Executive Champion Research Articles

Developing Corporate Intrapreneurs

This article discusses a course in corporate intrapreneuring taught to students from large companies. The success of the course was amazing, with start-up funding of from $60K to over $1000K approved for 19 of the 33 business ventures developed at the conclusion of the 14-week course. Key criteria used by executive champions working with the venture teams, in deciding whether to grant start-up funds, were corporate strategic fit, market attractiveness to the company, the teams' understanding of the market and the product, the teams' persistence and passion, and the material impact of the project on corporate performance. Key obstacles to project success were lack of a comprehensive business plan, working with an executive champion who was unable to influence the funding decision, and working in an unfavorable corporate environment.

Effective Management of Museums in the 1990s

ABSTRACTA survey of thirty‐three museums of various kinds in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States sought to identify the features distinguishing the more effective organizations as assessed by independent experts. Staff at each museum responded to a questionnaire about features common to all organizations as well as some particular to museums. Teamwork, a concern for quality, and an emphasis on public programming are common to effective museums. Executive leadership champions a vision, models appropriate behavior, and works together effectively. Board members use their skills and knowledge to advance the organization's mission. There is a concern for quality, shared goals, good communication, respect for the contribution of others, attention to training, strategic allocation of resources, and an integrated, flexible, and responsive structure. Public programming emphasizes strategic approaches to achieving positive outcomes for visitors, including provision of a variety of learning strategies.

Managing the new product development process: Strategic imperatives

Executive Overview For many industries, new product development is now the single most important factor driving firm success or failure. The emphasis on new products has spurred researchers from strategic management, engineering, marketing, and other disciplines to study the new product development process. Most conclude that in order to be successful at new product development, a firm must simultaneously meet two critical objectives: maximizing the fit with customer needs, and minimizing time to market. While these objectives often pose conflicting demands on the firm, there is a growing body of evidence that the firm may employ strategies to successfully meet these objectives. Successful firms are those that articulate their strategic intent and map their R&D portfolio to find a fit between their new product development goals and their current resources and competencies. Their success also rests on how well the technology areas they enter contribute to the long term direction of the firm by helping them build new core capabilities critical to the firm's long term goals. Strategic alliances to obtain enabling technologies may shorten the development process, but partners must be chosen and monitored carefully. When firms are choosing technologies to acquire externally, they must assess the importance of the learning that would be accrued through internal development of the project, and its impact on the firm's future success. Other imperatives include using a parallel (rather than sequential) development process to both reduce cycle time and to better incorporate customer and supplier requirements in the product and process design, and using executive champions to ensure that projects gain the resources and organizational commitment necessary to their completion. Development teams should include people from a diverse range of functions and should include suppliers and customers to improve the project's chances of maximizing the fit with customer requirements while reducing cycle time and potentially reducing costs. Tools such as Stage-Gate processes. Quality Function Deployment, Design for Manufacturing, and Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing may be useful on different projects.

The birth and growth of toshiba's laptop and notebook computers: A case study in Japanese corporate venturing

The birth and growth of toshiba's laptop and notebook computers: A case study in Japanese corporate venturing

Product Champions in Government Agencies

Innovation can bring productive change to the way business is done—a concept not easily accepted by government agencies. Barriers combine to stifle innovation and include the difficulty in providing services and programs to customers with competing interests, the leadership void created with recurrent turnover in top management, an emphasis on risk avoidance, and a focus on internal processes. Product champions are individuals who are committed, dedicated, willing, and able to take an innovation and carry it through the barriers that exist with the bureaucracy of government agencies. Only through active participation of product champions at all levels of the organization can productive innovation take place: top managers as the chief executive product champions, midlevel managers as the business innovation product champions, and employees at all levels as the technical innovation product champions.

Planning for Entrepreneurial Innovation: Field Studies in USA, France, Mexico, and Lessons Learned

Technological innovation and entrepreneurship can promote regional economic development through the creation of new business ventures. The main critical factor of success is the presence of an infrastructure for entrepreneurial innovation, including New Business Incubators and Technology Parks. The paper discusses the basic elements of the infrastructure and how they can be planned and implemented. An illustrative example is the case history of work done in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The lessons learned from this project and similar projects in the USA and France are summarized and emphasis is given to the key role of an executive champion.

Creating the technopolis: High-technology development in Austin, Texas

New institutional alliances, driven by the rapid increase in and diversity of new technologies, are altering the strategy and tactics of economic development. As a result, communities across the world are seeking to create modern technopoleis or city-states that interactively link technology commercialization with public and private sectors to spur economic growth and diversification through high-technology company development. This paper develops the conceptual framework of a technopolis wheel from studying the dynamics of high-technology development and economic growth in Austin, Texas. It describes seven segments within the technopolis: the university, large technology companies, small technology companies, federal government, state government, local government and support groups. Empirical data, based on surveys, interviews, and archival sources, are presented to assess the role and impact of each segment on the emerging Austin technopolis. Analysis of this data demonstrates the role of the research university on spin-out company formation, the direct and indirect impacts of federal, state, and local government, the evolution of high-technology companies over time with a focus on major company relocations or foundings, and the establishment of indigenous high-technology companies. A case study of Tracor, Inc., the only home-grown, Fortune 500 company headquartered in Austin, demonstrates some of the key factors at work in the technopolis wheel. The paper points to new institutional relationships among the segments of the technopolis wheel. It emphasizes the role of influencers who provide leadership in each segment while networking the different segments to form new institutional alliances. Key findings of the study include the pivotal role of the research university, the need for continuity in governmental policies, the catalytic role of large technology companies, the importance of indigenous company development, and the need for consensus for the sustained development of the technopolis. Three important themes emerge in technopolis development, not only in the United States but also in Europe and Asia: the need for a coordinated approach to high-technology company development, the presence of a high-quality research university, and the importance of a network of influencers or “executive champions.” By focusing on the interaction among the seven segments of the technopolis wheel, we provide a conceptual framework for assessing the relative importance of government, academic, business, and public sectors in the high-technology economic development of a region.