SECCIÓN PRIMERA NORMAS GENERALES

The purpose of the NPD process is to develop product innovation that would eventually result in the creation of a new product to be launched into the market. The NPD process constitutes a cross-functional realm, where members of the functions (within the organization) are involved in the development of the new product. These individuals, as a team, carry out activities aimed at developing innovation, e.g. throughout the stages and gates of the NPD process (Cooper 1990; 1996), for the final creation of the tangible new product (Davila, 2000). The NPD team are “neither individuals nor whole organizations, but small groups of individuals sharing an organizational setting” (Harris and Woolley, 2009, p.74), i.e. the NPD setting. The participation, coordination and collaboration among the team for the development of the NPD project are fundamental for the monitoring of the process as regards the criteria of cost, time, and quality (Atkinson, 1999). In this context, the accounting literature interprets accounting as playing a “pivotal role”, bringing together the multiple parties involved in the NPD process (Nixon, 1998; Nixon et al., 2011; Nixon and Burns, 2012). The literature has also interpreted accounting as being an “integrated vernacular” (Nixon, 1998; Nixon et al., 2011), facilitating communication among NPD project participants, as well as their coordination (Jørgenssen and Messner, 2010). Accounting also enables the unfolding of processes for innovation by intervening within the process and facilitating the unfolding of its trajectories (Christner and Strömsten, 2015; Revellino and Mouritsen, 2015).

As discussed in the previous sections, the NPD process is committed to developing innovation in the form of a new product. The preliminary stage of innovation is creativity (Busco et al., 2012), and reflects the wants and the desires of the people involved in the search for innovation (Busco and Quattrone, 2016). Amabile et al.

25

(1996) state that the “psychological perceptions of innovation (the implementation of people's ideas) within an organization are likely to impact the motivation to generate new ideas” (1996, p.1155). Therefore, the human factors and the technical factors featuring in realms of innovation should not be separate in these contexts, neither should passions and reason. In fact, “passions [such as doubt, trust, or gratitude and admiration, or suspicion, defiance, hate] do not come to interfere with the work of the engineer or researcher; they are the innermost and fundamental constitutive elements of their work” (Akrich et al., 2002b, p.222).

“Without [...] intentio (the end), there is no inventio2

(the means) and thus no rationes3

[accounts, calculations]” (Quattrone, 2015, p.19, original emphasis; Busco and Quattrone, 2016, drawing on Carruthers, 1990; 1998). Intentio evokes the attitudes, aims, purposes, and inclinations of a person (Quattrone, 2015, drawing on Carruthers, 1990). Quattrone (2015) also refers to intentiones (plural of intentio) as always being “in-tension” among multiple purposes and having the potential to build new innovation (Busco and Quattrone, 2016). Furthermore, NPD processes build on the multiple interests, concerns and purposes of the different actors at stake (Cooper, 1996; Nixon, 1998; Nicolini et al., 2012), which may challenge the attitudes, aims, purposes and inclinations of the inventor, creating tensions among the multiple actors at work, thus being the source of new innovation (Busco and Quattrone, 2016).

The multi-disciplinary context of the NPD process, the desires and the intentions for innovation (Busco and Quattrone, 2016) of the inventor(s), as well as the different motivations (Amabile et al., 1996; Amabile, 1998) stemming from the multiple concerns and interests of the actors involved (Busco and Quattrone, 2016; see also Akrich et al., 2002a) all have the potential to underpin the unfolding process for innovation within the NPD setting. Specifically, the tensions that result from differing desires, intentions and motivations, moved by the different purposes and goals of the people involved, have the potential to underpin the rationale for innovation throughout

2

Building on the literature on rhetorical practices, the word inventio has been assigned two meanings: inventory and invention (Quattrone, 2009; 2015; Busco and Quattrone, 2016). Inventory is the space in which new knowledge is classified. Invention refers to the generation of new knowledge, associations and connections, producing a craft of composition, the creation of something new (Quattrone, 2009; 2015).

3

Ratio means calculations (Quattrone, 2015, drawing on Goody, 1996). It is concerned with accounts, schematic representations, images (Quattrone, 2009; Quattrone, 2015).

26

the NPD process and the multiple purposes and ends that build and move the processes of innovation forward (Quattrone, 2009; 2015). In this context accounting can cover a significant role. Accounting has been depicted by the literature as an organizational and social phenomenon (Burchell et al., 1980). Accounting is intertwined with the functions of the context in which it operates, it is implicated in the diverse actions within the organization, and it may be involved in this diversity, such as being used for different ends by the actors of the organization. Accounting sets constraints, and it does not only represent a single interest; rather accounting can become a mechanism engaging negotiations among divergent interests (Burchell et al., 1980).

2.7 Chapter Summary

This thesis considers that what constitutes innovation depends on a multi- disciplinary/cross-functional discovery, in which the search for innovation is driven by desires, intentions, and motivations of multiple actors at work. The study of accounting, with respect to the rationale for innovation, and in particular, the intentions (i.e. the multiple purposes and ends at stake and the tensions generated by them – see Quattrone, 2015; Busco and Quattrone, 2016) that underpin NPD processes, has the potential to contribute to the literature, offering new understanding of how accounting can drive and facilitate NPD processes and the innovation objectives within these NPD processes. The study of how accounting engages with both the desires and the reason for innovation has the potential to offer new contributions to the literature investigating accounting within processes of innovation and NPD. The motivation for this study stems from the literature which deals with the relationships between intentions, innovation, and accounting (Quattrone, 2009; 2015; Busco and Quattrone, 2016) and the potential that these concepts offer for constructing increased understanding of the role of accounting within innovation processes in an NPD setting.

This chapter introduced the context of this study and the motivation for focussing further on the study of accounting within the rationale for innovation during the NPD process. In particular, focus is placed on the multiple interests, concerns and purposes that underpin the desires, the intentions, and the motivations of the multiple actors participating in the NPD process. The explanation regarding the objective of the thesis is based on the motivation for this study and the literature review on accounting within

27

innovation and NPD realms. A detailed literature review on accounting within innovation and NPD realms is provided in the following chapter, Chapter 3.

29

Chapter Three

Literature Review - Accounting, Innovation

and New Product Development

3.1 Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a literature review on the role of MCS, including accounting, within innovation contexts in general, and within NPD processes in particular. This chapter begins with a definition of MCS and management accounting within the broader context of management control (Section 3.2). Then follow three sections that explain the relationships between MCS and innovation (Section 3.3), MCS and creativity (Section 3.4) and MCS and NPD (Section 3.5). Attention is also focussed on the enabling role of accounting and control in innovation and NPD contexts (also in Section 3.5). Section 3.6 explores the role of accounting and control within the dimensions of firmness and flexibility (concepts defined in Chapter 2, Section 2.4.1) of processes of innovation. Then Section 3.7 provides a review of studies dealing with the way that accounting mediates within innovation processes. With a specific focus on the NPD setting (as described in Chapter 2, Sections 2.4 and 2.5), and relying on a review of the accounting literature on hybridization processes, a reflection on how accounting may engage processes of hybridization within the operational processes of NPD and vice versa is reported in Section 3.8. Finally, Section 3.9 summarizes the key points of this chapter. The insights gained from this detailed literature review are relied upon to clarify the research objective and the research questions of this PhD thesis, which follow in Chapter 4.