The activity-based examination of companies’ acquisition processes highlights how many different things such as individual employees, a company’s previous acquisitions or external stakeholders influence acquisition decision-making and innovation adoption in companies. This comes to light in the doctoral thesis by Hannu Makkonen, M.Econ. ‘Activity-based perspective on organizational innovation adoption – A contextual approach to five adoption processes within the food industry’. This doctoral thesis of economic science, belonging to the field of marketing was examined at Turku School of Economics on 18 September 2009.
In his doctoral thesis, Makkonen studied five processes for acquiring new technology in a company operating within the food industry, from the acquisition of individual machines to entire production lines. He applied to the processes the organizational buying behaviour approach, the innovation adoption approach and the network and interaction approach. Through these, acquisition processes can be perceived either as active decision-making or as small parts of different development curves stretching from the past into the future.
On the basis of the comparison of theoretical approaches, the doctoral thesis created a new activity-based perspective for acquisition processes, which examines them holistically. It takes into account the complexity of companies’ acquisition processes by connecting them temporally to the past, the present and the future, and by examining the individual employees, acquisition teams, companies and external stakeholders involved in the acquisition processes.
– A company’s previous acquisitions and operations have a strong impact on how it acts in acquisition situations and what sources of information and opportunities the company has at its disposal. Future visions of products to be produced or subcontracting partners influence acquisition processes and the targets that have been set for them. Other projects in the company going on at the same time and broader company activity indirectly influence acquisition processes, for example through available resources, says Makkonen.
The role of individual employees is decisive, when companies are considering the needs for and selection of new production technology. They gather information on new technology, analyse it and go to meetings about it. In an important role were the constant gathering of information and keeping one’s own knowledge of production-related matters up-to-date.
More information:
Hannu Makkonen, +358 2 481 4237, hannu.makkonen@tse.fi
Thesis