Christoph Stockstrom – författare

What Makes this Book Unique? No crystal ball is required to safely predict, that in the future – even more than in the past – mastered innovativeness will be a primary criterion distinguishing s- cessful from unsuccessful companies. At the latest since Michael Porter’s study on the competitiveness of nations, the same criterion holds even for the evaluation of entire countries and national economies. Despite the innumerable number of p- lications and recommendations on innovation, competitive innovativeness is still a rare competency. The latest publication of UNICE – the European Industry - ganization representing 20 million large, midsize and small companies – speaks a clear language: Europe qualifies to roughly 60% (70%) of the innovation strength of the US (Japan). The record unemployment in many EU countries does not c- tradict this message. A main reason may be given by the fact that becoming an innovative organi- tion means increased openness towards the new and more tolerance towards risks and failures, both challenging the inherently difficult management art of cultural change. Further, lacking innovativeness is often related to legal and fiscal barriers which rather hinder than foster innovative activities. Yet another reason to explain Europe’s notorious innovation gap refers to insufficient financial R&D resources on the company as well as on the national level. As a result, for example, hi- ranking decisions on the level of the European Commission are taken to increase R&D expenditures in the European Union from roughly 2% to 3% of GNP.

What Makes this Book Unique? No crystal ball is required to safely predict, that in the future – even more than in the past – mastered innovativeness will be a primary criterion distinguishing s- cessful from unsuccessful companies. At the latest since Michael Porter’s study on the competitiveness of nations, the same criterion holds even for the evaluation of entire countries and national economies. Despite the innumerable number of p- lications and recommendations on innovation, competitive innovativeness is still a rare competency. The latest publication of UNICE – the European Industry - ganization representing 20 million large, midsize and small companies – speaks a clear language: Europe qualifies to roughly 60% (70%) of the innovation strength of the US (Japan). The record unemployment in many EU countries does not c- tradict this message. A main reason may be given by the fact that becoming an innovative organi- tion means increased openness towards the new and more tolerance towards risks and failures, both challenging the inherently difficult management art of cultural change. Further, lacking innovativeness is often related to legal and fiscal barriers which rather hinder than foster innovative activities. Yet another reason to explain Europe’s notorious innovation gap refers to insufficient financial R&D resources on the company as well as on the national level. As a result, for example, hi- ranking decisions on the level of the European Commission are taken to increase R&D expenditures in the European Union from roughly 2% to 3% of GNP.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, University of Hamburg, language: English, abstract: IntroductionWe know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it. PETER F. DRUCKERMotivation is a hypothetical construct serving to explain the stimuli of human behavior1, i.e. it describes what makes people tick . Hence, understanding motivation is of vital importance whenever one interacts with other people. In the field of business it is especially relevant in organization science and marketing. While organization science emphasizes the motivation of employees, marketing focuses on the motivation of consumers in order to enable a company to design products which meet consumers needs and wants. In this context [t]he investigation of motivation is central to understanding the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, and ideas. 2Taking into account the fundamental role of motivation as a key driver of human behavior, PROFESSOR DRUCKER S claim would indicate that marketing managers would largely have to rely on luck when designing and marketing their products. However, the situation concerning targeted marketing activities does not seem to be so bleak, if one considers that some companies consistently outperform others. Merely attributing this to a luckier marketing department therefore seems inappropriate. Hence, it is the aim of this paper to probe PROFESSOR DRUCKER S opinion and shed some light on the different aspects of motivation in consumer research. This requires taking into account the theoretical background of motivation, as well as an analysis of the problems practitioners face when measuring this hypothetical construct. Moreover, one has to investigate how they use these results to derive appropriate marketing strategies. For this purpose, the paper is organized as follows: The second section without claiming to be exhaustive provides an overview of the theory necessary to appreciate the importance of motivation. The third section turns to the practical implications considering the collection of information on motivation and the exploitation of this data for marketing purposes. The paper finishes with a summary of the obtained results.

What Makes this Book Unique? No crystal ball is required to safely predict, that in the future – even more than in the past – mastered innovativeness will be a primary criterion distinguishing s- cessful from unsuccessful companies. At the latest since Michael Porter’s study on the competitiveness of nations, the same criterion holds even for the evaluation of entire countries and national economies. Despite the innumerable number of p- lications and recommendations on innovation, competitive innovativeness is still a rare competency. The latest publication of UNICE – the European Industry - ganization representing 20 million large, midsize and small companies – speaks a clear language: Europe qualifies to roughly 60% (70%) of the innovation strength of the US (Japan). The record unemployment in many EU countries does not c- tradict this message. A main reason may be given by the fact that becoming an innovative organi- tion means increased openness towards the new and more tolerance towards risks and failures, both challenging the inherently difficult management art of cultural change. Further, lacking innovativeness is often related to legal and fiscal barriers which rather hinder than foster innovative activities. Yet another reason to explain Europe’s notorious innovation gap refers to insufficient financial R&D resources on the company as well as on the national level. As a result, for example, hi- ranking decisions on the level of the European Commission are taken to increase R&D expenditures in the European Union from roughly 2% to 3% of GNP.

Die Entwicklung neuer Produkte stellt hohe und potenziell konfliktionäre Anforderungen an die Koordination von Innovationsvorhaben. Die empirische Untersuchung von Christoph Stockstrom zeigt, dass solche Planungsprozesse besonders erfolgswirksam sind, denen es neben formalen Aspekten gelingt, flexible Elemente in die Planung zu integrieren. Neben Handlungsempfehlungen zur Verbesserung betrieblicher Planungsprozesse zeigt der Autor, dass eine zu enge Erfassung der Planung mit verantwortlich dafür ist, dass empirische Untersuchungen zur Planung von Innovationsprojekten in der Vergangenheit immer wieder uneinheitliche Ergebnisse geliefert haben.