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International Journal of Accounting Information Systems 17 (2015) 37–64

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International Journal of Accounting Information Systems

The use of technology-structured management controls: changes in senior management’s decision-making behaviours

Angela Liew ⁎ The University of Auckland, Department of Accounting & Finance, Private Bag 92-019, Auckland, New Zealand

a r t i c l e i n f o

⁎ Tel.: +64 9 923 5800; fax: +64 9 373 7406. E-mail address: [email protected].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.accinf.2014.05.001 1467-0895/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 31 January 2011 Received in revised form 6 May 2014 Accepted 28 May 2014 Available online 25 June 2014

This paper looks at the perceived behavioural changes in senior management as a result of embracing information technology to enact and enforce management controls. A case study approach was used to explain the association between individuals and technology- structured management controls. Data were collected through observations, interviews and document analysis. The information technology helped senior management learn more about the inner operations and issues faced by other divisions in producing potential new products. Senior management had intended to use the information technology to control their subordinates and influence the new product development work being performed. However, they received more than that. Not only did the information technology allow senior management to monitor their subordinates, but the chief executive officer, who was removed from the formal decision process, was inadvertently able to quietly watch them. They were also opened up to more scrutiny by their peers and subordinates. Interestingly, the open transparency did not create fears steering senior management to make pretentious claims when assessing ideas, or use destructive language when critiquing each other. It actually created peer pressure among them and made them more circumspect. An objective, fair, respectful, collaborative, and harmonious decision-making environment was thus formed. As an electronic colleague, the information technology coached them towards what aspects to consider, facilitated fair participation from them, reminded them of the financial returns, spoke for those who would otherwise shy away, publicised to all involved what was being

Keywords: Case study Information technology Management control New product development

1 In this paper, information technology is defined a excludes expert system and artificial intelligence.

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said and by whom, and tracked the completion progress of all designated tasks.

© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Information technology is increasingly being recognised and used as a tool to assist with managerial activities that involve decision making for complex organisational problems (Chapman, 2005). It plays an important role in creating new knowledge, and functions as a carrier of accounting information (Granlund, 2011). Information technology can help employees collect and analyse data as well as direct decision makers’ attention to potential problems and solutions to aid their decision making.1 It can also help businesses in creating value (Sambamurthy and Zmud, 2000; Farrell, 2003) and providing them with competitive advantage (Weill et al., 2002; Farrell, 2003). However, the effects of information technology are poorly reflected in the existing accounting literature (Granlund, 2011). The literature has focused largely on the technical design aspects of information technology rather than on managerial issues and control implications (Granlund and Mouritsen, 2003; Granlund, 2011). In particular, the literature has been criticised for not considering “how precisely [information] technology drives management control logic, and how management control problems drive information technology solutions” (Granlund and Mouritsen, 2003, p.79). Given the increasing use and reliance on information technology for accounting, it is imperative that we understand the resulting effects from the use of information technology for management control (Granlund, 2011).

The purposes of this paper are to explore the use of information technology as a formal mechanism to enact and enforce automated management control and to better understand how the use of such an automated mechanism can influence the behaviour of individuals. Technology-structured management control can help senior management monitor and scrutinise the work activities of subordinates, as well as manage and coach subordinates on how best to complete the designated work to meet a business’s desired outcomes. This paper focuses on senior management who are the “watchers” and superiors who chose to use information technology to control their subordinates. To achieve the paper’s objectives a case study was carried out to observe how technology-structured management control steered the firm’s decision-making process and influenced the social interactions and decision-making behaviours of its senior management.

Management control is about “the formal, information-based routines and procedures managers use to maintain or alter patterns in organizational activities” (Simons, 1995, p.5) and everything managers do to help ensure that their organisation’s strategies and plans are carried out (Merchant and van der Stede, 2007). Using information technology as a formal control mechanism may help provide management with automated management control to “actively monitor and intervene” in the activities of their subordinates (Simons, 1990, p.128). Technology-structured management control could help management “abolish [the] private and confidential space” behind closed doors and gather information that would otherwise be restricted to a small group of individuals behind closed doors (Roberts, 2009, p.958). Technology- structured management control has the potential to increase transparency and provide openness to organisations (Brivot and Gendron, 2011) and accountability among individuals (Roberts, 2009). It could supply surveillance capability for management to monitor the work activities carried out by their subordinates (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). This may result in individuals becoming aware that they are permanently visible and can be monitored, which causes them to modify their behaviours (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). “Fears of being exposed and humiliated” and labelled as a “bad employee” can cause individuals to become cautious when supplying the necessary information (Roberts, 2009, p. 958). They may feel the need to flatter when disclosing information (Roberts, 2009), or withhold or overstate the information in a deceitful manner in the pretence of contributing visibility (O'Neill, 2006; Roberts, 2009).

Despite the increasing reliance on information technology and the important role it plays, enacting and enforcing management control through information technology are a currently under-researched topic (Granlund and Mouritsen, 2003; Berry et al., 2009). Although there have been numerous studies

s a technology that supports individuals in their decision-making exercises, but

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conducted examining the use of the enterprise resource planning system (ERP) in accounting, few of those empirical studies examined ERP as a control technology (Granlund and Mouritsen, 2003; Teittinen et al., 2013). One such study that did examine ERP as a control technology found that such management controls only produced organisational visibility of “moderate impact” in firms (Dechow and Mouritsen, 2005). Such mediocre impact might have been affected by the continued use of existing management controls that were not purpose designed and structured to fit with ERP. The benefit of enforcing management control through information technology is therefore lost when individuals are able to continuously complete tasks in the “old” way and avoid the ERP way. Much more work is still needed to learn about how information technology can be used to administer formal procedures and processes (Berry et al., 2009), exercise management control (Dechow et al., 2007), and carry out surveillance (Baxter and Chua, 2003; Brivot and Gendron, 2011). We have only begun to learn about technology surveillance and do not have a real grasp of the ramifications and impact of the “watchers” and how they subsequently became the “targets of surveillance” (Brivot and Gendron, 2011).

In order to better appreciate how information technology can be used as a formal mechanism and as an automated management control to steer a firm’s decision-making process, influence the social interactions and decision-making behaviours of its senior management, and help senior management to manage their subordinates, a complex subset of organisation practice is considered. New product development (NPD) is one such complex subset of organisation practice because it consists of numerous interrelated decisions. It is a process in which innovative ideas are investigated, developed, and tested for the potential launch of new products. Furthermore, NPD comes with many demands and uncertain outcomes when unleashed in the marketplace (Jørgensen and Messner, 2010).

To gain a more in-depth and richer understanding, a case study approach (Silverman, 2010) was taken. The case site selected was an established commercial food company that developed and processed all of its new consumer food products in-house. The firm had implemented a commercial information technology system as a formal mechanism to enact and enforce automated management control over its employees. The case study involved observing how individuals inserted and established themselves into relationships, including with the information technology, as well as observing how individuals developed within the social networks in which they operated, particularly senior management. The information technology was intended to structure a particular subset of organisation practice, NPD, by following a widely adopted NPD practice called the Stage–GateTM Product Innovation Process (Griffin, 1997).

The Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process is a manual process that was developed to help provide a conceptual roadmap and to structure NPD activities and events (Cooper, 1994). The Stage–Gate process stemmed from best practices and prescribed a series of tasks to guide the individuals involved. The Stage– Gate process covers all facets and phases of NPD, starting from idea inception through to product launch, and is subdivided into a number of stages and gates (Cooper, 1994). The guidance helps steer individuals to better manage NPD projects at each specific event and coach them to complete the necessary NPD tasks in a comprehensive and orderly fashion.

The case data were collected through direct observations at NPD decision meetings,2 interviews with key individuals directly involved in NPD, and document analysis on data retrieved from the technology- structured management control. The case data covered a variety of activities and events in the NPD process, particularly those that occurred during the “gates”. “Gates” are a specific point in time in the Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process where senior management meet, discuss, and decide on the progression, or termination, of ideas and projects.

The commercial success and failure in the introduction of new products depend largely on how new products are designed, produced, and packaged. There are a lot of uncertainties for NPD outcomes (Davila, 2000). Therefore, the art of how NPD decisions are made is an important factor that influences not only the short-term success of new product launches but also the long-term ultimate profitability of firms (Davila and Wouters, 2007). Organisations are thus compelled to exercise as many controls as possible to better allocate their limited amount of discretionary resources in order to improve the launch success and/or maintain their competitiveness in the marketplace.

2 Decision meetings, also known as gate meetings, are decision points in which senior management meet and decide whether the NPD projects should proceed to the next stage in the Stage-Gate Product Innovation Process.

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Davila et al. (2009) explained the common reasons why firms adopt management control systems in NPD. It was revealed that firms that proactively pursued management controls because of their manager’s NPD experience performed significantly better than firms that either adopted controls as a reaction to NPD chaos, or adopted controls as a proactive need to focus on NPD. However, the study was conducted with entrepreneurial firms that were still in their early-stages. Therefore, the same findings might not be entirely applicable to well-established entrepreneurial firms. Further investigation is therefore needed to better understand the effects on established firms after adopting new management controls in NPD.

Some studies give good insights into how management controls function in NPD (e.g., Jørgensen and Messner, 2009, 2010). One such study provided a detailed account of management control practices at a firm and highlighted the expected tensions between efficiency and flexibility (Jørgensen and Messner, 2009). In that case study, the firm modified its existing management controls to suit the new strategies that were being introduced for NPD. However, researchers recognised that management controls could be designed and practised differently across firms. They also acknowledged that there could be vast differences in effects between firms that modified their existing management controls and those that employed new management controls as a result of accommodating new strategies that were being introduced in NPD. The latter treats strategic change and management controls as a recursive relationship, and the former as a one-time relationship. That was also why researchers in that study called for more in-depth case studies to be conducted and “talk to each other” (Lukka and Mouritsen, 2002, p.808).

Another study detailed how two sets of accounting and strategising activities related to each other in NPD practices (Jørgensen and Messner, 2010). Researchers found that accounting information often guided individuals in their strategising efforts in NPD. Furthermore, financial numbers were often the persuasive deciding factors being enforced at the NPD decision meetings. It is of interest to better understand how technology-structured management controls further enhance the importance of accounting information in a firm’s strategising efforts in NPD.

This paper explores how an established company made use of information technology to structure and administer automated management controls within a complex NPD decision-making context. Findings reveal that information technology removed controls from some individuals as well as armed them with new abilities. Even if an information technology was not designed for surveillance purposes, it placed many employees in permanently visible positions under the relentless watchful eyes of a few powerful individuals (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). The permanent visibility meant that the performance and commitment of individuals were identified and made known. It also meant that individuals could be exposed and humiliated (Roberts, 2009) and become compliant as a result of fear (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). Senior management who were the so-called powerful “watchers” found themselves under the watch of many others. They were watched by their peers who were in the same authoritative and watchful position as them. They were scrutinised by their superior, the chief executive officer (CEO), who was formally removed from any NPD decision-making responsibilities. They were also under the watch of their subordinates who were supposedly their “targets of surveillance”. The open scrutiny and transparency created peer pressure among the senior management that forced them to be more circumspect in their actions and dialogues. They did not make any pretentious claims, nor did they use destructive language. They all appeared enthusiastic and assertive in voicing their concerns and deliberating possible solutions with their peers.

Besides making the NPD process visible to all involved, information technology can act as a valuable “memory” to help preserve knowledge lost as well as keep employees faithful. When individuals are contributing their discrete pieces of knowledge, they may be more cautious and sensible. This is because they are aware that others have access to the information technology which holds records of their contributions and can thus hold them accountable. Besides providing surveillance and accountability, the information technology played the role of an electronic colleague (Arnold and Sutton, 1998) facilitating fair participation from senior management, reminding senior management to calculate and assess the probable financial returns from the projects, voicing concerns for those who would otherwise shy away from speaking up, publicising the completion progress of each individual, and exposing what was said and by whom. The information technology also played an effective role as a silent coach (Arnold and Sutton, 1998), prescribing individuals with a set of rules and criteria to follow in the NPD process so that they could complete the work activities in a systemic way. The prescriptions constrained the actions of the NPD project teams as they adhered closely to the prescriptions and were defensive in guarding against their

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efforts and work when asked why they had not considered an alternative option. Conversely, senior management did not confine their actions to what the information technology prescribed, but requested project teams to conduct more work so that the necessary evidence could be obtained to support their decisions.

The paper extends the existing literature on management controls (e.g., Davila et al., 2009; Jørgensen and Messner, 2009, 2010) by examining closely how an established company leveraged information technology to structure and enforce new management controls to accommodate new strategies that are being put in place for NPD. The paper contributes not only to understanding how information technology can be used to enact and enforce automated management controls, but also to recognising how the technology-structured management controls can behave as an electronic colleague and silent coach (Arnold and Sutton, 1998) and influence the decision-making behaviours of senior management.

The data collected from the case study help to achieve the paper’s objectives and provides insights into how established firms make use of information technology to structure, enact, and enforce automated management controls. Such insights will help inform future practitioners how best to plan and design an information technology that is an effective formal mechanism. The focus on senior management is interesting and valuable as they are the individuals who decide to embrace the information technology as a formal mechanism to control and scrutinise their subordinates. Although they are the “watchers” they also become the “targets of surveillance” to those they have targeted to control and scrutinise. Such findings should alert future practitioners to how information technology can influence the firm’s decision-making process, the ramifications and impacts it has for them as “watchers” of the process, and the effects it has on the social interactions between them and on their decision-making behaviours.

The next section describes the research domain in which two contexts, namely organisational and technological, are examined. The third section gives an overview of the research design and methods applied in this study. The fourth section provides a thorough account of the case study and explains how senior management used information technology to enact and administer management control. The fifth section discusses the case findings, specifically how the technology-structured management controls influenced the senior management’s decision-making behaviours. The final section concludes with a summary of findings and suggestions for new areas for future research.

2. Research domain

There are three types of innovation in NPD: radical,3 semi-radical,4 and incremental5 new products (Davila et al., 2013). While the food industry is no exception, there are a number of unique features largely associated with human behaviours when it comes to developing new products in this industry.

Firms in the food industry experience small windows of opportunity to launch new products to match current trends in already saturated markets (Stewart-Knox and Michell, 2003; van Trijp and van Kleef, 2008). Unlike other industries, the intense competition in the food industry is consumer and retailer led, rather than production led (Jónsdóttir et al., 1998). This makes the development of new products a challenging undertaking in the food industry which is why incremental new products remain the preferred and widespread innovation in that industry (Rudolph, 1995). However, this approach of unveiling incremental new products often puts businesses in a vicious cycle to maintain financial performance (Hertenstein and Platt, 2000; Gemser and Leenders, 2001; Hertenstein et al., 2005). Particularly when many new food products experience short lifecycles, businesses need to have a systematic method to better allocate their NPD resources to compete in an already intense and saturated market. (Benner et al., 2003).

A number of decisions are usually made before new products can be brought to market (Krishnan and Ulrich, 2001). These decisions cover a spectrum of operational and strategic decisions including how a

3 Radical innovation leads to products being made and delivered in new ways where no prior knowledge existed in both the technology and business model. Such new ways may simply be new to the company even if it is not new to the industry.

4 Semi-radical innovation involves significant change either in the technology or the business model, but not both. 5 Incremental innovation builds on existing knowledge of technology and business model and makes a small change in something,

e.g. a change of flavour from an existing product.

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product can be designed, produced, and packaged. They not only influence production costs, but are particularly critical to the commercial success and failure of products and the profitability of a firm (Davila and Wouters, 2007). Hence, management accounting information needs to be captured so that product design, product costing, and product pricing decisions can be made as part of the decision-making process during NPD (Davila and Wouters, 2007). Due to the nature of commercialising new products, managers need to take into account uncertainty and product strategy (Davila, 2000). Each decision can involve a multitude of considerations such as strategic fit, competitiveness, synergies, technical configuration and feasibility, procurement and distribution, and financial risk and reward. Hence, product development decisions are often made by a group of individuals who hold different functional knowledge and expertise. Product development is also a topic that is regarded as relatively complex given the creative demands of product designers and the high uncertainty of their outcomes (Jørgensen and Messner, 2010). Besides deciding on whether to launch a new product or not, managers also need to decide which projects to prioritise since firms only have a certain amount of NPD resources available at any one time.

Information technologies are therefore often employed by decision makers to alert them to the potential issues involved behind the innovation decisions (Krishnan and Ulrich, 2001). With the increasing use of technology, the challenge lies in discovering how control becomes part of “establishing order into work activities” with the aid of technology (Quattrone and Hopper, 2005, p.761). The failures of many new products have been found to be closely linked to the weaknesses of the decision-making process (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1996; Stewart-Knox and Michell, 2003). Effective use of an NPD decision support process is thus a key factor that improves upon an organisation’s new product performance (Anderson, 2008). Therefore, it is argued that the NPD decision-making process can be enhanced through a process technology (Microsoft, 2005; Cooper and Edgett, 2008).

Process technology entails administering a set of activities and the regulation of process deliverable routines in a coordinated and organised manner (Cooper, 2008). It can be employed to prescribe the necessary NPD tasks and coordinate the NPD process. In this sense, information technology is considered as a channel for senior management to execute control (Dechow and Mouritsen, 2005). Doing so allows senior management to focus their energy on making the important product development decisions, rather than on contemplating which aspects need to be included in the consideration. Despite their potential benefit, little is known about the use of information technology in NPD (Sarin, 2009). The process technology adopted by the firm in this study is a commercial information technology used by many firms for managing their NPD process. This information technology not only enables project management, it also follows and automates a widely adopted NPD practice known as the Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process (Griffin, 1997). It operates as a conceptual roadmap for moving NPD projects through a decision process from idea inception through to product launch (Cooper, 1994). Hence, it helps support those individuals involved in a firm’s NPD to better manage each project concept through the decision process in a complete and orderly fashion. The information technology does not make NPD decisions or generate new product ideas.

This information technology was chosen because at the time this study was designed and carried out it was well developed and had a decade-long association and endorsement from the originators of the Stage–Gate methodology since the release of its first commercial version in 2001 (Sopheon, 2010b). According to the software vendor, the information technology “[replaces] inefficient paper-based processes [and automates] new product methodologies with a centralised best-practice system that supports process execution from the time a product is conceived as an idea until it is retired from the marketplace” (Sopheon, 2010a). It “helps organisations to structure, automate and measure product innovation, ensuring that the right new products get to market cost-effectively and on time” (Sopheon, 2010a).

This information technology acts as a central data repository where all applicable information can be entered into and retrieved from a single source in a consistent manner. A variety of data is collected in the process. Besides collecting financial data to quantify the probable financial returns, non-financial data about the strategic fit, market attractiveness, technical feasibility, ease of implementation, and management accounting data such as budgets, forecasts, and performance measures are also collected to assist businesses during the new NPD process (Cooper, 1990). It also keeps track of the action dates, the individuals responsible for specific tasks and any progress status updates.

Organisations can record each idea into the information technology. From there, a group of decision makers, often known as gatekeepers, can evaluate the prospects of each newly captured idea based on

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their respective knowledge, expertise, and responsible unit. There is no anonymity6 in the responses provided by the gatekeepers and their main responsibility to provide responses based on their expertise in their respective area. For example, the Finance Senior Manager would enter and provide insights about the profitability and financial viability of the ideas, but never on the forecasted sales which was outside his responsible area. When new ideas arrive, the gatekeepers first evaluate and quantify the prospect of an idea based on their “gut feel” by giving it a number within a Likert scale and adding additional comments to voice the challenges that their responsible unit would face. The information technology will then collate and present each view and reservation on each idea so that the whole group can view and discuss them during the NPD decision meetings. The lack of anonymity means that the Production Senior Manager can see the concerns raised by the Sales and Marketing Senior Manager about how customers would react to the new idea. Likewise, the Sales and Marketing Senior Manager can learn about the concerns the Production Senior Manager has about their capability and capacity to manufacture that idea given current factory settings and resources. The information technology can also display the chosen numbers of each element in a spider web format so that all gatekeepers can see at a glance where the strengths and weaknesses lie for each idea. These numbers are only collected and used at the start of the decision process when deciding which ideas can progress into the development pipeline for further thorough investigation. Both quantitative and non-quantitative data are collected throughout the decision process, although more accurate quantitative data are expected later in the development particularly near the launch stage to substantiate earlier assumptions.

3. Research design and methods

A case study (Silverman, 2010) was carried out as it was helpful in understanding the nature and complexity of the processes taking place and generating theories from practice (Benbasat et al., 1987) on how information technology can influence the execution of management control in an organisation. Given the limited research on the impact of the use of information technology to structure management control, the case study was an appropriate method for exploring real issues and problems faced by organisations in practice (Benbasat et al., 1987) and exploring the social processes in their “natural occurring” environment (Silverman, 2010) without any manipulation or control from researchers (Benbasat et al., 1987). This paper seeks to explore how the technology-structured management control influenced the NPD decision-making behaviours of senior management who were the “watchers” who enacted the automated formal mechanism.

Three specific methods were employed to collect the case study data. First, direct non-participative observations were used to collect information in NPD decision meetings7 and during investigation activities. These observations provided rich data not just for examining the interactions and discussions among individuals involved but also in allowing for the monitoring of the decision process as decisions progressed. Observing these decisions in progress was more desirable than retrieving them purely through individuals’ retrospective recollection. These observations also formed good discussion points with the interviewees in understanding their view of the decision process.

Second, document analysis involved the collection of data extracted directly from the organisation’s information technology. This enabled actual data that were used by decision makers in their evaluations, interactions, and discussions to be examined. These data provided contextual evidence on the debates and opinions raised in the decision meetings. It was especially helpful when asking gatekeepers about their personal deciding factor and benchmark. Depending on the timing of the decision pipeline, the initial data captured and presented were quantitative Likert scales for coarse evaluation. Once the idea entered the decision pipeline, more qualitative data were captured and communicated; quantitative data became important and were subsequently captured and reported when the idea had progressed near to exiting the decision pipeline.

Third, interviews were used to collect data from individuals involved in NPD. Semi-structured questions were used in preparation for these interviews, although the data collected from observations and document analysis provided important discussion points and verifications. The individuals interviewed were chosen

6 The information technology referred throughout this paper cannot be classified as a group decision support system (GDSS) since it violates the anonymity rule, which is an important and essential characteristic of GDSS.

7 Decision meetings, also known as gate meetings, are described in more details in the next section.

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because of their level of active involvement and the magnitude of their contributions to the NPD decision process. They represented a range of organisational hierarchy levels across the firm. Even though individuals from various organisational hierarchy levels were observed and interviewed, this paper focuses exclusively on the senior management and examines their actions and behaviours when interacting with the information technology. The senior management were focused upon because they were the “watchers” who occupied formal positions of authority and held NPD decision-making responsibilities (Felekoglu and Moultrie, 2014). The researcher also made a deliberate effort to corroborate the senior management’s perceptions with those of their peers, subordinates (i.e. the project teams) and superiors (i.e. the CEO), and vice-versa.

The information technology had been implemented at the case site for nearly two years when the data collection began. The timing of the data collection was impeccable since senior management had just completed the hands-on training and familiarisation stage of the implementation, and had begun to put the technology-structured management controls actively into use. The data collection process could cease when three or more products observed in the decision process were commercially launched, as well as when one or more ideas observed were rejected to entering into the decision process. These provisions were decided based on the known elements of NPD in the food industry and at the case site. One of the unique features of the food industry is that most new products are typically produced from small or incremental changes. Hence, very few unusual new products were introduced each year as they consumed more company resources and were deemed riskier. Using this criterion the NPD decision process at Big Fish was continuously observed over a period of seven months until sufficient data were collected, which were three lines of new products that were purposely launched simultaneously by the firm.

During the active observation period, 21 new ideas were captured in the information technology and six projects were presented and discussed at five decision meetings, which amounted to seven hours of observation time at the decision meetings. The number of ideas and/or projects presented and discussed at each decision meeting varied. Sometimes the entire decision meeting was devoted to one project; while each decision meeting consumed either 60 or 120 min in total time. Of the six projects tracked, three were commercially launched on the same date. It was a historical day for the firm because they had never launched more than one line of new product on the same day at the same time. On this historical day the firm was launching three lines of new products all at the same time.

There were 28 licensed users of the information technology across the firm at the time of data collection, although not all licensed users were interviewed. Those interviewed were on the recommendation of the Technical Manager and were frequently observed and/or referred to in the decision meetings. Therefore, 12 individuals across all divisions of the firm were interviewed over 17 h in total, whereas over 40% of the licensed users were interviewed. The interviews that informed this paper were conducted over the seven months of the active observation period leading up to the major launch day, as well as five months after the launch. The list of interviewees and the interview timings in relation to the launch are detailed in Appendix 1. Although none of the 11 unit managers who were licensed users were interviewed, five of them were observed over two functional team meetings before the launch.

The first two interviews were conducted to gain an overview of the company and the information technology. The next two interviews were pilot interviews to identify whether a more structured approach should be continued based on the discussion transpiring. It was noted that the structured approach required more hours to conduct (which was not feasible given the time constraints and commitments of many of these interviewees). Furthermore, interesting and important dialogues emerged whenever the interview questions were arranged in an open-ended fashion. Therefore, a semi-structured interview approach was used for the remainder of the study. The same researcher did all the interviews. Each interview was recorded and subsequently transcribed. Once the majority of data had been collected, it was first analysed by using the notes of first impressions and thoughts made throughout the interview process. It was later analysed by going through and reading the interview transcripts for emerged and emerging themes. Before coding was carried out on the transcript data, an index was constructed on the entire transcript database to reveal every word being mentioned as well as to count the number of times each word appeared. This was to identify whether there was any significant keyword or theme that had been missed. However, this search revealed nothing. Unexpected emerging themes were coded differently so that they could be differentiated from those themes that were expected to have emerged.

Due to the sensitive nature of the decision meetings, they were not recorded or transcribed. Instead, the researcher wrote notes about the discussions in terms of the order of speakers, the number of times

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each speaker raised a point, and a brief idea of what these major points were, including any noticeable body language or remarks made by any members in the meeting room. Notes were taken so the researcher had a fairly good idea about the dynamics and personality of the people in the case study site after several meetings and conversations (both formal and informal). The observed information was largely used to form some of the discussion points in interviews as well as to collect several individuals’ views on certain issues raised during particular decision meetings.

The next section describes the case study. The first sub-section describes the journey behind the adoption of the information technology. The second sub-section depicts the roles of decision makers known as the gatekeepers. The third and last sub-section explains how the gatekeepers used the information technology to make NPD decisions, including for management control purposes. The subsequent section examines and discusses the empirical study and its findings.

4. Case organisation: Big Fish

The case site, Big Fish,8 is a vertically integrated food company with a $100 million annual turnover. It rears, farms, develops, and processes its own branded fish products in New Zealand. At the time the study was conducted, Big Fish employed over 400 employees across the company and produced 7300 tonnes of fish each year, half of which were sold locally in New Zealand while the other half were exported, mostly to Australia, Japan and the United States.

4.1. Journey behind the adoption of the information technology

In 2005, actively developing and introducing new consumer products became part of the company’s strategy. It was an important move for Big Fish to manage the increased market competition.

8 No fictiona roles th

“… we had to look for added value, not added volume, … [for items] that consumers might pay a little bit more margin for than they had in the past for the other products.” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

However, despite the company’s plan, the sale of new value added products reached only 1% of total revenue and did not surpass the revenue target of 2% for new products. In order for profit margins to grow, a Technical (Line) Manager was hired to help realise the scheme to actively develop and introduce new fish products by resolving some of the technical manufacturing issues arising from developing the new products. However, projects were often delayed or put on hold when faced with barriers, and so the Technical Manager was unable to carry out and complete the necessary product development investigations.

Before implementing the information technology, NPD was traditionally a function shared between two divisions, that is, the Sales and Marketing and the Processing divisions. The responsibility for developing new products was largely Sales and Marketing’s role, and the Senior Manager found that to be intimidating at times.

“Yeah […back in the days] it was essentially my decision at the end of the day … [whereas now] it’s great [… it is no longer just me who signs it off. There are five of us.] Thank God for that. [I’ve got a few more people to share that signing off process.] It’s multi-functional, it's cross-divisional, it's team work, it's more robust, it's better in every way that we do it this way.” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

However, when it came to deciding what to do with the new product ideas and how to progress them, neither of the two traditional divisions took responsibility for making the necessary NPD decisions.

“… we had a pretty ad hoc approach to NPD. It was very much driven by personal favourites and gut feel.” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

names are mentioned throughout this paper to protect the privacy of those entities and individuals involved. Big Fish is a l company name used throughout for ease of referring to the firm. The divisions in which the individuals belonged and/or the ey played are mentioned in order to provide a better contextual understanding of the actors/actants and their associations.

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Many past decisions made were largely conservative, supported by the historical incremental new products introduced in the firm, where small changes are made, usually a change in product flavouring. This unwillingness to introduce radical innovative products was consistent with the norm in the food industry in producing predominantly incremental new products in order to minimise the risk of failure. Big Fish was no exception and this was “because food is ubiquitous”, according to the Sales and Marketing Senior Manager.

In moving forward, the Technical Manager felt that a structured decision process that was technology-driven would be helpful to enforce the necessary discipline in Big Fish. Based on his previous working experience at a poultry company, he felt that a paper-based NPD process would be difficult to manage. As he was new to the company, he thought it might be difficult to convince the firm’s senior managers to take up his recommendation. Instead, he persuaded the CEO and some senior managers to hold a weekly book club meeting. During these book club meetings they9 learnt about the Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process that was formulated by Robert Cooper through NPD best practices (Hall, 2010), and the benefits and pitfalls for those companies that had deployed the process. They also became aware of the importance of having cross-functional members in teams (Cooper, 1994) and the drawbacks of “pet projects” (Cooper, 2008).

9 The and the 10 Rob

“[The Technical Manager] was also able to persuade us all, through educating us, and he gave us books to read written by Bob10 about the Stage–Gate process, and the Stage–Gate process also talked about the need for good document control, process control, portfolio management and so on. … [He brought] us the idea that the Bob Cooper approach to Stage–Gate was a good way to go.” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

When asked about their past decision process, the Aquaculture Senior Manager categorised it as being “pretty chaotic and not very well organised”, and “pretty slack at sticking to what we’d say we’ll do”. There were essentially two issues at hand. First, past decision process was not carried out in a planned and organised manner. Second, there was a lack of discipline in following through what had been said. He further explained how “[a particular product launched in the past] would never make it through [the second screen] gate in a more disciplined system [like now] since [… that product simply] doesn’t fit in [with] anything we’re doing right now.” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

Members of the book club soon became convinced that a structured process could only be fully attained through the administration of an information technology to assist them in instilling order into an otherwise chaotic and disorganised decision process. In addition, it would enable senior management to better monitor the NPD process and progress. They believed the fear of being watched could potentially discipline their subordinates to be accountable for their work.

“I always constantly felt with paper systems I had to rely on human nature to get things done without there being any sort of disciplines around them and so on and so forth…. I was pretty convinced from the early days that you have to look at human nature, and make life as easy as possible for yourself as a management team. And I just saw the software group as being the way to do that… [so a paper based system was never implemented here,]not here, no, no, no. We did consider Robert Cooper’s [simple] software offering, which was ‘Stage–Gate in a box’… which would have been okay, but it would have been a lot harder yards… [and] … that system would just break down after a while, and it’s harder to maintain.” (Senior Manager #5: Technical)

The notion of a separate “actor” to enforce the discipline was also echoed by a senior manager.

“And the idea was that, as processing people, background people, our view of the world is that you should have a process for everything, including making decisions about NPD. And we need a bit of discipline around it to improve. And Stage–Gate is one way of doing that.” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

weekly book club was predominantly attended by the Technical Manager, the CEO, the Sales and Marketing Senior Manager, Processing Senior Manager. ert Cooper is a well-known author in new product development. Much of his work is also cited in this paper’s reference list.

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Consequently, senior management of Big Fish made a conscious decision to implement an information technology to drive the structured decision process. Big Fish even approached the commercial software vendor to enquire about and eventually purchase the information technology. An NPD System Administrator was also hired to work closely with the software company in preparation for the deployment and administration of this technology-driven decision process. Like any enterprise resource planning system, the implementation of this information technology required much time, effort, and restructuring of the decision process. “Whilst this [information technology] probably took a wee while to set up, I think that effort was worth it.” (Senior Manager #5: Technical)

More than a year after making the conscious decision, Big Fish began employing the information technology to help manage and realise their NPD efforts while carrying out enforcement of discipline to do so among their employees. “[So that came as this commercial information technology package] it disciplined us into better design practices” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing). Senior management believed that their subordinates’ fear of being watched and scrutinised had improved the firm’s NPD work activities and product launch results.

Unlike most other companies, Big Fish did not trial a manual Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process before implementing the information technology. As a result of the book club sessions, senior management insisted that information technology was what the company needed in order to discipline its employees and move the company forward. The cost of implementing the information technology was perceived as an investment. The CEO believed that the cost was insignificant in comparison to the volume of fish the company produced each year.

“… it was simple for me. I thought that this was an easy investment if it was a catalyst in moving margins up considerably through new products. When you consider that we do nearly 8 million kilos of [fish], it doesn’t take much, you know it takes 2 cents per kilo of [fish] to pay for that, 2½ cents to pay for that up there, and that’s not very much. And that was on top of all the virtues that it was going to give us. So there were two things, one of them was the virtue of the product itself, and secondly it underlined our commitment to product development. And so we’ve had a generic effect, that here’s the company who are investing this, so they must be serious about it.” (CEO)

Not only did Big Fish bypass a manual Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process, they made a bold investment in insisting on implementing a software version with full functionality, hosting and owning the backend database at its premises. According to the Aquaculture Senior Manager, “If we were going to do it, we should do it full” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture). For a company that has an annual turnover of $100 million they invested $200,000 in information technology to manage the NPD decision process. They were conscious that this was a substantial amount of investment to devote to information technology. However, the CEO believed it was the right investment for the company to move forward into the future.

“Compared to other companies when we decide to invest and invest in the longer term, we make sure that we invest properly. So that means that we do make sure people are trained up and understand how the process is. And that’s been a feature of the company … I mean it was a $200,000 investment just in the software.” (CEO)

Once the information technology was implemented, internal promotion campaigns were underway at Big Fish. Campaign flyers and balloons were disseminated throughout the firm and outside of the head office. All employees of Big Fish were encouraged to contribute by submitting ideas for new products. Small rewards, such as movie vouchers, were given to those who contributed unique ideas for consideration. The information technology gave many individuals in the firm an opportunity to submit their new ideas even when they did not have the technical skills or the business skills to develop those ideas. These campaigns created employee awareness across the firm that Big Fish had adopted an information technology to manage its NPD decision process.

As the NPD activities grew, Big Fish hired two personnel as NPD technologists. The two NPD technologists and the NPD System Administrator who was hired earlier formed an NPD unit. This unit was dedicated to carrying out NPD work activities prescribed by the information technology in managing project development on a daily basis.

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4.2. Roles of gatekeepers

Before implementing the information technology, NPD decisions were made by the Sales and Marketing, and Processing Senior Managers, and/or the CEO. Decisions did not need be made by all three individuals. They could be made by any one of them, and hence no one had a complete view of the NPD decisions made, which projects were approved, and how the projects had progressed. The Sales and Marketing Senior Manager would only adhere closely to what he knew of the market to ensure success. The Processing Senior Manager would only “manufacture” according to what his factory employees were capable of and what his current machineries could handle. As the food industry by nature is an unadventurous market where consumers have conservative tastes and refrain from trying new innovative food products, senior managers were inclined to make conservative decisions in order to minimise the risk of failure. Occasionally there were sales and marketing personnel who tried to impress the CEO with their “fancy” new ideas. When a structured NPD process was proposed, the CEO felt it was time to embrace change. Thus, the implementation of the information technology emerged.

The information technology came with the Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process embedded. The Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process is subdivided into a number of stages and gates. “The stages are where the work is done; the gates ensure that the quality is sufficient” (Cooper, 1990, p.46). The project team is responsible for the stages; gatekeepers are responsible for the gates. Stages are when investigation and development work activities are carried out; gates are times when the gatekeepers meet, discuss, and decide on the progression or termination of ideas and projects (here forth referred to as gate meetings).

The gatekeepers11 comprised all the senior managers from the four divisions of Big Fish plus the Technical Manager. This group held the collective deciding votes in approving new ideas as projects, and in deciding whether the projects could continue to the next stage, or be terminated. The inclusion of every divisional senior manager in the firm as gatekeepers was truly reflective of the entirety of the company leadership, both in body and in spirit.

11 The gatekee within

“[The Technical Manager] provides the technical input, [the Sales and Marketing Senior Manager] provides the commercial input, [the Finance Senior Manager] provides the financial input, [the Aquaculture Senior Manager] the supply side and of course [the Processing Senior Manager] on manufacturing. But we all have a view of each other’s areas, hopefully, to some greater or lesser extent and are prepared or confident enough to comment on that.” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

Interestingly, the CEO who was an influential and dominating party in the previous decision process was “expelled” from being a gatekeeper in this technology-driven decision process. However, he was appointed as the chairman of the NPD process. This decision was made as a result of the book club sessions and upon learning about the drawbacks of “pet projects” (Cooper, 2008). Besides, it would prevent employees continuing to promote projects to the CEO.

“[Back in the days,] people were trying to sell projects to [the CEO], rather than sell projects because they were good; or letting the projects sell themselves because they were good projects.” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

The CEO maintained that he was nevertheless still in control and could exert authority. He expressed his view as a person who believed in benevolent dictatorship and was adamant that he was still a member of the gatekeeper team despite others suggesting the CEO had been deliberately excluded from the team.

“I, although I'm a gatekeeper, I have sort of kept my counsel about that and allowed the [senior] managers to let it come through. If there’s a good consensus there, then that’s great, I mean I don't need to be involved with any of that. … although I do prefer a benevolent dictatorship … I can still, if I want to exert any authority, if I really believe in it …” (CEO)

Technical Manager, who proposed the technology-structured management control, was also included as one of the pers even though he was a line manager and belonged to the Processing Division. He was considered as a Senior Manager the NPD decision process.

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Even though the CEO believed that he could exert authority, he insisted that “it’s not about exercising power; it’s about doing what’s right” and argued that it was an unlikely occurrence for him to exert his authority since “I will be at odds with the consensus there” (CEO). The CEO strongly believed that his surrendering of this critical position would uplift the morale of his senior management so they would feel responsible for the decision process. It was of interest to note how the CEO maintained he was still a decision maker (through being a gatekeeper), whereas his senior managers insisted he was not and explained how different the dynamic of the decision group would be if the CEO was part of the decision group.

“If you bring the CEO into that [decision] group you get a different dynamic … people are less likely to explore ideas … when the CEO is around … one of the dangers you get with NPD [when the CEO is around] is pet projects get pushed. And he only needs to open his mouth about how favoured he is towards a particular project … how he views it and it will influence the outcome or the decision. It’s not because it’s him, it’s the role he fulfils. The CEO needs to be very careful about his involvement at that level of company…” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

The CEO often logged in to the information technology to read and learn about the findings and progress pertaining to each decision project. He was essentially monitoring the project progress quietly and remotely. The information technology allowed the CEO to monitor what was going on and thus maintained subtle control.

“… if I want to go into [the information technology] and have a look at the projects I can do [so] obviously. I have access to it and I will look at some of the financials I might be interested in. … We want to make sure we’re putting in a lot of effort for good rewards, rather than mediocre rewards.” (CEO)

Occasionally, the CEO would come to the gate meetings unexpectedly. To him, physical presence was a way to show his support to employees. He would express his reservations while he was in the gate meetings even though he was not a gatekeeper and had no voting rights.

“There are some times when I just want to come in and show my support, that’s important, that I'm not ignoring you or anything like that, I'm not. But just to be there and show my support for some of the younger people.” (CEO)

As the NPD activities and occurrences were recorded in the information technology, the CEO was able to log in and read up about the NPD progress, including when the next gate meetings would be held. It was always interesting to observe how individuals reacted to the CEO’s unannounced and sudden visits at the gate meetings. While some ignored his presence in the gate meetings, the NPD Technologists always seemed to ponder over who invited the CEO and how he knew of the meetings. The information technology had made the information available and visible to the CEO before the meetings without anyone realising it. Anyhow, the gatekeepers would continue with their own discussion without explicitly responding to any inquiries or questions that were put by the CEO. The CEO always left the room ahead of any voting ballot and before the gate meetings concluded.

Like any employee in the company, the CEO was able to contribute by submitting an idea. It was the gatekeepers’ job to evaluate the ideas on their own merits.

“[The CEO is] able to initiate an idea, he being not necessarily the CEO, but anyone […] can raise an idea and get it put into the idea bank of [the information technology] like you saw today. Collectively, though, if the five gatekeepers […] evaluate [the idea] poorly [then that idea] won’t proceed [anymore].” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

4.3. The use of the information technology by gatekeepers

Before the implementation of the information technology, no one had a clear overall picture of what new ideas were proposed, what NPD decisions were made, which projects were approved, or how the projects had progressed. Everything happened behind closed doors and information was confined to a few individuals. The implementation of the information technology offered a new channel for every employee

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to contribute new product ideas to the firm. A new form of transparency was created. Although most employees did not have access to the information technology, the idea submission phase was transparent to them because submission forms were readily available for them to fill in and participate, whether as named or anonymous. Employees appreciated this opportunity. 12Once they had filled in their ideas on the submission forms, the NPD System Administrator processed and entered these into the idea banks. As for those employees who had access to the information technology, they could contribute and submit ideas directly into the information technology. Ideas did not need to be fully described at this early phase. No one would be embarrassed by suggesting an ingenious but undeveloped idea. Part of the decision process was to expand, define and build a business case from the brief ideas, and then comprehensive design and development investigations would be carried out. By following the protocols prescribed by the information technology, individuals could propose ideas without fear they would be blamed for any subsequent failures. Furthermore, gratitude was also shown after a successful launch to all those in the factory who helped make the new products. So the focus at the firm was to encourage positive, reassuring and complimentary behaviours rather than negative, disheartening and humiliating behaviours.

12 The proceed staffing

“It's not a blame culture. […] that's what we're trying to encourage […] we celebrate success as a team and we learn from whatever happened as a team as well. [No one would say we just recommend the ideas, it’s the gatekeeper that has the ultimate say.] No not really. […] people have been able to […] have their opinion [voiced]. […] it's one of those things you've got to encourage […] some open and honest discussion really. And we like to celebrate […] with the factory teams as well […] if we’ve launched something successfully then [those involved with making it in the factory] get a chance to celebrate as well really. […] we’d probably have a barbecue for them one day […] or a bit of a pot luck lunch […].” (NPD System Administrator)

All distinctive new ideas were to be captured in the information technology. Unless they were captured and recorded in the information technology, they would not receive attention to be tabled for discussion and evaluation by the senior management during the gate meetings. Such insistence exemplified senior management’s commitment to making the NPD decision process as transparent as possible. The gatekeepers would openly discuss each idea in the gate meetings and evaluate it to see if it fitted with the company’s ethos, capacities and capabilities to proceed further in the decision process. Only ideas that met the fit could proceed further as projects. Once approved as projects, they would receive company resources for investigation and development work. No ideas appeared to have been elevated into working projects without being tabled for discussion and approval at gate meetings. This demonstrated senior management’s vigilance in confirming each gatekeeper’s knowledge and approval when deciding the release of NPD resources. It might appear tedious that each probable project had to follow the decision process protocols, regardless of its size, scope, or urgency. Some projects might involve small changes such as packaging size, or labels. This tedium was obviously not welcomed by the sales and marketing employees who wanted their ideas to be worked upon immediately, but they soon learned that unless their ideas were captured, these would not be discussed by the gatekeepers or be allocated any company resources.

Besides debating whether the ideas fitted, the gatekeepers also went into discussion, re-examining whether they needed to adjust their current market strategy to encapsulate the newly proposed market segments in some gate meetings. Since the deployment of the information technology, it had been these five gatekeepers’ collective responsibility to examine and decide on this fit, as well as to re-examine and refine the firm’s target and focus. Generation of new ideas was never a concern for the firm, irrespective of the information technology. The concerns had always centred on the communication, management, evaluation of, and the decision about projects, which was why senior management was willing to invest considerably in implementing information technology to encourage open communication and transpar- ency in the NPD decision process.

“… it’s not just about the idea, it’s about the communication through the business, dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s, making sure that all the systems work when you come to launch, and that you've

se ideas had been scored by the gatekeepers and only the top 10 ideas were usually looked at. The recommendation to was made based on the working projects at the time and their associated resource pressure, and the availability of NPD resources. If the availability was for a short period of time, then a smaller project was recommended.

13 The proceed staffing

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checked all the things, like your wastage, yields, cost, all that sort of thing is covered off.” (Senior Manager #5: Technical)

All data related to new ideas and working projects were subsequently captured and documented in the information technology. The information technology became the central repository. Data that had been drawn from various sources and divisional units were stored in a single database. The project team leaders and members, NPD System Administrator, gatekeepers, and the CEO could log in to enter and view applicable information. The user interface for entering data and viewing data was handled through typical Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. All working documents, spreadsheets, and presentations were standardised following the same template and style, which the users became quickly familiar with after working through several projects.

Once the ideas were captured into the information technology, a gate meeting might be called to discuss and evaluate the ideas on hand. Before the gate meetings, the gatekeepers were to read through the limited description provided and critique the ideas according to their own expertise. The gatekeepers each entered some comments and concerns into the information technology. They played the role of a specialist in representing their division and could only comment on specific criteria that were related to their governing division. As mentioned earlier, they also rated each idea on specific criteria following a Likert scale of 1 to 10. Each idea was evaluated on its own merits and was not assessed in comparison to other ideas at this phase. The overall score for each idea was based on the average scores obtained from all criteria.

During the gate meetings, the summary scores from all criteria as well as the comments and concerns raised by each gatekeeper were publicly projected and displayed. Everyone in the gate meetings could see everyone else’s comments and concerns. They could also ask questions and seek clarification unreservedly. Much discussion always took place in the gate meetings. The gatekeepers did not seem to be concerned about inputting their views into the information technology or sharing them publicly during the gate meetings even though they knew their fellow gatekeepers and their subordinates would be able to see their views. Nothing appeared to happen behind closed doors. The gatekeepers also rarely ever dismissed an idea presented to them. They preferred to keep the ideas in the idea bank “just in case”. Based on the NPD staffing resources, the NPD System Administrator in consultation with the Technical Manager would advise the gatekeepers about which highly ranked ideas13 in the idea bank should proceed as working projects.

For projects to continue progressing through the pipeline of the NPD process, they had to be tabled and evaluated by the gatekeepers. Gate meetings were set up for this purpose, and the investigation results and progress details presented there were information that had been collated from the inputs entered by the project team leaders and team members. Each of them was assigned responsibility for a set of working files with their names listed. Since there was no anonymity, individuals could not escape from being held accountable for their efforts. Before the gate meetings, the gatekeepers were to read through the provided information. The contributions and efforts of the project team would therefore be under close scrutiny.

During these gate meetings, the findings and numbers for the tabled working projects were openly projected and displayed. The project team leaders took the gatekeepers through the PowerPoint presentation slides. These slides were generated within the information technology following a predefined template from collated inputs and showed both financial and non-financial information. The information was also positioned in the same order irrespective of which project. The displayed information would reveal the amount and level of investigation and development work conducted by the project team. Gatekeepers could detect individual performances either during their private read of the supplied information before the gate meetings, or on hearing the project team leaders’ presentations at the gate meetings. NPD tasks were inspected and further dissected at these gate meetings.

The number of gate meetings for each project varied depending on the complexity of the project, but each meeting forced gatekeepers to re-evaluate the projects according to the latest information on hand. Figures were repeatedly predicted and calculated leading up to each gate meeting. Figures could be

se ideas had been scored by the gatekeepers and only the top 10 ideas were usually looked at. The recommendation to was made based on the working projects at the time and their associated resource pressure, and the availability of NPD resources. If the availability was for a short period of time, then a smaller project was recommended.

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sketchy at the start of the decision process, but were expected to be more accurate closer to launch event. These figures used to be privileged information restricted to an individual or a few individuals, but were now revealed to all. Not only were the findings and numbers mentioned in the gate meetings, but through the PowerPoint slides they were projected in large print on the wall, clearly visible to all to see.

The gatekeepers now played the role of a business manager at these gate meetings and were no longer mere representatives of their respective divisions. They were interrogative while discussing the prospects of these working projects and deciding on new products that would allow the company to remain competitive and make profits. The Finance Senior Manager had raised issues about packaging. The Processing Senior Manager had raised issues about sales volume. The Sales and Marketing Senior Manager had raised issues about the machines. The Aquaculture Senior Manager had raised issues about which supermarkets were indicating they were ordering, or not ordering. The gatekeepers appeared to be increasingly comfortable discussing matters openly in the observed gate meetings. None of the gatekeepers seemed to abstain from raising an opinion regardless of whether the matter belonged to their respective functional area or not. None of the opinions or comments raised by the gatekeepers appeared to have any intent to expose or humiliate any individuals either. The subject matter and discussions were clearly focused on making the working projects as successful as possible for the firm upon commercial launch events. Thus, transparency was not only seen through the information recorded in the information technology, but also in the social interactions during the gate meetings.

14 An convers

“[The gatekeepers … have] got better. I think some of the gatekeepers find it really hard at the start to actually make a decision, and […] discuss about things openly and […] honestly. But […] now they're pretty good, they'll all voice an opinion and they discuss it so. [… As for deadlocks] with […] scoring or [making] a decision […] that's never really happened. People have kind of talked about it and come to a mutual decision really.” (NPD System Administrator)

For a business to survive it must somehow make a profit. The gatekeepers were simply following this basic rule of thumb in evaluating the ideas and projects presented to them. This was constantly noted in the questions they each raised in the gate meetings. The information technology provided the gatekeepers with a template to assess the ideas and the projects in terms of the business case, recent progress made, and plans for the next stage once approval to proceed was gained. The template was transparent for all to see, especially the NPD Technologists who were the project team leaders. Individually, the gatekeepers also quoted net present value as their ultimate deciding factor in deciding whether to vote to allow the project to continue to the next stage. Even the NPD technologists soon learnt that they must address net present value before each gate meeting14; otherwise they would risk the gatekeepers refusing to approve further resources for their projects to proceed. This refusal could occur even if the projects were thought to be wonderful, as they had witnessed in the gate meetings for a particular project (known as Project X here forth).

“I like the idea of [the information technology] taking the emotion out of it, and [it is presenting facts and numbers so that we are] using more objectivity into [making decisions].” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

Project X was about a product that was considered appealing and simple to produce by the gatekeepers. However, one of the gatekeepers insisted that the net present value was too low when valuable resources and manufacturing capacity could be reallocated to other more promising projects. Even though the other gatekeepers contended that Project X would help promote the company during the festive season, they could not and did not disagree with this gatekeeper that net present value was very low. As a result of the discussion at the gate meeting, the team leader was specifically told that they must significantly increase net present value and find ways to negotiate with the supermarkets that would be ordering the product. The team leader was also told that unless this was addressed, Project X was at risk of being terminated. Project X was essentially being put on hold conditional on addressing the sales volume. Once addressed, another gate meeting was to be called for approval to proceed onto the next stage, i.e. to

unsolicited comment was made between individuals in the new product development division during an informal ation after one of the gate meetings.

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launch. Four months later, Project X was subsequently approved at a gate meeting to proceed to launch. The product was commercially launched one month after that.

When evaluating ideas in the gate meetings, not only were the gatekeepers’ comments on each criterion retrieved from the information technology and projected onto the wall, but the comments were read aloud by the NPD System Administrator in the gate meetings. Likewise, for the projects, the team’s comments and numbers on the project prospects, progress report, difficulties encountered and possible challenges were documented in the information technology. The project team leaders verbally communicated them in the gate meetings and got the information technology to retrieve and project the information onto the wall to attract the attention of the gatekeepers during the gate meetings. The whole NPD process was very transparent, particularly to all those licensed users who had login access to the information technology.

Since the gatekeepers were able to access the information directly and beforehand, they were able to form their own separate opinions, as observed through their questioning in the gate meetings. The gatekeepers certainly felt the information technology had given them a framework to evaluate the situation and raised appropriate questions early on in the decision process. The questions were not to do with “what did you do?” but rather “why are these supermarkets not ordering?” and “why can’t we use that machine to cut?” The information technology had decrypted the mystical NPD process and steered the gatekeepers as to what they should contemplate.

“And I think that the much more objective stage and gate approach [nowadays] narrows focus on different areas at the early stages [of the project] and then [evaluate] the project [accordingly]. I think it worked really well. I really like it.” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

The information technology captured all comments and numbers that had been previously entered. This included the initial scores and comments made by the gatekeepers at the time the projects were just mere ideas, the investigations and results found by the team leaders during project work activities, and the assessments and estimations made by the line managers on the projects. Therefore, the information technology provided a transparent environment that held individuals accountable for their unsubstan- tiated remarks or estimations made as the remarks or estimations they contributed could be retrieved from the repository of the information technology and be scrutinised.

For example, in one of the gate meetings, one of the gatekeepers asked the team leader about the breakdown of the sales estimation upon seeing a low net present value for Project X. The team leader was immediately able to retrieve this from the information technology during the gate meeting and show the gatekeepers. Upon seeing the breakdown, the gatekeeper asked “why are there no orders coming from [some supermarkets]?” On questioning, it then became apparent to the gatekeepers that the lower than expected sales figures had occurred as a result of the short timeframe in which Project X was made available to supermarkets to sell. The information technology had made it possible for the gatekeepers to ask the right questions to address their concerns of low financial value, and hold individuals accountable for their contributions. As the projects progressed through the decision pipeline the level of details increased. The sales line manager could get away with a summary sales figure earlier on in the NPD process, but the information technology would force him to enter a detailed breakdown closer to the launch event.

As revealed through Project X, the information technology had forced the line manager to provide the detailed breakdown of expected sales from specific customers. This gave the gatekeepers some indications and clues to uncover the true cause of the unexpected poor sales performance ahead of the launch event. It also revealed unsatisfactory staff performance when they should have communicated to the project team early on in the NPD process some retailers’ refusals to stock and sell a product that was only available in the market within a very short timeframe. The incident also showed that despite line managers knowing their work was under scrutiny for all to see, they simply fulfilled their tasks by calculating the expected sales figures as the information technology had requested for the figures. They did not modify their behaviours for fear of being criticised for not striving to find ways to address or communicate the restriction imposed by some retailers.

“There have been times where sales and marketing has been a bit lame in things, but I think they're starting to pull their finger out a bit more now. And this [information technology], the disciplines within [this information technology], or the processes within [this information technology] sort of highlight

15 Not

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when people are starting to be behind [in schedule and performing poorly], which is good. And even if it’s done substandard, at least it’s there [recorded] for all to see.” (CEO)

The information technology had not only demanded certain information but also timely and quality information for the gatekeepers to receive: characteristics the gatekeepers noticed and appreciated the information technology had provided for them. These characteristics were good information that enabled them to make the necessary decisions.

“[This information technology] has given me more information therefore I'm making better decisions … I'm employed to make decisions … and those decisions have to be based on good information …” (Senior Manager #2: Processing)

The social interactions observed at the gate meetings appeared to be rather structured. The gatekeepers were also well-behaved and respectful to their peers and subordinates during the gate meetings. Questions for the team leaders were raised at the end of their presentation so that the team leaders could communicate what they needed to without interruptions. In all the gate meetings observed, not one gatekeeper dominated the entire discussion in any gate meetings. The discussion was always in reference to something that had been raised and mentioned either by the team leader or projected by the information technology; and someone15 always steered the discussion back to the issues and concerns on hand so that appropriate decisions could be made and the team leaders knew which path to continue after they left the gate meetings. It was also fascinating to notice that at times when the gatekeepers were stuck with problem solving or in some heated discussions at gate meetings, someone would mention Robert Cooper, the author who formulated the Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process through NPD best practices (Hall, 2010) and ask “What did Cooper say?” or “What would Cooper do?” This actually brought their focus back to discussing the real issues again.

The information technology essentially forced the gatekeepers to focus and discuss the issues and concerns that were raised and projected. It disciplined the gatekeepers too in completing their tasks.

“And with the implementation of [the information technology] there’s a lot more discipline around that … I believe that now they’re getting a lot more information at the front end on which to base the costing. So there’s a discipline process in place in terms of how will a product be structured […] what are the requirements? What are the components? And the NPD team have to identify all of the elements, and [the information technology] itself has templates which they need to fill out. So it’s quite clear […] in terms of how the product will be structured, and therefore how it should be costed. So yeah much more discipline.” (Senior Manager #4: Finance)

Some gate meetings could take longer than expected. Even the NPD System Administrator expressed her shock coming out of one gate meeting that took a lot longer than what she had envisaged. She thought it would take less than 30 min for the gatekeepers to discuss Project X, but it ended up being a full hour of intense discussion. No issues were spared. The gatekeepers were very frank and open about their concerns of the ideas and working projects for the future of the firm.

Interestingly enough, no gatekeeper revisited any past remarks, or felt the need to do so, even when it was the same decision project that was subsequently evaluated. The notion that all remarks were captured and therefore traceable seemed to be sufficient for individuals to be placed under scrutiny and be accountable for their involvement. Furthermore, the remarks and estimations were only ever contested during the gate meetings in which they had been prepared for. The gatekeepers certainly felt that the notion of being watched was all that was necessary to hold individuals accountable for their work.

“I like the idea of, when it was sold to us, it was saying we’ll record all your comments and be able to go back and say ‘who said this was a crap idea and who said it was a great idea?’. And you’ll be able to then get a feel for people’s judgment. And people’s judgment will be better informed the next time. Because

necessarily the same gatekeeper.

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there’s that accountability. Because what you said back then has been recorded. And I thought that was really powerful.” (Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture)

Throughout all the observed gate meetings, decisions were always made, even if it was to make the projects conditional on meeting certain criteria. At the end of each project presentation, a count of votes was religiously carried out irrespective of whether a consensus view had been expressed throughout the discussion. Each gatekeeper was asked to verbally declare their vote. If it was not a unanimous decision, majority votes would be the ultimate decision. Decisions were always made on collective knowledge and efforts by this group of gatekeepers and not by a single individual gatekeeper making their own separate judgements, whether substantiated or not. Since the decisions were made by a group, each of them was not personally held accountable for the verdict.

The gatekeepers believed that a successful decision process had given them the edge they were previously lacking. “I think it was because we’ve put these processes in place, that we’ve got better performance, better profitability” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing). Two years into implementation, sales generated from new products in Big Fish had reached 4% of their total revenue, compared to the previous 1%.

It was an investment for the longer term and not the short term, and that was […] a courageous decision, I think it’s starting to pay off and we’re starting to see it now.” (CEO)

Furthermore, Big Fish believed it had reached a historical high in its NPD. It launched three lines of new products on the same day. Each of these three lines of new products was considered by the firm to be an innovative radical new product, a semi-radical new product, and an incremental new product. The added sophistication of these new products certainly intensified the firm’s morale.

“Since the adoption of [this information technology] the new products that we’ve been developing are much more sophisticated as well. So the whole NPD process has gone up a step, a significant step from where we were before …” (Senior Manager #4: Finance)

Indeed, since the implementation of a structured decision process that is technology-driven, Big Fish had seen some exciting results in its NPD. One of these was the introduction of an innovative radical new product that leveraged both an automatic portioning technology and a new packaging technology that Big Fish had invested in. The portioning cutting machine uses advanced laser technology to calculate how to divide fresh fish into desired size and weight and provided the firm with large volumes of uncommon alternative cuts of fresh fish in comparable weights and minimal wastage. The intention was to inspire consumers that there are many different recipes to cook and serve fish. The packaging machine revolutionised their contemporary packaged fresh fish of three days shelf-life to an astounding 12 days of extended shelf-life. Even if the packaged fresh fish was vacuum-sealed the shelf-life could only be extended to six days. Although extending the shelf-life of packaged fish was not in the original scope of the initial project, this brilliant idea evolved as the project progressed through the NPD process. The packaging technology provided Big Fish with the added advantage of manufacturing flexibility to meet order requirements or logistic constraints. Furthermore, Big Fish was able to enter into new market by selling their packaged fresh fish in smaller cut portions to smaller retailers who did not have the facility of a sanctioned seafood section to cut fish fillets into smaller portions.

Perhaps the initial Book Club meetings had been the catalyst for what was happening in Big Fish. Furthermore, every employee was given the opportunity to become a member of a “Think Tank” to work on the NPD process for the firm. The preliminary input of basic ideas across the firm had resulted in an output of improved ideas and innovative new product launches, some of which were revolutionary. Such outcomes informed Big Fish that information technology was the way to go for the firm in order to move forward in its business venture. The information technology gave the gatekeepers new forms of transparency and confidence they had never before experienced. They felt more comfortable to let their employees take more innovative steps when they knew what sort of investigation would be carried out. Furthermore, they were able to monitor the work activities through the information technology.

“Yeah that’s right [I wouldn’t trust my staff to carry out a more challenging project in the past before the information technology] coz the system wasn’t up to it [… and] there wasn’t any system to allow [us the

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gatekeepers] to exercise good judgement and make decisions … and not just me [who was unwilling to let them run and launch a challenging project], I think that was widespread. Without a good system [even] the whole senior management team were [micromanaging and] making decisions on behalf of the project teams that they shouldn’t have been making. [… Product development back then was] non- systematic, non-methodological. It didn’t have any kind of process behind the decision making.” (Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing)

Individuals directly involved in the decision process were informally approached and asked about how they felt about their upcoming historical new product launches. Their replies seemed to echo each other’s. They were pleased with the collective accomplishment and were enthusiastic to know how the market would react to their new products. Their response was unanimous irrespective of their hierarchical level, contribution or responsibilities towards the projects.

5. Discussion of case study findings

The former section details the journey senior management at Big Fish went through in adopting an information technology. The initiation of a weekly Book Club meeting set off open discussions and eventually the CEO and senior management arrived at a decision to implement an information technology. This information technology came embedded with the Stage–Gate product innovation approach and was intended to assist senior management to enact and enforce automated management controls that were necessary for their NPD process.

Before the implementation of this technology-structured management control, two senior managers from the Sales and Marketing and Processing divisions were assigned the task of deciding on the development of new products as they saw fit. NPD decisions were made behind closed doors and driven by personal preference and gut feeling. Information on the NPD activities and work carried out was confined to those who undertook the task. The two senior managers were basically the decision makers approving the ideas, but these decisions were made separately. The Sales and Marketing Senior Manager was not aware what ideas the Processing Senior Manager had approved, and vice-versa. There was no consolidated information about the approved ideas or the NPD activities being undertaken. Furthermore, the NPD decision making was mostly influenced by the CEO’s input and support. There was often reluctance by the two senior managers to undertake difficult assignments unless the CEO had endorsed and supported the ideas that he came to know and showed high interest in. Hence, conservative decisions were often made by the two senior managers resulting in mostly incremental new products being produced and introduced by the firm, which were consistent with the common practice of the food industry (Rudolph, 1995) to minimise the risk of failure (van Trijp and Meulinberg, 1996; Kristensen et al., 1998; Liori et al., 2001). Little innovation was therefore generated at Big Fish over this period.

Unlike the past where no one had an oversight of what work should be or had been conducted in NPD, the technology-structured management control prescribed the course of actions the project teams should take and perform as part of the necessary NPD investigations and/or development work. The courses of action varied depending on what stage or gate the approved progressing project was in, and were automated in a structured way using the Stage–Gate Product Innovation Process (Cooper, 2008). Because of the structured process, employees involved in the NPD process were able to define their work activity boundaries. The superiors knew the work activity boundary of their subordinates and were able to hold their subordinates responsible. The technology-structured management control captured the progress of the NPD process in detail. These details were visible and accessible to all those involved in NPD (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). The visibility and accessibility of the courses of action and work carried out made senior management feel more confident that the project teams would be mindful in completing the necessary homework (Roberts, 2009) knowing that senior management could be watching them (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). As anticipated, the technology-structured management control allowed senior management to inspect the work carried out by the subordinates so long as it had been uploaded (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). As a result of the monitoring, senior management was able to actively participate in NPD, intervene and influence the work carried out by the project teams. Senior management only examined the NPD work when the projects were scheduled for consideration at the upcoming gate meetings.

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The association between individuals and technology reached a different dimension after technology- structured management control was implemented. Besides knowing what courses of actions were taken and where the boundaries of work activities were defined, the NPD process was no longer a hidden agenda or event privileged among a few individuals. The entire senior management team played a central role in reviewing the continuation of NPD projects as well as in assessing the suitability and viability of new product ideas. The technology-structured management control gave senior management an overview of what new ideas were proposed, what NPD decisions were made, which projects were approved, how the approved projects had progressed, what NPD tasks were carried out, and who were assigned to work on which tasks.

Two phases were involved in the evaluation and approval of ideas. In the first phase, senior management read through the provided briefs and specifications of the proposed ideas and contemplated them. Each of them then entered their identifiable individual responses into the information technology. They then met as a collective group in the second phase to discuss and assess the ideas during these gate meetings. Their individual responses on respective operational concerns received no anonymity. Everyone could read and tell who said what as each individual response was named. The responses also often exposed the inadequacies and poor performances of specific divisions. The named responses became the central data repository of opinions expressed by senior management. As individual gatekeepers, senior management were able to readily retrieve information regarding the initial thoughts and comments made by their peers. Considering that the information technology kept details of individuals’ remarks, thus making the remarks accessible and visible to all to see, it could have created fears among gatekeepers and made them cautious, conservative, evasive or pretentious when inputting their remarks into the information technology (Roberts, 2009). It could have also provoked gatekeepers to be critical, defensive or disruptive at gate meetings when attributing the remarks made by their peers (Roberts, 2009). Yet, senior management seemed fearless, generous and open in disclosing the necessary information. None of the gatekeepers appeared to withhold details or be embarrassed to share any inadequacies with their peers. This might have been because they knew their respective subordinates could retrieve and read their entered remarks and concerns once their subordinates were assigned to be the project team members.

Part of the technology-structured management control was that each gatekeeper must make a personal critique about the proposed ideas and enter them into the information technology before the gate meetings. The first phase essentially had each gatekeeper walk into a gate meeting with their own preconceived ideas and opinions, and the information technology publicise the opinions and concerns of each named gatekeeper during the gate meetings. The intellectual discussions at the gate meetings depended on senior management having completed their designated tasks before the meetings. The information technology essentially played the role of an electronic colleague (Arnold and Sutton, 1998). It facilitated their gate meeting discussions by giving each senior manager an equal opportunity to contribute and take part in the NPD process through their inputted remarks. It reminded senior management of the importance of financial numbers in justifying the continued investment into particular working projects. The information technology “announced” who said what and “revealed” each contributor’s efforts and progression of their designated NPD tasks. None of the senior managers were willing to let the information technology publicly announce at the gate meetings that they had not completed their designated tasks, even if a senior manager knew he would be away and would miss the gate meetings.

The information technology also encouraged senior managers, regardless of personality and character, to take part in the NPD process and voice their opinions and concerns. It “spoke” for introverts who would otherwise shy away from articulating in formal meetings. It also reduced the likelihood of extroverts hijacking the formal meetings for their own personal agenda since everyone could see the projected information about what the proposed ideas and associated concerns were. The information technology was basically a facilitator, a spokesperson and a broadcaster to senior management. The announcements created peer pressure among senior management. It “inspired” each of them to exercise “discipline” upon themselves and be circumspect in completing their designated tasks. The information technology had inadvertently enacted and enforced management controls upon the senior management themselves. The information technology had also created a harmonious environment in which senior management were able to objectively evaluate, discuss and finalise their NPD decisions based on their collective inputs and mutual understanding of the ideas at hand. As an electronic colleague, the information technology had

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directed the social and decision making behaviours of the senior management and shaped the norms of social interactions amongst them in the gate meetings. The social interactions cultivated expectations, peer pressure, and self-discipline on senior management to complete and upload their designated tasks onto the information technology for all to see and retrieve.

Outside of the gate meetings, the technology-structured management control played the role of a silent coach in the NPD process (Arnold and Sutton, 1998). The information technology produced a set of criteria and course of actions for individuals. Individuals were then able to follow and use the prescriptions given in a systemic way to complete their work activities. It taught senior management how to complete their tasks by detailing what aspects they should consider as decision makers and gatekeepers when evaluating the suitability and viability of probable ideas and working projects. It also taught project teams how to complete their tasks by suggesting what information they should investigate and gather. Following the prescriptions might constrain the actions of individuals involved, but senior management did not confine their actions to what the information technology prescribed. However, the project teams did. This suggests that the transparency of the NPD process made the project teams defensive in guarding against their efforts and work (Roberts, 2009), which could be why the project teams adhered closely to what the information technology prescribed. Senior management, however, used the information technology to assert their decisions. They always requested project teams to conduct more “homework” and obtain more convincing evidence and support. Senior management believed the collated information held by the information technology had given them better impressions of the probable ideas and working projects and helped them better understand each division’s capability or difficulty in producing potential new products for the firm. As a result of this knowledge and information, senior management were able to better assess the true viability of the ideas and projects for the firm, rather than being narrow-minded and accessing the ideas and projects within the perspectives of their respective division.

The allocation of project team leaders and members occurred once the ideas received approval to proceed as working projects. Working projects then received regular re-evaluations and interventions from senior management. Similar procedures occurred for working projects as for evaluating ideas. As in the first phase, besides evaluating the same projects repeatedly, senior management were not required to enter any responses into the information technology after they had each contemplated on the project briefs. Instead, senior management were to seek clarifications about the projects from the project team leaders as well as indicate their support or refusal for the projects to continue. This allowed the team leaders to be better prepared for what was to come at the gate meetings and conduct any further preparations if necessary before the gate meetings. Each working project had its own “gates”, though for practical reasons, the gate meetings might assess more than one project at the same session. These gate meetings allowed senior management to re-evaluate the suitability of the projects to continue and provide senior management with recurring opportunities to intervene and/or stimulate their subordinates to think creatively to improve on the prospects and profitability of the projects. Observations showed that the technology-structured management control affected much of the communication and interaction dynamic among senior management at Big Fish. The information technology recorded the senior management’s individual inputs, but not the collective discussions happening at the gate meetings. The discussions were often long and at times heated. Yet, a harmonious and collaborative environment emerged for senior management to voice their concerns to their peers and explore various options and solutions for the best interest of the firm.

One common debate that kept persisting in gate meetings was the financial returns from the commercial launch of the working projects. This topic was never verbally raised by the Finance Senior Manager. He did not need to. The financial numbers were projected on the wall for all to see. None of the senior managers dared to insist specific working projects be continued to commercial launch unless they could propose ways to improve on the financial numbers. Even if the intent of the project was to raise company profile in the marketplace, senior management agreed that they should not make losses from the projects but at least break even.

Regardless of evaluating ideas or working projects, none of the gate meeting discussions were logged or summarised in any meeting minutes. The researcher did write some notes about the gate meeting dialogues but these notes were solely used by the researcher for research purposes. Only the decision outcomes were subsequently recorded in the information technology. Therefore, individual senior managers could have been quite liberal and spiteful in making comments at the gate meetings, but they did not. This might be because as an electronic colleague, the information technology had helped shape the norms of the social interactions in the gate meetings. Furthermore, project team leaders were always

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there at the gate meetings, and some project team members were occasionally there. Thus, technology surveillance had overflown into the social interaction space. If the information technology had not behaved as an electronic colleague, the social interactions at the gate meetings would have been chaotic. The gate meetings could have been dominated by some individuals with personal agendas. This would discourage introverts from raising their concerns, allow the dominant to commercialise loss-making working projects, and allow conversations to go off course without making the necessary decisions.

Through the information technology, senior management were able to continuously inspect and monitor the NPD process and tasks undertaken. The transparency of the NPD process and tasks completed helped senior management intervene and influence their subordinates in carrying out the NPD work. There were several instances where senior management demanded the project team leaders locate and retrieve specific details from the information technology instantaneously to further explain the presented information during the gate meetings. This instantaneous access allowed senior management to make informed decisions without unnecessary postponements. The transparent information also enabled senior management to scrutinise the performance of their subordinates. However, this scrutiny was not limited to a single individual senior manager monitoring his own immediate subordinates, but it was also open to his fellow senior managers to understand the performances of his immediate subordinates. Likewise, subordinates with access to the information technology could potentially retrieve and rebut unwarranted claims and concerns made by the senior managers. The information technology had created an opportunity for open monitoring. This made individual senior managers who had always been playing the role of “watchers” suddenly become “targets of surveillance” not only to their peers but also to their subordinates (Brivot and Gendron, 2011). Interestingly, such a change in role for senior management did not produce a hostile decision-making atmosphere. There were no finger-pointing, no personal attacks, no fostering of blame culture, and no accusations of pretentious or half-truth remarks observed in the gate meetings. Each senior manager showed a lot of consideration and respect to each other in their unreserved gate meeting dialogues and social interactions.

Transparency was seen as a means to help the firm attain accountability. Senior management believed transparency encouraged employees to behave and exercise self-control. Even though they could have, senior management did not use the information technology to constantly police or spot check the employees. Individual employees were held accountable for their contributions and completion of designated tasks. As employees knew they were being watched no individuals avoided uploading their work onto the information technology, including those at senior management level. No one wanted to be named as the “bad employee” who did not complete his assigned task. Nonetheless, some project team members did deliberately delay uploading their work. Some delay was as late as on the morning the gate meeting was scheduled to take place. Individuals who performed sub-standard work, or were uncooperative, were reported by the project team leaders at the gate meetings. These poor performing or uncooperative employees were subsequently reprimanded by senior management.

NPD decisions were collectively made by senior management on majority votes. No single individual, regardless of whether they were from senior management or project teams, was held accountable for the overall success or failure of NPD projects at Big Fish, but individuals were held accountable in contributing and completing their designated tasks, and entering them into the information technology. The information technology was a repository of information and served as a valuable form of organisational memory. The technology-structured management control redistributed the risk of project failures across all members of the collective group. Senior management knew they were being watched and their peers could swiftly search through the repository and scrutinise the remarks they had keyed into the information technology. However, none of the senior managers ever returned to pursue any remarks made by their fellow senior managers beyond the immediate gate meetings. The repository was also effectively a pool of accumulated NPD knowledge that could be located and utilised in successive NPD decision making, but senior management were often seen recalling and citing old ideas and projects without referring to the information technology. This might be because the repository only recorded a small16 number of ideas and projects at the time. The repository could also help preserve knowledge lost when key employees leave the firm (Merchant and van der Stede, 2007). However, as key employees were

16 Around 50–70 ideas and projects in total.

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still with the firm at the time of the research period and data collection, the researcher was not able to confirm this assumption.

With the implemented technology-structured management control, the task of making NPD decisions was no longer restricted to a few individuals but delegated to an entire team of senior management. Democratisation began when each senior manager was given a deciding vote and decisions were collectively made by this group of senior management. Each senior manager was allocated an equal opportunity to participate and contribute towards the ultimate collective NPD decisions. The democratisation of the NPD process was also extended to all employees. Employees who were not directly involved with NPD were able to participate in the NPD process by contributing new ideas to the firm. Their contributions were accepted for considerations regardless of their responsibilities, ranks and divisions. However, democratisation would not have materialised if the CEO had not agreed to implement an information technology to automate and administer management control. The weekly Book Club had somehow ignited a desire for more employee involvement and democratisation of the NPD process. Consequently, the CEO seized the opportunity and made use of the information technology. The CEO was previously the most influential person in the NPD decision-making process, but the implementation of the information technology brought a whole new NPD process in which he was removed from decision making and held no right to vote as a gatekeeper. This verdict appeared rather odd when CEOs often do not like to relinquish their power and control. Nonetheless, having access to the information technology allowed the CEO to quietly and remotely observe the NPD process and watch over all the individuals directly involved in the NPD process. The information technology kept him in the loop and “informed” him about the progress of NPD projects and what was going on. He even purposely attended some gate meetings at times even though he had received no invitations and notifications from anyone. According to his subordinates he was removed from the NPD decision-making process. As far as the CEO was concerned, the information technology gave him new control which he actively made use of to administer management control over his subordinates without any of his subordinates even realising it. The CEO believed he could still exercise authority where he saw fit, but admitted his minimal involvement was for the best. He was happy to be recognised as the CEO who brought in the information technology to help boost the NPD activities and performance. The information technology also provided a unique avenue for him to increase his influence by expanding the power of those around him. Such opportunities were made possible because the information technology provided a transparency that enabled democratisation to transpire, without which the CEO presumably would not have willingly given away direct control to his senior management. Despite that the CEO believed he still held the overarching power, the change in the decision-making power structure gave senior management new-found control and power to make decisions without the undue influence of the CEO. This was demonstrated by senior management continuing with their discussions and evaluations as usual without pausing whenever the CEO arrived unannounced at the gate meetings. Senior management acted as if the CEO was not there to monitor them.

When information technology was implemented to enact and administer management controls in a complex decision domain, the power structure of the decision making process was altered. For those senior managers who were previously excluded from the decision-making process, the technology-structured management control imparted them with new power. For those who were previously included, the technology-structured management control removed some power from them but also armed them with “new ability” which they had never had before. This newly acquired power occurred as a result of the decision-making process being made transparent and where information was readily visible and accessible through the repository of the information technology. The repository constituted a “memory” for individuals to consult later on. This memory also enabled individuals to be questioned and held accountable for their contributions. Individual senior managers did not hold absolute authoritative control, although each possessed a “minimalist” control. The “sovereignty” of a selective few individuals was redistributed and democratised to a collective group. Furthermore, senior management’s decision-making behaviours were transformed. They relied on the project teams to conduct the necessary “homework” for them to assert the decisions they had wished to make. As expected, the information technology turned senior management into “watchers” by providing them with hierarchical management controls enabling them to observe and manage their subordinates. However, they did not anticipate the information technology would simultaneously transform them into “targets of surveillance”. The information technology created lateral management controls that allowed their peers to scrutinise them as well as hold them accountable for the performances of their own subordinates. They also did not foresee their superior, the CEO, would make use of the information

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technology they had implemented to watch over them. They also had not predicted that their subordinates could watch them through the information technology.

6. Conclusion

Through a case study approach this paper explored how information technology can be used as a formal mechanism to enact and enforce automated management control and how it can influence the social interactions and decision-making behaviours of individuals. The focus is placed on senior management, the “watchers” who chose to use the information technology to control their subordinates. This paper describes the journey of an established firm adopting information technology to structure, enact, and enforce automated management controls in its NPD process. Even though senior management had intended to only use information technology to accomplish hierarchical management controls so that they could immediately intervene and influence the NPD work performed by their subordinates, it had helped them learn more about the inner operations and issues faced by other divisions. Nonetheless, senior management found themselves opened to more scrutiny than they had anticipated. They were under the unexpected watchful eyes of their peers as well as their superior, the CEO, who was removed from the NPD decision process. They were also observed by their subordinates working in project teams. However, the open scrutiny and transparency did not lead senior management making pretentious claims when assessing ideas, or using destructive language when critiquing each other. It actually created peer pressure among them and made them more circumspect in their contributions. As an electronic colleague, the information technology coached senior management on what aspects they should consider, facilitated fair participation from each of them, reminded them of the financial returns or losses from the projects, spoke for those who would otherwise shy away from raising their concerns, and publicised to all involved what was being said and by whom, including information about the completion of designated tasks. Unlike the project teams, the senior management did not let the information technology confine their actions to what it prescribed but they did ask the project teams to conduct more work to support their intended decisions.

The research can be further extended in several ways in future studies. Firstly, the results can be corroborated with other firms that had implemented the same commercial information technology to compare and contrast the influences and changes experienced by each firm. Secondly, future studies can look at how formality and creativity reconcile with each other in a structured process. This is an interesting extension because formality has been seen to be restricting employees’ freedom to experiment (Davila and Wouters, 2007) and as a hindrance to creativity for many years (Abernethy and Stoelwinder, 1991). It mitigated innovation (Rockness and Shields, 1984, 1988; Abernethy and Brownell, 1997) to the extent of killing creative inspiration (Amabile, 1998). Yet, none of these hindrances and stagnations was observed in Big Fish even with the continuous monitoring and intervention made possible by the information technology. Furthermore, the launches of several historical innovative new products revealed that creativity had actually flourished at Big Fish. This phenomenon could be partly attributed to how senior management went beyond what was prescribed by the technology-structured management control. They followed the essence but not to the letter.

Thirdly, the case study was conducted two years after the information technology was implemented, a time when the information technology was just starting to settle into its implementation. Therefore it would be interesting to repeat the same study several years later at Big Fish and examine the maturity of the NPD decision process at the firm as a result of prolonged use of information technology to enact and enforce management controls in NPD. Such a repeated study would provide valuable insights into if and how technology-structured management controls evolve and change over a lengthy period of time, whether they weaken or strengthen over time. It could also help explain when and if negative technology dominance emerges in a decision process with prolonged use.

Fourthly, it might be difficult to substantiate if the heavy involvement of senior management (the CEO in particular) in the selection and use of information technology influenced the success of information technology to structure and administer management controls at Big Fish. Therefore, it would be noteworthy to examine the continuous impact and evolution of the information technology after the CEO and original team of senior management left the firm. Would a change in management style affect the ability of the information technology to enact and enforce management controls when new senior management takes over? If so, would the subordinates who had developed work habits based on the

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course of actions prescribed by the information technology resist change? Would employees’ reliance on technology have an influence on the future and continuous adoption of the technology-structured management controls in the firm? It would also be interesting to find out if the alleged central data repository feature of the information technology would serve as an organisational memory when key employees leave the firm.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of Auckland Faculty Research Development Fund.

Appendix 1. Interviews undertaken at Big Fish.

Employee group1 Job role and/or NPD role Before launch Near launch2 After launch3

Observer Chief Executive Officer (CEO) ✓ Senior Management Senior Manager #1: Sales and Marketing ✓

Senior Manager #2: Processing ✓ ✓ Senior Manager #3: Aquaculture ✓ Senior Manager #4: Finance ✓ Senior Manager #5: Technical4 ✓ ✓

NPD Unit NPD Technologist #1: System Administrator ✓ ✓ NPD Technologist #2: Project Team Leader ✓ NPD Technologist #3: Project Team Leader ✓

Line Management Line Manager #1: Domestic Sales ✓ Line Manager #2: Domestic Marketing ✓ Line Manager #3: Export Sales Line Manager #4: Cost Accountant ✓ Average Length of Interview (in min) 70 min 65 min 85 min

1 Senior Management (also the gatekeepers) were the ones who decided and approved the ideas and progression of projects in the decision pipeline. They were the only individuals with decision voting rights. The System Administrator was in charge of capturing and filtering non-duplicated ideas for gatekeepers’ consideration. He also oversaw the assignment of project team leaders and members. The project team leaders were the leaders and runners who investigated and reported on the findings of the project development. The project team members included line managers who were consulted because of their expertise in respective functional units. Observers could attend the gate meetings, but they were not supposed to comment unless requested by the gatekeepers or project team leaders.

2 Near launch was within 4 to 6 weeks before the historical launch date when the 3 lines of new products were introduced to the market. 3 After launch was 5 months after the historical launch date when the 3 lines of new products had been introduced to the market. 4 Although officially ranked as a Line Manager in the firm’s hierarchical structure, the Technical Manager was considered as a

Senior Manager within the NPD decision-making process.

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