Samsung Case Assignment

Assignment 2

Samsung and the Management of Creative Ideas

Student number: 422014 26

Surname: Tiao

First Name: Lily

International BA (IBA): Rotterdam School of Management: IBA

The Samsung case describes the challenges the European Innovation Team had to face in order to implement three innovations: the MyClip function, the premium refrigerator, and the EasyPhoneSync mobile application.

a)  Based on the definition of creativity in Baer’s (2012, p. 1102) article, where would you put creative ideas in Samsung’s Relevance­Difference Model? Why? What is the benefit and disadvantage of a creative idea according to the case?

b)  Sethi et al. (2012) distinguish between market newness and technological newness to the firm with respect to innovations. Characterize the three innovations in the Samsung case along these dimensions (no need to define the two types of newness).

c)  Sethi et al. (2012) mention two micropolitical strategies to reduce resistance (that exists because of newness) without engaging in detrimental political compromises. Based on your characterization of ideas along the two dimensions of newness and the hypotheses of Sethi et al. (2012), should the innovation team have used these two micropolitical strategies for any of the three new product ideas? If so, for which one(s) and why?

a.

I would put creative ideas in the bottom two boxes of The Relevance­Difference Model because the main disconnection between creativity and implementation is found in the novelty dimension of “creativity”. Resistance is mostly found in the novelty aspect rather than the usefulness aspect. Creativity concept reflects more in the usefulness factor thus being placed in the “user relevance” dimension of the model (bottom row).

Benefit: With more creativity there is more motivation and networking ability that can be implemented. Disadvantage: Uncertainty often results from creative ideas because it involves diverging from existing products or services leading to more skepticism and hesitation.

b.

Market Newness:

1. The Premium Refrigerator Project: premium fridge allowing better wine bottle storage for European wine enthusiasts

Technological Newness:

1. MyClip: The Camcorder Project: creating a bookmark­type button feature for video recording

2. EasyPhoneSync: feature allowing customers to to download and manage all data transfer from old phone to new phone.

c.

Coalition Building:

MyClip: The Camcorder Project

This 'technology newness' project would fit well under Coalition Building. Top managers can join the coalition and benefit in the enhancement of existing operations just as the executives of the camcorder business decided to include the MyClip function from Samsung in a number of their camcorder models. Samsung ended up generating 10% more revenue with this MyClip feature.