11/11/2016
In the new December issue, see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/caim.v25.4/issuetoc we have seven articles that re- flect the main areas of CIM: the first two articles are in the area of individual and group creativity, two more focus on design and design management, and finally, our yearly IPDMC special section edited by Petra de Weerd- Nederhof and Nuran Acur consists of three arti- cles. One from the 2015 Copenhagen conference hosted by John Christiansen, and two from Limerick in 2016, where Ann Ledwith and Regina McNally did the honours.
The first of the IPDMC special section is the report by John Christiansen and Marta Gasparin on their research into managing con- troversies in the fuzzy front end (FFE). Their analysis investigates the micro processes around the controversies that emerge during the fuzzy front end. Five different types of con- troversies are identified: profit, production, de- sign, brand, and customers/market. Each controversy represents a threat, but is also an opportunity to search for new solutions in the unpredictable non-linear processes. The authors use the phrase ‘managing’ the controversies in the FFE in the title, and some might find that somewhat presumptuous, but the analysis shows how the meaning of management – or the skills needed – changes from one contro- versy to another, so managing becomes a call for heterogeneous skills and activities that are needed to deal with the controversies.
Next, the contribution of Maria Annosi et al. concerns an abductive study of the dark side of agile software development focused on social conduct, learning and innovation. Their results indicate that the time pressure induced by the implementation of Agile impedes team engage- ment in learning and innovation activities. Time pressure is affected by a set of different control strategies, more specifically concertive, belief, diagnostic and boundary controls, and these need to be adequately addressed in order to minimize the potential dark side of Agile.
Last but not least, the original study on democratizing journalism by Michael Zeng et al. concludes this special section, subtitled: how user-generated content and user commu-
nities affect publishers’ business models. A worthwhile read not only for those interested in innovation and changing business models, but also for journal publishers and editors!