As a consequence of the demographic change, the workforce is aging and shrinking at the same time. Based on the resource-based view of the firm, we discuss implications for innovation and human resource management in SMEs. A review of the literature and empirical studies show that a shortage of...

The aim of this paper is to describe front-end activities in practice and get first hints for effects of the front end on project outcome and the meaning of contextual factors. The results of an exploratory study of fourteen product development projects are contrary to the wide-spread opinion...

In this paper, we report on the results of a large-scale study about typical front-end-related innovation practices in 553 Japanese mechanical and electrical engineering companies. We explore typical activities concerning the generation and assessment of new product ideas, the reduction of...

In a study of New Product Development (NPD) projects, the fuzzy front end ofinnovation is explored. The New Product Development process is a multistageprocess. Therefore, the study examines two sorts of impact that the fuzzy front endhas on the success of New Product Development: a direct impact...

In this paper, we are going to report on the results of an exploratory pieceof research about the typical front-end-related activities in 28 innovation projectscarried out by 14 German and 13 Japanese companies to reduce project uncertainty. Inall cases we observed a range of activities to...

The aim of this paper is to describe front-end activities in practice and get first hints for effects of the front end on project outcome and the meaning of contextual factors.The results of an exploratory study of fourteen product development projects are contrary to the wide-spread opinion...