Short interval management and the quest for process innovation: something new or déjà vu

Abstract

Ireland still punches way above its weight internationally attracting 2% of total global foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2008 which amounted to circa €2 billion (IDA, 2009). The focus of the IDA (Industrial Development Authority which is responsible for foreign direct investment in Ireland) is on three strategic pillars: Global Services, High Technology Manufacturing and RD&I (Research Development and Innovation). Consequently innovation in manufacturing processes is a vital ingredient to providing sustainable MNC (Multinational Corporation) subsidiaries in the country. The work is presented in the context of a case study of innovation in APC Ireland, a subsidiary of the critical power and cooling services division of the Schneider Electric Corporation. Furthermore the paper will describe the utilization of a novel form of action research recently proposed to the IS community by Mårtensson & Lee (2004) which they call dialogical AR.. The central aim of this paper is to answer the following research question: can short interval management (SIM) support process innovation? The proposed structure of the paper is as follows. Firstly the background review will argue that SIM is not dealt with in the current literature and as a result has the potential to contribute to the conference theme. Then the longitudinal case study of a multi-national corporation together with the research approach will be outlined. An overview of the SIM process will be then presented followed by a discussion of the implications