incentive dollars attached that became obsolete in March? We suggest an alternate approach. We advocate 90-day goals to integrate key activities. A format for implementing this is discussed in the chapter. ALL managers, directors, and VPs are judged and incented on the same exact goals, ensuring both cross-functional cooperation and focus on those most critical interim activity milestones. Since our activities are already integrated and multi-functional, 90-day objectives are set at the beginning of each quarter. We have typically allocated 25% of the management and executive incentive program to 90-day goals (with the remaining 75% made up of more traditional revenue, profit and margin metrics). These quarterly MBO tasks need to be significant. In our experience, this has been the single best way to ensure leadership alignment with integrated activities to increase the probability of meeting organizational goals.