Assessing ecological risk in watersheds: A case study of problem formulation in the Big Darby Creek watershed, Ohio, USA

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 1082-1096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Cormier ◽  
Marc Smith ◽  
Sue Norton ◽  
Tim Neiheisel
Author(s):  
Martin W. Wallin ◽  
Georg von Krogh ◽  
Jan Henrik Sieg

Crowdsourcing in the form of innovation contests stimulates knowledge creation external to the firm by distributing technical, innovation-related problems to external solvers and by proposing a fixed monetary reward for solutions. While prior work demonstrates that innovation contests can generate solutions of value to the firm, little is known about how problems are formulated for such contests. We investigate problem formulation in a multiple exploratory case study of seven firms and inductively develop a theoretical framework that explains the mechanisms of formulating sharable problems for innovation contests. The chapter contributes to the literatures on crowdsourcing and open innovation by providing a rare account of the intra-organizational implications of engaging in innovation contests and by providing initial clues to problem formulation—a critical antecedent to firms’ ability to leverage external sources of innovation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2991-3000
Author(s):  
Frank Koppenhagen ◽  
Tim Blümel ◽  
Tobias Held ◽  
Christoph Wecht ◽  
Paul Davin Kollmer

AbstractCombining agility and convergence in the development of physical products is a major challenge. Rooted in a design thinking approach, Stanford's ME310 process model attempts to resolve the conflicting priorities of these two design principles. To investigate how successful Stanford's hybrid process model is in doing so, we have used a qualitative case study approach. Our paper begins by outlining this process model's fundamental principles in terms of engineering design methodology. Subsequently, we present the results of our empirical analysis, which tracks the coevolution of problem and solution space by meticulously examining all prototype paths in ten of Stanford's ME310 student projects. We have discovered that convergence during solution finding does not correspond to the process model's theoretical specifications. Even in the phase of the final prototype, both the technical concept and the underlying problem formulation changed frequently. Further research should focus on combining the prototype-based ME310 approach with methods from systems engineering which allow for a more comprehensive theoretical exploration of the solution space. This could lead to improved convergence during solution development.


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