Poul Rind Christensen

University of Southern Denmark | SDU · Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management

The overall aim of this study is to explore the potential of Design Thinking to bring value to small firms through ambidexterity, which is essential to firms’ performance and survival. Specifically, we investigate how Design Thinking can benefit ambidextrous dynamics between small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers’ entrepreneurial and adm...

Previous research remains silent on the cognitive constrains for design thinking in SMEs making a living from customers on B2B markets. Through a cognitive lens, the article explores constrains for design thinking among SME top managers found in traditional trades as iron and metal workshops, plastic industry, machine makers, machine tool makers, a...

The present study offers new input to the discussion of how entrepreneurship education and training programmes can be tailored to suit design professionals. To a large extent, existing entrepreneurship teaching for creative people is based on a traditional administrative management logic that often results in a clash between entrepreneurial demands...

While recent debates in research on the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities increasingly link opportunity creation to the logic of design, they do not fully engage with the design literature. The aim of this paper is to bring closer together the two research fields of design and entrepreneurship in order to stimulate new knowledge on opportun...

Purpose Suppliers stand in the wake of a new diversified strategic momentum in the global production network, where innovation is growing in importance. The term “supplier-driven innovation” is coined in contrast to the current hype on user-driven innovation; this paper aims to discuss the wicked problems for suppliers to actively engage in custome...

In the light of increasing globalization and the rising spatial distribution of production activities, different scenarios for geographical agglomerations, such as clusters, are discussed. Nonetheless, the literature provides only scant knowledge about how cluster specialization transforms due to the globalization of production activities. The pape...

Most studies portray cluster knowledge bases as a given resource, tied to specific industries and locations. However, this paper challenges that view and uncovers their dynamic nature by identifying endogenous and exogenous triggering events that influence and change the cluster knowledge base mix over time. This is done by building on the theoreti...

Scholars and practitioners have long had two dominant perspectives on the drivers of innovation.On one hand, a supply driven perspective based on new knowledge and technology. On the other hand, a demand driven perspective based on growth in markets and demand. This anthology explores a third perspective, namely that of design. Several features lin...

This paper offers a typology for understanding design fiction as a new approach in design research. The typology allows design researchers to explain design fictions according to 5 criteria: (1) “What if scenarios” as the basic constructional principle of design fiction; (2) the manifestation of critique; (3) design aims; (4) materializations and f...

This paper offers a typology for understanding design fiction as a new approach in design research. The typology allows design researchers to explain design fictions according to 5 criteria: (1) “What if scenarios” as the basic construal principle of design fiction; (2) the manifestation of critique; (3) design aims; (4) materializations and forms;...

Inexplicable tensions and paradoxes exist between the underlying assumptions and logics of design and the related management perspectives. This paper aims to contribute to the design management literature by introducing entrepreneurship as an alternative management perspective. Entrepreneurship holds the capacity to add new valuable managerial mean...

Several features link design and innovation: They share a strong focus in terms of novelty and the creative processes associated with imagining and creating opportunities for the future. The basic rationale behind this anthology is to explore current issues in this strong and lasting nexus between innovation and design. Contributors identify and re...

Based on a literature survey of the development of concepts supplemented by a selective literature review for the years 2000 to 2010, this article aims to trace the dynamic development of the field of design management – a cross‐disciplinary research field seeking to establish itself in its own right. The framework of this research is evolutionary...

Multikulturelle virtuelle teams er en udbredt samarbejdsform i større danske virk-somheder, specielt til løsning af videns intensive og kreative opgaver. Som leder kan man umiddelbart opnå fl eksibilitet og besparelser ved brug af virtuelle teams, men desvaerre bliver disse fordele ofte spoleret af øget konfl ikt og manglende kommunikation. I dette...

In this conceptual paper we address the apparent paradox in perspective of the organizational culture theory and examine the role of design in reproducing and innovating dominant organizational cultures. ISBN nr 978-91-979541-5-0

This study investigates the influence of human capital, social capital, and cognition on nascent entrepreneurs' export intentions. The results indicate that while human capital and social capital influence the level of intended export, cognitive characteristics, such as self-efficacy and risk aversion, do not seem to influence entrepreneurs' intend...

Socialt entreprenørskab er et varmt emne i forsker-og erhvervskredse såvel som i civilsamfundet. Så varmt, at begrebet står i fare for at blive udvandet. I dette bidrag drøftes begrebets placering i krydsfeltet mellem sociale lappeløsninger og aendring i samfundets sociale ligevaegtspunkter og i krydsfeltet mellem forret-ningsbaseret og social entr...

Many firms assume that outsourcing partnerships may allow them to strengthen their overall competitiveness. Lured by its intuitive appeal, several enter into such partnerships, only to realize that they represent a marginal rather than a magical solution to their quest for increasing market performance. An important reason for this is the diverging...

Electric cars hold the potential to completely alter the interrelationship among actors in the automobile industry architecture. As such they may not only be able to alleviate environmental externalities but also revolutionise the automobile industry as such. This paper is concerned with the processes of industry creation for the electric car indus...

Hvad er en entreprenøriel mulighed? Og hvordan opstår den? Disseto spørgsmål er omdrejningspunkt for et af de centrale temaer i forskningen omentreprenørskab. I denne artikel redegøres for de danske bidrag til denne debat.Disse udgør samlet konturerne til en dansk agenda for entreprenørskabsforskning.Denne tager udgangspunkt i en antagelse om, at m...

Based on a representative sample of entrepreneurs operating at three succeeding phases of the entrepreneurial process, this study investigates if differences in social network structures can be found between export-oriented and domestic-oriented entrepreneurs. Two hypotheses are developed based on previous research into internationalisation, includ...

Purpose – The aim of the article is to explore the dynamics of the management consulting process for small firms as an outcome of interactive processes. Design/methodology/approach – The explorative study is based on a summary sketch of an interactive research project (LOS) in which small firms and their interactions with management consultants wer...

Increasingly, industrial selling and purchasing is embedded in supplier networks extending national borders. The internationalisation of supply activities adds considerable complexity to the coordination tasks performed by suppliers. Traditionally, supply chain management was upstream-oriented, focusing on the leading contractor's supply chain mana...

MNCs and regional innovation systems differ widely in their knowledge generation and dissemination processes. We propose these differences provide systematic challenges for MNC units tapping into locally vested skills, combining their findings with existing knowledge and disseminating this internally. Our aim is to develop a framework for conceptua...

Based on a study of a regional stainless steel cluster in Denmark, the pressure for transformation in SME suppliers is analysed.

The interdependent forces of global competition and technological development have fundamentally changed the way in which firms define the boundaries of their own activities and those that are left to subcontractors. Joint skill development and inter-partner learning have become important in the global sourcing policies of firms. The purpose of the...

Launch of Novo Pen; search of suppliers for needle

The use of subcontractors in manufacturing industry is changing. As larger shares of value added are subcontracted, the strategic interplay between large contractors and their subcontractors is changing as well. Based on Danish evidence, a new typology of subcontractors is developed. In order to transcend the dyadic perspective of the interaction b...

There has been a revival of studies of small businesses and entrepreneurship during the 1980’s. Studies in several countries have claimed that the number of new firm start-ups has risen, and that the importance of the small firm sector as a creator of new employment has increased (Birch, 1979; Ettinger and Weereld, 1988; Keeble et al., 1990). Accor...

Government programmes to promote SME manufacturer' export expansion are flourishing. Yet, the many facets of SMEs' process of internationalization are not explained satisfactory by normative theories of the internationalization of firms. SME exporters are often in a squeezed situation hardly reflected by normative theories on the internationalizati...

The purpose of this contribution is to develop a framework for understanding the divergences in expectations and relationship norms in cross-cultural business relationships among SMEs. We ground our efforts in comparative institutional theory and establish a framework of five dimensions from the B2B literature for addressing these divergences. We t...

Resumé Denne artikel har til formål at kaste lys over den rolle, medarbejderne spiller for den innovative aktivitet i den offentlige sektor, hvad vi har valgt at kalde medarbejderdreven innovation. Artiklen er baseret på et etnografi sk feltstudie i Århus Kommune, naermere bestemt den nye afdeling for Borgerservice. I feltstudiet følges det sam-spi...

SMEs face particular difficulties in allocating the necessary managerial attention toward the development of international activities. For governments, this calls for the encouragement of SMEs to explore new business possibilities outside the home market. Therefore, government-initiated or supported internationalisation promotion schemes (IPS) to s...