Candidate cases Methodological reflection on Case Study 2

5.5.5 Case selection

From the pool of 30 candidate cases, 15 projects were successful and could therefore be included in the case study to test the necessary condition proposition. It further turned out that these cases were divided unequally amongst the six types of innovation projects Table 5.6. Table 5.6 Number of selected cases by product innovation type Type of innovation Number of cases Incremental innovation for core components 1 Incremental innovation for peripheral components 4 Modular innovation 3 Architectural innovation for core components 1 Architectural innovation for peripheral components 1 Radical innovation 5 The result of this case selection procedure was that this study was partly a single case study namely for projects aiming at products with incremental core component change as well as for projects aim- ing at architectural innovation of core or peripheral components, and partly a parallel case study for the other three types of product innovation.

5.5.6 Hypothesis

Because the proposition in this study specified necessary conditions and the selection was done on the basis of the presence of the dependent concept, the hypothesis was that the condition was present in each case that was studied.

5.5.7 Measurement

In order to select and classify cases, first the type of innovation was determined, and then the success of each case. Next, the organiza- tional configuration was determined in order to compare the observed configuration with the expected ideal type. Success of the product innovation project was determined with a ques- tionnaire that was filled out by the project manager of that project. Project managers rated, for a number of success indicators on a five- point scale, whether there had been a “disappointing” performance or one “well beyond expectations”. Successful projects were defined as projects with an average score of three equal to expectations or higher. The 15 successful projects in which the hypothesis was tested were selected according to this criterion: their performance had not disappointed the project managers. Several questions could be raised regarding the measurement validity of success, when success is meas- ured by the “degree to which expectations have been met”: the problem of measurement validity of success is briefly addressed in 5.4.11, where reasons for not confirming the hypothesis are discussed. Case Study 2 also provides a quite detailed description of how type of innovation was determined. It is clear that this categorization was not achieved by a straightforward application of a set of clear-cut decision rules. The values of the four dimensions of the organizational configuration coordination integration, ownership integration, task integration, and knowledge integration were derived from a qualitative interview with the project manager and, for two dimensions, compared with the project manager’s rating on a five-point scale in a questionnaire. No major deviations were found between these two assessments.

5.5.8 Data presentation

Case Study 2 does not give detailed descriptions of the different projects such as provided in Case Study 1, which would enable experts who know one or more projects to evaluate the correctness of, for example, the categorization of type of innovation or the estimation of success. For all 15 successful projects, all relevant data for testing are provided in Table 5.5, i.e. its type of innovation and the organizational configuration in terms of the values of the four organizational dimensions.

5.5.9 Data analysis

The hypothesis-testing consisted of comparing the “observed” typolo- gies with the predicted ones see Table 5.5. The four values for the organizational dimensions formed an observed “pattern” that could be compared with the ideal typical configuration. This test was performed