FFE and management within Interorganizational project teams

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Method

The third chapter provides an explanation of the adapted research approach for this study, how the study was designed, as well as the different methods used during the process. This section also concerns the important issues of how trustworthiness was established and what ethical considerations there might be within our study.
The first parts of this report’s method chapter have been inspired by the Four ring model (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Jackson, 2015). The Four ring model represents the connection and relationship between ontology, epistemology, methodology and methods and techniques,
The inner layer, ontology, represents the nature of reality and existence. The second layer, epistemology, includes identifying the best way to enquire into the nature of the world. The first two layers of the Four ring model (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015) have been integrated into the research approach within this study, see section 3.1 Research Approach. The third layer, methodology, includes the research technique which has been used within this study to extract information regarding a specific situation, the FFE. The third layer of the model is mostly described in section 3.2 Research Design. The fourth and last layer within the model, methods and techniques, includes a combination of means used to obtain and analyze information. The content of the fourth layer is mostly described within section 3.3 Research Methods.

Research Approach

The FFE is a complex and difficult phenomenon. The name “Fuzzy” implies itself that the phenomenon is difficult to fathom. This can be due to the lack of research and studies conducted within the subject. We believe that the uncertainty within the FFE can be reduced with the help of more research to generate a greater understanding of the phenomenon. In order to reduce the “fuzziness” and provide more clarity and structure to the front end of the NPD process, more information regarding the origin of the process must be reviewed.
This includes gaining a greater understanding of why and when difficulties within the FFE occur, as well as identifying the factors and components that are involved.
Ontology is defined as the views about the nature of reality, i.e. what philosophical assumptions that are held by the researchers (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). According to Easterby-Smith et al. (2015) one person’s truth may or may not be shared by other individuals, and the facts presented are not independent on the individual viewpoint of the observer. This is to say, the gathered and presented empirical data within this study is very much dependent on the individual’s perception, which is relative i.e. there can be multiple truths. However, the participants, interviewees, within this study have ample amounts of experience managing the FFE of the NPD process. These experiences have been dissected and evaluated in order to identify relevant patterns and similarities between behaviors, patterns of actions, and psychological as well as social traits. Due to the experience possessed by the participants, the study is able to reduce the uncertainty regarding management within the FFE.
This study has assumed that a phenomenon is the result of occurring events, behaviors, and interactions between people. In order to increase the understanding to why this phenomenon has occurred, the study has investigated further into these events. We believe that the events of interest within the FFE of the NPD process have occurred because of it being socially constructed. This is in line to what is defined as a constructionist perspective by Burr (referred to in Braun & Clarke, 2006), that rather than inhering within individuals, meaning and experiences are created and recreated socially. Social construction, also known as constructivism, stems from the view that individuals build their own personal perceptions of their reality from human communication. Hence, the adopted epistemological framework for this study is social constructionism. The FFE within the NPD process is a complex phenomenon. Therefore, we believe that the FFE cannot be described nor explained with only one truth or solution on how to perfectly execute it. An approach where multiple aspects of the FFE and its context were investigated needed to be adopted in order to gain a greater understanding of the phenomenon and what it entails.
The purpose of this study is to explore and identify patterns within management and how leaders tackle time pressure within the early stages of product development, the FFE. As previously stated within the background of this report, 1.1.5 Time Management, uncertainty is high and time is scarce within the early stages of the product development process. Qualitative methods have been implemented in order to gain a greater understating of the tasks and activities management have implemented within the FFE to reduce and save time. One of the largest benefits of implementing qualitative methods during the initial stages of investigation is the boost in peripheral vision (Sofaer, 1999). This is of utmost importance in order to integrate and include all aspects within the topic, the FFE.
According to the theoretical frame of reference, 2 Theoretical frame of reference, the phenomenon of time management within the FFE needs further investigation and explanation. Previous information and research regarding the topic points in multiple directions and lacks structure in the form a unanimous conclusion. Therefore, qualitative methods have been used to assist the identification of patterns and configurations amongst numerous variables. This process aids studies whilst trying to identify meaningful explanations of a phenomenon (Sofaer, 1999).

Research Design

The purpose of describing the research design is to provide a description of the various components of the research project (Myers, 2013). It should present what philosophical assumptions that are made, the adapted research method, data collection techniques, data analysis approach, how the material will be presented, along with how the findings are planned to be published (Myers, 2013).
Our adopted research design is summarized in a flow-chart, see Figure 3-2, representing the progress of the study, according to the model presented by Myers (2013). Looking at Figure 3-2 the flow of it is bottom-up and starts with the philosophical assumptions that were made and discussed in 3.1 Research Approach. It is then followed by the chosen research techniques, which will be presented in this section, along with the adopted data collection- and analysis strategies that are further discussed in 3.3 Research Methods.
When choosing the appropriate research techniques, we started off with analysing the purpose of this thesis. Since this study’s purpose, as described in section 1.3 Purpose, is to explore and gain a greater understanding of leadership and management within the early phases of the NPD, i.e. the FFE, the focus lies within the effects of leadership traits and skills, as well as effects of time pressure. To gain a greater understanding of the contexts’ both the social as well as organizational circumstances needs to be investigated. When a study is of the nature as ours, Yin (2014) argues that case studies are useful, as it is favourable when trying to contribute to a greater understanding of different contexts.
Furthermore, looking at the research questions they all start with “how”. This indicates that the primary aim with this study is to contribute to knowledge by explaining certain events and concepts in their contexts. Generally, when a study aims to answer “how”-questions, case studies are the most suitable research design (Yin, 2014).
Whilst trying to shed light on management within such an uncertain phase of the NPD, it is of utmost importance that the conclusions drawn from the findings are generalizable. Therefore, it was important to gain insight into several cases and conduct a multiple case study. Conducting a multiple case study has several benefits compared to single case studies as they are considered to be more convincing and therefore more robust (Yin, 2014). Due to the aforementioned arguments about multiple case studies and the fit with the purpose of this study, it was adopted as the research technique for this thesis.

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Research Methods

The research methods chapter within this report represents the third layer within the Four ring model (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). As stated in section 3 Method, methodology includes a number of techniques and methods that have been used to obtain and acquire information for a specific situation. The methods and techniques within this study have been intended to obtain as much relevant information as possible regrading management difficulties within the FFE of the NPD process.

Development of interview questions

Before venturing into conducting the interviews it was important to address a few issues. Firstly, the level of interview structure needed to be decided upon, as well as how the different problems within the thesis topic should be addressed to benefit the study the most.
An interview study can have different levels of structure, ranging from unstructured to highly structured (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). In-between these extremes of structures lie the semi-structured form of interviews. The latter mentioned type of interview was used during this study. These types of guided open interviews allow the researchers to make sure that all topics are covered while still having the ability to investigate further into matters or interesting topics that arise during the interviews (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). While conducting a semi-structured interview it is recommended to construct a topic guide with opening questions, questions regarding key topics, and then closing questions (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). The topic guide within this study was constructed accordingly, with opening questions acting as “ice-breakers”, easing in on the subject to get the conversation going. These opening questions were then followed by questions around our key topics such as FFE within the NPD process, leadership and management, as well as time management. These key topics for example addressed views on effective leadership and/or management techniques and challenges within the FFE. At the end of the topic guide, closing questions about if they think that we missed something important or if they have anything they would like to add were included. Then to make sure that the respondents knew that we appreciated their contribution to our study, notes about thanking them for participating and for taking their time by talking/meeting us were added at the end of the guide. The interview topic guide created for this study can be seen in Appendix A.
The argumentation to why we used open questions within this study is fourfold. Firstly, open questions were used to make sure that the respondent simply could not answer yes or no to our questions. We wanted to “dig” deeper than that and understand why events occur and the characteristics of them, as well as how they are tackled/not tackled. Secondly, open questions are used as a means for the researcher to avoid becoming bias since it can avoid that the researchers own frame of reference is inflicted onto the respondent (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). The third reason is that the degree of confidentiality usually is higher since the responses the respondents’ give are more likely to be more personal in nature (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). The last argument for the use of open questions within this study was that it enables the identification of non-verbal communication that can be used as means to develop secondary questions (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015). These non-verbal communications can be in the form of facial expressions or inflections of the voice (Easterby-Smith et al., 2015).

Table of Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem
1.3 Purpose
2 Theoretical frame of reference
2.1 The Fuzzy Front End
2.3 Management and innovation within the FFE
2.4 FFE and management within Interorganizational project teams
2.5 Research model and questions
3 Method
3.1 Research Approach
3.2 Research Design
3.3 Research Methods
3.4 Trustworthiness
3.5 Ethical considerations
4 Results
4.1 Theme no.1 – The FFE process
4.2 Theme no.2 – Time Management
4.3 Theme no.3 – Leadership techniques
5 Analysis
5.1 Theme no.1- Leadership
5.2 Theme no.2 – Process
5.3 Theme no.3 – Project scope
5.4 Theme no.4 – Concept Development
5.5 Theme no.5 – Time
5.6 Conclusions
6 Discussion
6.1 Relevance and validation of the study
6.2 Managerial implications
6.3 Limitations
6.4 Future research
References