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Faculty Profile
Kim van Oorschot
Professor - Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour
Biography
Dr. Kim van Oorschot is Professor Project Management & System Dynamics in the Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School. Her current research focuses on decision-making, trade-offs, and tipping points in dynamically complex settings, like new product development (NPD) projects. Her research projects are aimed at discovering so-called ‘decision traps': decisions that seem to be good on the short term, but have counterproductive effects on the long term. For this purpose she develops system dynamics models based on actual project data. She also teaches system dynamics and project management to executive and master students.
Before working at BI, Kim van Ooschot was an assistant professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands), in the School of Industrial Engineering. Before that, she was a Post-Doc at Tilburg University at the Information Management department, and a research fellow at INSEAD, France. From 2002 until 2006 (after finishing her PhD project), she was a consultant at Minase Consulting BV, working for large international companies like ASML, DSM, KPN, NXP, and Stork Fokker on projects aimed at improving business processes.
Kim van Oorschot has published in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of the Operational Research Society, and International Journal of Operations and Production Management.
Research areas
Project Management; Systems Thinking and System Dynamics; Decision Making & Managing Complexities; Poduct Development & Innovation.
Teaching areas
Project Management; Systems Thinking and System Dynamics.
van Oorschot, Kim; Solli-Sæther, Hans & Karlsen, Jan Terje (2018)
The knowledge protection paradox: imitation and innovation through knowledge sharing
International Journal of Technology Management, 78(4), s. 310- 342. Doi: 10.1504/IJTM.2018.095760
Western multinational corporations (MNCs) that want market access in China have to share knowledge with Chinese partners. This may expose them to imitation, so MNCs prefer to protect knowledge resulting in a strategic paradox: MNCs have to both share and protect knowledge. To analyse this paradox, we developed a theoretical conceptual model capturing the tensions and feedback cycles of this paradox. Next, based on data from the shipbuilding industry, a system dynamics model was developed to simulate the long-term effects of sharing and protecting strategies. The results indicate that protection is detrimental to long-term success, because it undercuts the trust of the Chinese supplier and irreparably reduces innovation rates. Knowledge protection thus reduces instead of increases the ability to share (new) knowledge in the future. A sharing strategy increases imitation, but also trust and knowledge sharing by the Chinese partner, such that it enhances the MNC's innovation rate and long-term performance.
van Oorschot, Kim; Eling, Katrin & Langerak, Fred (2018)
Measuring the Knowns to Manage the Unknown: How to Choose the Gate Timing Strategy in NPD Projects
Stage‐wise timing of new product development (NPD) activities is advantageous for a project's performance. The literature does not, however, specify whether this implies setting and adhering to a fixed schedule of gate meetings from the start of the project or allowing flexibility to adjust the schedule throughout the NPD process. In the initial project plan, managers and/or development teams often underrate the time required to complete the project because of task underestimation. Although the level of task underestimation (i.e., the unknown) is not identifiable at the start of the project, our study argues that project managers and/or teams can manage the unknown by measuring three project conditions (i.e., the knowns) during front‐end execution, and use their values to select the best gate timing strategy. These project conditions entail: (i) the number of unexpected tasks discovered during the front‐end, (ii) the willingness of customers to postpone their purchase in case the execution of these unexpected tasks would lead to a delayed market launch, and (iii) the number of unexpected tasks discovered just before the front‐end gate. Together these conditions determine whether a more fixed or more flexible gate timing strategy is most appropriate to use. The findings of a system dynamics simulation corroborate the supposition that the interplay between the three project conditions measured during front‐end execution determines which of four gate timing strategies with different levels of flexibility (i.e., one fixed, one flexible, and two hybrid forms) maximizes new product profitability. This finding has important implications for both theory and practice as we now comprehend that the knowns can be used to manage the unknown.
Walrave, Bob; Romme, A. Georges L., van Oorschot, Kim & Langerak, Fred (2017)
Managerial attention to exploitation versus exploration: toward a dynamic perspective on ambidexterity
Managerial attention to exploitation and exploration has a strong influence on organizational performance. However, there is hardly any knowledge about whether senior managers need to adjust their distribution of attention to exploitation and exploration in response to major changes in demand patterns in their industry. Drawing on the analysis of a panel data set of 86 firms in the information technology industry exposed to an economic recession and recovery, we find that successfully navigating an economic downturn demands more managerial attention to exploration, while leveraging the subsequent upswing requires more attention to exploitation. As such, this study contributes to the literature by providing a dynamic perspective on ambidexterity: that is, senior managers need to redistribute their attention to exploration and exploitation to effectively meet the changing environmental demands over time.
van Oorschot, Kim (2017)
Shared Space for Organizations: Enablers for Innovative Projects