1. Positioning research to audiences
Sampsa Hyysalo 30 nov 2011

2. Positioning: Audience(s)
Who is your desired audience?
Proxy 1: what journal might publish this?
Proxy 2: who would you like to read this?
Proxy 3: where do you want to be located?
What does this/these audience expect
Familiarity/acceptability of: Theories, methods, q & q of data, level of analysis, insight to practice…
What does this/these audiences take for granted on top of research? (basic knowledge of IT? Org? design? Society? Theories/philosophy x, y, z)
What is novelty for this/these audiences?
Adding to audiences line of research (findings, method, theory item)
Disproving some of its key idea (constructively or “debunking”)
Showing by research what “all already knows” is not done before
Introducing an idea or framework not known to field (cf. unfamiliarity)

3. Positioning: compatibility
All new is not news, its somebody else’s business
60/20/20 even 80/10/5/implications
don’t be fooled by the landmark pieces that are often 40/20/40
Add-mix is unlikely to work outside phased additive methods
What to look for
Background paradigm/philosophy/ontology compatibility (Cross, Heidegger and ethnometholodogy: NO!) 
Background/theory/method/data compatibility
Research area /your part of it/ your theory, your methods, your data / their data compatibility
Quantitative / Qualitative /Design reflection mismatch
If you can go for a “theory methods package” e.g. pragmatism/symbolic interactinism/Goffman or interaction analysis
Multidisciplinary fields give you more latitude, but make it harder too

4. Positioning: explicit and implicit
Explicit: statements onto what and how is the piece positioned re previous research and practice: intro, lit review, discussion, conclusions, implications
Explicit: other addressing of audience and use of lit
Implicit: choice of quality & quantity of data, methods, theory
Implicit: what is lifted up as significant from the data and findings, what left to support the claim, what is omitted
Implicit: stucture, other compatibility and preference issues, writing style …

5. Tea Lempiälä Entering the Back Stage of Innovation:
Tensions between the Collaborative Praxis of Idea Development and its Formal Staging in Organisations

6. Innovation Research Practice Research Front-End of Innovation
Organizational Innovativeness
The Praxis of Idea Development
Work practice
Front-End of Innovation

7. SOCIETY / NETWORKS Innovation Research ORGANIZATION/ GROUP INDIVIDUAL
Creativity Research
Innovation Research
Work practice, Front End & Innovativeness
The level of analysis of this research

8. Three research traditions
What do they stress in regards to idea development in the early stages of R&D

9. Commonalities Practice perspective Front-end Innovative behavior
Searching for opportunities
Gathering information
Gathering needed resources
Linking technological and customer knowledge
Informal social interaction through personal networks
Interacting across functional boundaries
Experimenting with ideas
Iterative activity
Repurposing current solutions
Defining the limits of ideas
Selecting ideas
Creating a convincing concept
Help seeking and help giving
Reflective reframing, mindful action
Storytelling, narrating
Knowledge creation as a collective effort
Justifying and legitimizing
Generating ideas
Evaluating ideas
Categorizing opportunities
Combining ideas
Risk taking
Implementing ideas
Working with objects
Practice perspective
Front-end
Innovative behavior
Building coalitions
Hiding ideas

10. Facilitating conditions in the three research traditions

11. Formal process for idea management Practice perspective
Commonalities
Participative leadership
Strategic priority for innovation
Sufficient resources for innovation
Shared strategic vision
Understanding of current capabilities
Encouraging cross-functional collaboration and teams
Meetings around problems or ideas
Formal process for idea management
Articulated roles and responsibilities
Clear decision-making criteria
Efficient decision-making processes
A formal front-end team
Ideation techniques
Accountability policies reinforcing collaboration
Integrative structures which connect rather than separate people – horizontally and vertically
Systems for following through ideas
Good project management
Innovative organizational culture
Performance orientation
Recognition of innovation efforts
Challenging work tasks and sufficient pressure
Risk-taking ability
Linking individuals to problems
Practice perspective
Front-end
Innovative Behavior
Flexible pro-
cesses
Creating customer knowledge
De-centralized structure

12. Inhibiting conditions in the three research traditions

13. Processes don’t match actual practice
Commonalities
Lack of an explicit, shared process
Unclear roles and responsibilities
No consistent screening procedure
Inadequate product definition
Lack of management involvement
Committing serious funding too soon
Not having a balanced idea portfolio
Lacking ability to execute ideas
Lack of customer understanding
Devaluating actual practice
Reducing practice to simplistic guidelines
Treating surprises as failures
Not having deep understanding of one’s employees and their capabilities
Too tight and formalized job descriptions
Practice perspective
Front-end
Innovative behavior
Bureaucratic, segmented organization
Processes don’t match actual practice
Introducing too tight criteria and objectives too soon
Lack of horizontal and vertical communication
Lack of resources
Unclear strategy and goals

14. Organizational Enablers
Idea Development Praxis
Participative leadership
Strategic priority for innovation
Resource allocation for innovative efforts
Shared strategic vision
Creating understanding of current capabilities
Encouraging cross-functional collaboration and teams
Ideation or problem-solving meetings
Searching for opportunities
Gathering information
Linking technological and customer knowledge
Interacting across functional boundaries
Generating ideas
Evaluating ideas
Working with objects
Experimenting and prototyping
Gathering needed resources
Informal social interaction
Utilizing personal networks
Hiding ideas if necessary
Iterative activity
Organizational Inhibitors
Processes don’t match actual practice
Introducing too tight criteria and objectives too soon
Lack of horizontal and vertical integration
Bureaucratic organization
Lack of resources
Unclear strategy and goals
* Note: Notable differences between perspectives

15. What was done here? Three research areas to which positioned to!
Other literature secondary : original concepts and their widely different assumptions relevant only by the way they’ve been brought to these areas
Helps spell out that all these three taken seriously (even as sympathy lies with practice perspective, it cannot be said to bias the discussion)
Helps fringe more micro and macro perspective as irrelevant here
Helps framing the temporal scale / processual part now focused on
Provides something useful for many people in these audiences beyond the fairly few to whom “front-stage/backstage” main claim of the thesis and its other 4-7 key findings are useful or important.