Title: Prioritisation of leader roles in several phases of innovation process to enhance productivity

Authors: Mojtaba Kiaei; Amir Hassan Zarei Rahro; Mona Shirkhorshidi

Addresses: Department of Management and Economics, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran ' Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), West side of Azadi Complex, 1485733111, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Management and Economics, Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: The present research aims to prioritise leader roles in several phases of the innovation process in order to enhance productivity. For this purpose, leader roles in the innovation process were investigated from different authors' viewpoints and five roles were finally extracted. According to the results obtained from the analysis of the questionnaires, in the front end phase of innovation process, the roles are ranked based on their importance as follows: technical expert, planner, communicator, team builder and champion. In the development phase, the results are: technical expert, planner, team builder, communicator and champion, respectively. Furthermore, several activities of the front end and the development phase in the new product development (NPD) process were ranked based on their importance. Opportunity identification, idea generation and customer need assessment in the front end phase and development and design and production engineering, in the development phase determined as most important activities.

Keywords: productivity; leadership; innovation process; front end phase of innovation; development phase of innovation; new product development; NPD; technical expert; planner; team builder; communicator; champion.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2018.096092

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2018 Vol.25 No.4, pp.417 - 443

Accepted: 19 Sep 2017
Published online: 12 Nov 2018 *

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