Papers by Malin Olander-Roese
The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management
PurposeIncumbent retail organisations need to develop new capabilities to adapt with the increasi... more PurposeIncumbent retail organisations need to develop new capabilities to adapt with the increasingly competitive retail landscape. Despite the growing relevance of innovation in retail practice, the strategic management of innovation in retailing is still vastly under-researched. This explorative study thus aims to investigate how incumbent retail firms can organise for innovation from an organisational ambidexterity perspective.Design/methodology/approachA single-case study of an established Swedish retail firm was conducted from December 2016 to July 2018 and followed up in June 2021. The authors followed the process of implementation of organisational changes aimed to increase innovation in the company, particularly the introduction of a digital marketing initiative and a corporate innovation hub. Data collection was based on nine semi-structured interviews and participant observations and unstructured interviews from 13 meetings and workshops. An abductive approach to data anal...
Dagens Industri, 2009
For att astadkomma innovationer och tillvaxt kravs samverkan och utbyte pa alla nivaer, mellan in... more For att astadkomma innovationer och tillvaxt kravs samverkan och utbyte pa alla nivaer, mellan individer pa foretag och akademiska institutioner. Nya produkter och tjanster kraver risktagande och uthallighet.
A fresh approach to business and management research
Packaging is becoming increasingly important from a marketing as well as logistics perspective, p... more Packaging is becoming increasingly important from a marketing as well as logistics perspective, particularly for actors in consumer product supply chains. However, the role of packaging in creating or contributing to the competitive advantage of a company or a whole supply chain is still unexplored to a large extent. This is even the case in businesses where research has shown the benefits of conscious packaging design and development, and integrated packaging and product development. Similarly, packaging design as a driver for innovation has been studied to a limited extent. This paper elaborates on why the potential of integrated package and product development is realized to such a limited extent and why the potential of packaging innovation in itself is so unexplored for supply chain effectiveness and efficiency. The findings are based on three case studies, an extensive literature review and previous empirical research, resulting in four propositions for future research and dev...
In today’s business landscape the view and role of the customer, or market, in shaping and guidin... more In today’s business landscape the view and role of the customer, or market, in shaping and guiding strategy and the competitive advantage of a business, is given increasing attention within many areas of business theory. By definition the supply chain discipline focuses on suppliers from the perspective of the manufacturer, not customers. However this paper illustrates the use of the supply chain for initiating change towards increased customer orientation from the point of the supplier. Based on two case studies within the paper packaging industry the aim of this paper is to explore and illustrate the role of the supply chain perspective when initiating change towards increased customer orientation. The aim is also to explore and compare the challenges and facilitators of a similar change (Less)
An organization aiming to survive on a more challenging or changing market has to adapt or fundam... more An organization aiming to survive on a more challenging or changing market has to adapt or fundamentally change the way it is doing business. For the Swedish forest products industry, and more specifically the paper packaging industry, the market challenges range from saturated home markets, competing materials and increasing production costs, to growth of new markets and more powerful actors in the retail supply chain. In order to ensure a profitable and sustainable development in the long term, they have to continuously adapt or change. A number of scholars point at the need to reinvent or re-comprehend many of the existing and dominating business paradigms or models in contemporary industries that impede sustainable development in the long term. In practice, as in theory, there are two attributes that are intimately connected to long term success, namely customer orientation and innovation. These prerequisites are often synonymous with putting the customer at the heart of busines...
This thesis explores and describes strategic change towards increased customer orientation and in... more This thesis explores and describes strategic change towards increased customer orientation and innovation in the Swedish forest and paper packaging industry, an industry which has been subject to calls for new strategic directions for more than two decades. The large-scale and cost-efficient strategy, which has been the industry's hallmark, is in need of a more customer based and innovative emphasis. The research is inspired by different schools of thought in strategy and motivated by the limited longitudinal studies; on the link between customer orientation, innovation and strategy, and on this empirical setting. The link is of particular relevance given the emerging paradigms of dual and ambidextrous strategies in literature and practice, integrating strategies focused on cost and differentiation, efficiency and innovation – at the same time. This development further adds to the need for more insight into the gap between strategy development and implementation. A qualitative a...
Innovation strategies are crucial for corporate success and should be a top priority for packagin... more Innovation strategies are crucial for corporate success and should be a top priority for packaging companies. However, to improve the innovativeness of packaging manufacturers, there is a need to increase the integration of product and packaging development and collaboration within the supply chain. New methods for innovative packaging development are needed. Packaging plays a valuable role in the marketing and distribution of products, and can thus add great value for actors in the supply chain as well as for consumers. However, packaging’s great potential to add value seems to be overlooked and neglected, which appears to be the result of too little knowledge. Collaboration between supply chain actors is limited and packaging development does generally not start until the product is almost finished and ready for production, which restricts the packaging innovation potential. If the product and the package can instead be developed in a more integrated manner, this would improve the...
Collaboration between academia and industry is believed important for innovation: industry needs ... more Collaboration between academia and industry is believed important for innovation: industry needs academic expertise and know-how and academics need empirical data, test beds and more. So what needs to be improved? A pilot study conducted for BillerudKorsnas confirms findings in previous research: the main challenge to industry-academia collaboration is the lack of mutual understanding of each other’s needs, expectations and output. However, despite the clear importance of mutual understanding, there are few suggestions in the literature how to improve the situation beyond checklists for collaboration. The pilot study addresses issues of how to find sharp research tasks that are relevant to both parties, how to bridge cultural differences and different demands, and what kind of interaction model to aim for? Based on a literature review, interviews with accomplished academics at Lund University and practitioners from BillerudKorsnas, the conclusions drawn in summary are: • Finding a g...
The purpose of this paper is threefold; to present a framework for assessing reporting of case st... more The purpose of this paper is threefold; to present a framework for assessing reporting of case study based research, to evaluate recently published case study based research within the area of logistics and supply chain management and finally to identify and suggest areas for improvement in the reporting of case study based research within the same field. The paper is based on an initial review of case study research in methodology literature, resulting in four main and 16 sub-criteria for evaluating reporting of case study based research. Thereafter four top tier logistics and supply chain management journals and one management journal were selected in which 51 case study based articles, between 2006 and 2008, were identified and evaluated.The study shows a great variation in the fulfillment of the suggested criteria for reporting of case study based research, identifies weaknesses and concludes with suggestions for improvements. The study is limited to an evaluation of case studie...
The retail industry is looking for new ways to compete as digitalization and non-traditional acto... more The retail industry is looking for new ways to compete as digitalization and non-traditional actors are changing the game. In an industry where constant improvements are key and studies of innovation management are scarce - this qualitative study of four retail firms addresses how innovation is currently perceived and managed. As a result, we have found that innovation is an uncommon theme and there is no systematic approach to innovation management. Furthermore, despite retailers’ proximity to end users, the customer perspective is surprisingly limited, idea development is present but without clear criteria for selection and prioritization from an innovation point of view. For future research, we point to an interesting avenue for retailers as a “hub” for innovation, given their position in the value chain, acknowledging the need for a more strategic and systematic approach. (Less)
Strategic change, infused with new data, perspectives and concepts may change the inherent meanin... more Strategic change, infused with new data, perspectives and concepts may change the inherent meaning of the central tenets in an existing strategy. It taps into the cognitive aspects of a journey where language, in verbal and written form, aids in the process of communicating, understanding and creating new meaning. Hence, it comes as no surprise that communication is argued to be an important means of forming and executing strategy, particularly if that strategy involves change. Thus far corporate communication has been the objective of extensive and predominately qualitative analysis of written content, with a focus on identifying and demonstrating strategic intent or reorientation. The objective here is to take a different route, not yet explored in the field of strategic management and change. Leaning on a previously conducted, longitudinal and qualitative case study of strategic change the aim is twofold: Firstly, to propose a method for quantitative analysis of semantic content ...
Formulating and implementing a new strategy may be a challenging task, especially if it alters th... more Formulating and implementing a new strategy may be a challenging task, especially if it alters the way in which a company has operated and positioned itself before. This may be particularly true for companies within the forest industry, like manufacturers of paper packaging products, pursuing differentiated customer value and innovative solutions where, traditionally, success has been measured in volume and relative position on a cost curve. In theory there are different schools of thought and approaches on how to go about formulating and implementing strategy. In practice, going through strategic change may create a need to embrace new ways of thinking and acting in order to close the gap between formulation and implementation, between knowing what to do and doing it. This gap, particularly the interdependence between formulation and implementation in the context of change between strategies of different schools and assumptions, merits more attention in literature. The purpose of t...
This paper describes an ongoing abductive research process with two researchers, with different e... more This paper describes an ongoing abductive research process with two researchers, with different educational background, involved in the same action research, thus having different theoretical perspectives on the study. The method of involving two researchers in the same study is not main stream in action research. The empirical data is analysed based on the two research perspectives and on parallel abduction. The abduction as part of action research integrates the participating company in the abductive process, another unexplored, non main stream, approach to abductive action research. The overall research, valid for both researchers, is about customer orientation and innovation in a paper/packaging supply chain, where the study is conducted at one actor at one end of the supply chain. The theoretical perspectives are strategy and product development in alignment with customer orientation and innovation; with focus on the focal company and their relations to their 1st and 2nd custom...
Supply chains are no longer to be regarded as linear constructs with definite starting and ending... more Supply chains are no longer to be regarded as linear constructs with definite starting and ending points, but as systems, or wholes that are to be customer driven rather than product driven. But however easy it sounds in theory industries are struggling to re-invent or re-comprehend existing business models. This paper aims to describe and identify organizational challenges to re-defining the supply chain for increased customer orientation and product innovation. The findings are based on one case study within the paper packaging industry. In conclusion four challenges are identified: Domineering Perspectives, Tools and Processes, Strategy and strategic decision and Implementation approach. Educator and practitioner summary It is important for academia and practice to recognize the organizational challenges to re-inventing or re-comprehending assumptions, models and tools existing in business and in theory. Using a multi-theoretical approach allows for a more holistic perspective an...
The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research
Innovation in retailing is under-investigated in academia and yet a highly relevant concern given... more Innovation in retailing is under-investigated in academia and yet a highly relevant concern given the current changes in the retail landscape. Although retailing is often characterized by a dynamic and highly competitive environment, retail organizations are not often considered as 'innovative,' at least when compared with manufacturing industries, or when using existing innovation frameworks in academic literature. There are many aspects of innovation discussed in literature and a need to consider different ways of looking into retail's innovativeness. Among them, the importance of organizational climate on influencing creativity and innovation may help explain how to enable innovation in service organizations, such as retailers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the climate for innovation and creativity and examine how retail organizations perceive it. We applied a mixed-methods approach using an established organizational climate survey and semi-structured, one-on-one interviews regarding the innovation climate and other aspects of innovation management in the companies. The study shows that despite retail organizations still struggling to incorporate innovation on a strategic level and move beyond incremental developments in their operations, retailers score positively on being innovative regarding certain dimensions of the organizational climate survey. This indicates that retailers (especially conventional ones) could benefit from challenging current practices and moving towards becoming more active and strategic innovators since their organizational climate to a certain extent allows for it. Respondents within the organizations also express a need for better innovation support, whether it is through established structures and processes or an improvement in the current conditions of the organizational climate. How retailers could enable themselves to become more active innovatorsbased on what we know that retailers look more towards entrepreneurship and continuous development as a driving force rather than formalized innovation practices per seis a potential avenue for further research.
ISBN 978-91-7473-967-1 (Print) ISBN 978-91-7473-968-8 (Pdf) Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lun... more ISBN 978-91-7473-967-1 (Print) ISBN 978-91-7473-968-8 (Pdf) Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University Lund 2014 En del av Förpacknings-och Tidningsinsamlingen (FTI) To Maya, Zoey, Gunilla and Annika. To a bright, generous and fun filled future.
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Papers by Malin Olander-Roese