2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Shaping spaces of innovation communities - The role of promoters in German-Japanese networks
| Project/Area Number |
20K01167
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| Research Institution | Ritsumeikan University |
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Principal Investigator |
Schlunze R.D 立命館大学, 経営学部, 教授 (70319599)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | proximity / teamwork / innovative spaces / community practice / participative research / mixed method / 異文化経営 / management geography |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Economic Geography has previously put focus on corporate entities, but Management Geography follows an actor-centered approach. Methodological development is needed to spur theoretical explanations about outcomes of managerial decision making and networking. A contextual management appraisal investigating international managers’ proximity and choice of communication channels has been developed to investigate synergy creation in intercultural teams. The model suggests that geographical, institutional, organizational, social, cognitive, and cultural proximity affect the extent to which intercultural synergy is realized and enables promoters to integrate diverse actors into their network. The main hypothesis is that the closer the proximity of the promotor, the better the performance of the intercultural team. To test the hypothesis, a questionnaire survey has been conducted with members listed by German Japanese Business Forum (DJW). DJW lists 1200 members, but the sample will compromise about 200 members who have taken a promoter role as members of the DJW. An exploratory sequential mixed methods approach combining questionnaire and personal interviews has provided new insights. The proximity, channels, and managerial practices were codified and correlated with variables evaluating managerial success. The triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research showed that proximity, and the choice of appropriate communication channels lead indeed to synergetic outcomes, but it was also observed that intercultural competence development is crucial for synergy creation.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
My single case study embeds multiple units of analysis to understand the degree of proximity and use of appropriate channels for the creation of intercultural spaces. As an embedded unit of the qualitative research on intercultural teamwork, focus group meetings on the topic of trust and synergy have been conducted. The transcription of previous meetings is partly done. Using MyNetworkMap, an innovative online questionnaire has been developed and advertised on the DJW’s homepage. I organized a workshop entitled From Theorizing to Empirical Research in the New Field of Management Geography at Poznan University of Economics and Business in February 2022. The workshop was designed to show how to visualize managerial relations and to discusses he advantages of an actor-centered approach. Using a chain sampling method 44 agile members have filled out the questionnaire and with Covid-19 precaution 25 interviews were conducted. The case study research indicates that promoters need to balance the proximities in purpose to succeed with the creation of intercultural spaces for innovation communities able to perform well in intercultural settings. Qualitative analysis is needed to support this assumption with certainty. A sample comprising about 200 members of the DJW is now used to contact further agile DJW members in purpose to improve the return rate of the online questionnaire survey and complete the interview survey as proposed.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
My main ambition in this research project is to show that competent actors can create innovative spaces of intercultural encounters. Therefore, I wish to facilitate the evidence from my empirical survey. All interviews conducted in 2021 will be transcribed using the software provided by amberscript.com and will be analyzed using MAXQDA. 200 DJW members will be asked to fill out the online questionnaire at MyNetworkMap.com. Following a snowball sampling method more agile DJW members will be interviewed in 2022. Using the questionnaire data analysis will be carried out to show what enables promoters to integrate diverse actors into their network or intercultural team. An exploratory sequential mixed methods analysis combining questionnaire with a return of one hundred DJW members and up to fifty personal interviews will be completed. The triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research data will help to provide answers to the research questions. The preliminary research achievements will be introduced at the 6th GCEG in Dublin at our special session entitled Management Geography - Managers and Management of Space(s). The session will provide opportunities for publication in leading geographical journal. In order to communicate the research findings with DJW members a panel survey and a symposium are planned. The findings of the focus group on intercultural competence with summarized findings of previous focus groups will be used to create a Webinar titled Creating spaces of Intercultural Teamwork and will be made available also at our ManGeo research group homepage.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I proposed to conduct interviews with DJW members who cooperated with the online survey MyNetworkMap. Because of strict Covid-19 prevention measures until end of February 2022 there was not sufficient time to interviews all of them. Therefore, I am planning to interview those DJW members during summer vacation.
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