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Traditionally, in the Netherlands, the procurement procedure for infrastructure does not start until the public decision-making procedure is fully completed. In the new procurement strategy, early contractor involvement is applied by carrying out the procurement procedure and the public planning procedure simultaneously. This article explores the first experiences and lessons learned with early contractor involvement in four Dutch infrastructure projects. It can be concluded that the new strategy adds value in terms of time gains, improved project control and more innovative solutions. However, to optimize early contractor involvement, the differences between the competitive procurement procedures and the open, cooperative public planning procedures need to be bridged.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the key practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. Practitioners’ level of involvement is a major factor that has and continues to determine the delivery of sustainability outcomes of regeneration projects.

The paper adopted a qualitative study that obtained data from 21 key practitioners through semi-structured interviews in exploring practitioners’ level of involvement in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. The semi-structured interviews are conducted with seven practitioners, each from the three construction organisations selected through a purposive sampling approach for the study.

The findings identify varied levels of involvement of the key practitioners at the three delivery stages – early, construction and post-construction of the projects. The findings further reveal that clients’ representatives, commercial managers and architects are the most frequently involved practitioners during the early stages of the projects. The findings also indicate that practitioners who have sustainability assigned to their roles and their responsibilities, such as sustainability managers, are the least involved in all the three delivery stages of the projects.

The study involves interview with 21 practitioners from three organisations delivering sustainable regeneration projects; hence, this could limit the generalisation of the research findings. However, the findings of this study could serve as a useful source of information for the further study in this area.

The paper is of the view that the level of key practitioners’ involvement in the delivery of the projects will have an impact on their knowledge and will determine how sustainability benefits are promoted and delivered from the projects.

Although some studies have been carried out on practitioners’ engagement in the delivery of “normal” construction projects, none has focussed on practitioners’ levels of involvement in sustainable regeneration projects. Hence, this study has brought to the fore how the key practitioners tasked with the responsibilities of delivering sustainability benefits of regeneration projects have been involved (at various levels of the project life cycle) in the delivery of these projects.

This chapter reviews conceptualizations of parent involvement and family engagement as they aim to support children’s learning and development and introduces the reader to relational family engagement, a new approach to engaging families in their children’s early learning. Relational family engagement is discussed as central to effectively engaging culturally and linguistically diverse families as active contributors to their children’s lifelong success as learners. The authors delineate three principles fundamental to relational family engagement, supported by an interdisciplinary review of research. Reflective practice is explored as a pathway to relational family engagement. The authors assert that the integration of reflective practice holds promise as a way to facilitate and deepen relationships among staff in early childhood programs, between the early childhood education program staff and families, and between families and children, such that children’s early learning experiences are enhanced across both home and preschool contexts while drawing upon their families’ cultural and linguistic assets.

Early contractor involvement (ECI) faces many barriers when it is implemented in public procurement, given that it is different from traditional business practices. Primarily, public owners face a major challenge, as they should treat all bidders equally. The purpose of this paper is to explore suitable ECI approaches that public owners could use.

In addition to a literature and document study, 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews with key personnel from 11 cases selected from Norwegian public bridge projects were carried out.

In all, 23 unique approaches of ECI were identified during this research (16 from literature and 7 new from case projects). The findings provide a new direction to ECI through introducing new approaches of ECI from the case projects.

This paper for the first time presents several alternatives of ECI approaches for public owners with the intention of illustrating ECI is actually possible in the public project procurement. Furthermore, it presents for the first time success factors of ECI with the intention of increasing the understanding of ECI concept from a public procurement perspective.

This paper aims to gain insight in how the involvement of facilities management (FM) and clinical employees are practiced in new Norwegian hospital projects and to study the benefits and lessons learned from the involvement.

This study is conducted by cross-sectional case studies of eight hospital projects by using a literature review, interviews and document studies of FM and clinical employees and project leaders (PLs) among Sykehusbygg.

The service design approach with a structured interaction between the PL’s of Sykehusbygg, and the different disciplines of clinical employees and FM specialist was rewarding and efficient. The facilitator role of Sykehusbygg is essential to manage such a broad and complex involvement process using a wide range of various techniques at the different stages of the projects (dialogue meetings, review meetings, workshops, post-it notes, 2-D drawings, mock-up and 3-D models, as well as virtual reality (VR) and Building Information Modeling technology). The clinical employees’ framework is stronger and much more structured than the involvement of FM competences through the different stages of the projects. The property management competences were involved at the early concept phase and design phase, whereas the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) competences were getting involved through the construction and commissioning phase. The value of FM involvement in all stages of the project is seen beneficial, particularly when the FM specialist become a part of the design team and located physically at the same place. The main reported benefits of early FM involvement are cost-effective technical solutions and installations, less design flaws and improved functionality, as well as a stronger ownership and mutual respect between the clinical and FM disciplines. However, not all hospital organizations see the benefits of the FM involvement of all stages, as they are driven by reducing capital cost. In one of the new projects, other ways of involving the FM competences were tested. Additionally, particularly for the O&M competences, a dialogue meeting with a clear focus of sharing experiences with different technical solution was found rewarding in terms of cost benefits.

This study does not consider the social impact of the choices made in the design phase. The findings also indicated a certain development of the FM involvement. This is not studied in two of the newest projects where they are still in the design phase and the FM role was not interviewed.

The PL role is important as a facilitator role of the involvement process.

A dialogue meeting with a group of O&M people was found rewarding and valuable for knowledge sharing. This methodology can be further developed and tested, as this group of stakeholders is not always available for giving input in the project.

The value of this study is the description of the interaction between the PLs and the hospital organization in the eight projects and lessons learned by the involvement of FM competences and clinical employees.

Being innovative and bringing new products to the market fast is important for firms to stay competitive. Customers are important for providing input to product developments in industrial markets. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of how firms use Voice of the Customer (VoC) in product development and how VoC can complement other customer involvement methods.

The paper is based on a qualitative case study of a global leading and innovative firm, a maker of tools for the automotive industry. The study provides detailed insight into the implementation of VoC for product development.

The process of customer involvement in product development through VoC is explored. The study shows that by using the VoC method, firms can gather knowledge for input to product development projects while developing relationships with a larger number of customers. The findings point out that VoC can be modified to focus on customer needs related to product development as well as marketing efforts requiring cross-functional collaboration. The VoC method is suitable for combining with other customer involvement methods such as project involvement and pilot testing. Through VoC, firms have the chance to benchmark across industries and regions.

The paper provides insights into the VoC process of customer involvement aimed at product development. The case study provides an illustration of how an industrial firm uses VoC in product development. The paper points out the importance of managing external (customer) involvement in product development and internal (cross-functional) collaborations.

A set of questions that firms can ask themselves before embarking on customer involvement has been developed. The paper shows that customers can be involved at a number of points in time, have a wide range of roles and contribute different knowledge. VoC is suitable for combining with other customer involvement methods.

The contribution of the paper consists of a case study illustrating how customer involvement in product development can be achieved through VoC. A number of customer involvement methods for product development are discussed for combining with VoC, showing how different methods are complementary in product development.

The purpose of this paper is to garner multiple perspectives from cross‐functional new product development (NPD) team members and determine point of contact in and responsibilities throughout the development process.

The use of an integrative literature review and in‐depth interviews were two qualitative approaches to data collection in the study of cross‐functional NPD. A convenience sample initiated research efforts, then snowball sampling facilitated the completion of semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interviews among 94 team members in 11 firms. The literature review culled research from fields as distinct as communication, industrial design, and research and development. The in‐depth, semi‐structured design provided the permitted open‐ended investigation and some unplanned questions. Face‐to‐face questioning allowed for the reading of facial expressions, other forms of body language, and the free pursuit of interesting subtopics. The study design utilized a 19‐question, one‐page interview guide. Bi‐directional dialogue lasted 45 min to 1½ h.

Exploratory results revealed the importance of pre‐project meetings and the use of a formal process in securing cross‐functional involvement during product development. Qualitative findings uncovered that involvement depended on team understanding of the NPD process, an understanding of requisite roles and responsibilities, and the task required at various stages throughout the NPD process. Variances were noted between business‐to‐business and business‐to‐consumer teams.

This research obtained the perspectives of 20 teams from seven departments, and thereby permitted a more expansive and comprehensive understanding of cross‐functional NPD. Previous research incorporated responses from three departments at best. This research underscores the importance of early involvement among highly interdependent, cross‐functional team members as a prerequisite to enhanced understanding of project particulars and team dynamics. The resource‐based theory of competitive advantage and human capital theories accentuate the importance of a wide range of functional representation during the innovation process. The importance of pre‐project meetings and a formal product development process were detailed as well as supporting team member roles and responsibilities.

Each year, the US defense industry outsources nearly $400 bn of domestic goods and services through competitive bids. These procurement activities are quite often complex and specialized in nature because of a highly regulated federal acquisition contracting environment. Ongoing calls to improve supplier management and drive innovation in the defense industry offers an opportunity to adopt Early Supplier Integration (ESI) initiatives that have proven successful in the private sector. This paper identifies critical ESI activities and acquisition practices that the defense industry should adopt to ensure enhanced effectiveness in new product development.

Leveraging a conceptual ESI model derived from the research, an in-depth case study of 12 product development projects from a major defense contractor was performed. In the context of project performance, critical ESI activities and moderating effects were assessed.

Three key ESI activities have the greatest impact on aggregate project performance: system design involvement, design adjustment opportunities and design for manufacturability/assembly/testability involvement. Use of formal supplier agreements also significantly impacts project performance during the development phase. In addition, project complexity and product team maturity were identified as environment moderators; higher complexity projects tended to negatively moderate the impact of ESI upon performance, and higher team maturity levels tended to positively moderate the impact of ESI upon performance.

The results provide a sound framework for empirical validation through future quantitative studies and defense industry analyses. In addition, insights and recommendations for interpretation and adaptation of federal acquisition regulations to allow increased utilization of ESI within the defense industry are substantiated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what kind of supplier relationship management activities can be seen as value-creating activities and how those might affect the buyer’s dependence on its suppliers. Power and dependence provide specific insights into the supplier relationship management and value creation in supply chains.

The study utilizes a survey data with 165 cases collected in Finland. The concepts are tested by means of regression analysis.

The findings of the study indicate that the value-creating activities of inter-firm learning and early supplier involvement increase buyer’s dependence, but a supplier orientation does not have similar effects.

The results have implications for supply chain managers and practitioners in terms of shedding light on the approaches of dependence and value creation at the same time. Managers need to understand the factors that create dependence, but which also have a substantial influence on value creation in supply chains and networks.

The literature review reveals that the supply chain situations in which the supplier is strategically important and its role in the value-creation process is significant, and when the buyer is dependent on the supplier, have rarely been discussed. Moreover, by focusing on the supplier relationship management activities that can be seen as value-creating activities and by combining this to the dependence perspective, this study aims to narrow the research gap identified from the previous research.

The purpose of this paper is to show how modularity manifests in a service context, more specifically in the provision of care and services to independently living elderly.

Four case studies provide insight into the specification of relevant components and their subsequent assembly into a customized package of care and services.

In all cases, component specification and package construction take place in two phases: partly before and partly during care delivery. Early client involvement allows for a combination of standard components that have a lower level of customization, whereas late client involvement allows for adaptation of these components resulting in a higher level of customization. The paper proposes that modularity theory should distinguish between the creation of modular offerings in care provision versus their creation in goods production, since the findings are the exact reverse of the state‐of‐the art knowledge in manufacturing modularity.

The empirical part of this paper is limited to providers of elderly care and services in The Netherlands and is exploratory in nature. However, the newness of care and service modularity justifies the exploratory research approach.

This paper offers elderly care organizations in‐depth understanding of their complex and multi‐faceted specification process. The insights help both care and service providers to make well‐considered decisions as to what level of client involvement to allow and the type of modularity to apply.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on service modularity.