Scientific contribution and value of the study

The general aim of scientific research can be said to be cumulating organized knowledge in an authenticated manner. The research following the design science paradigm aims towards technological rule through field-tested and grounded technological rules (van Aken, 2004). In the spirit of the design science paradigm, this study has built a model and six approaches to provide alternative solutions to an improvement problem, and evaluated them empirically. To tie the approaches together, an integrating, conceptual model on SCM expert work in development processes has been presented. First of all, it should be noted that though the model has two dimensions, aggregate variables defining the success of action, it has not been used to measure how much the suggested approaches can help. The aggregate model is meant to act as a model for thinking, helping a practitioner to assess and adapt his/her actions to the organizational environment and situation. From the viewpoint of this study, it acts as platform tying together the set of approaches, and, potentially

providing a platform to be utilized in future research on such methods and approaches. What the study primarily suggests is that there are ways to improve SCM expert work in organizational development processes. These approaches have been evaluated in the empirical studies. In the spirit of the decision science paradigm, the results of the study can be presented as suggestions, as presented in table 8.

Table 8 - The findings of the study as suggestions for practitioners and researchers

Suggestion Publications

1. Consider the SCM development work to be consisting of development processes.

Introduction 2. Identify and evaluate the risk of difficult decision making

related to organizational factors.

Publications 1 and 2 3. Consider the process as a change process and adopt a change

supporting role and actions during the whole process.

Publications 3 and 4 4. Consider the development initiatives, taking into account the

knowledge maturity stage and adopt an appropriate strategy for knowledge accumulation.

Publications 5 and 6

These findings raise the question of how far this study has reached in the quest towards field-tested and grounded technological rules. Considering field-testing, van Aken (2004) borrows the concepts from software development: the testing follows two stages. The first one, testing, is carried out by the originator of the rule, while -testing is carried out by third parties (this concept is almost equivalent to the concepts weak and strong market tests presented by Kasanen et al (1993)). It is obvious that the studies are in the -testing stage, as the tests are carried out only by the originator. To build the suggestion to the stage of a technological rule, a third party testing is required, which is made possible by publishing this study.

Considering the grounding, the managerial technological rules will usually not be grounded in terms of general laws, but rather in terms of generative mechanisms (van Aken, 2004). A generative mechanism means in the case of this study that the rules are justified with saturated evidence through reflective cycles, presumably with several case studies providing enough evidence. It can be seen that the suggestions for practitioners are at quite a general level, and it can be expected that through further research these suggestions could be expressed in more rigid terms.

When evaluating the quality of qualitative research and research following the design science paradigm, it should be kept in mind that the research is much more application-oriented than causal models of description-driven research. Therefore, the quality criteria are also slightly different. Thomas and Tymon (1982; see also van Aken, 2004) have presented five requirements for relevant research:

- Descriptive relevance - Goal relevance - Operational validity - Non-obviousness - Timeliness

Descriptive relevance refers to external validity established usually by multiple case studies. This study utilizes to a large extent the multiple case study approach, which does not mean that the external validity is high. Besides the fact that the research has reached only the -testing stage, there are many limitations related to the case situations analyzed in this study. Firstly, the research data has included only situations where the expert role could be clearly defined and there has been no managerial role involved. Secondly, the intra-company assignments have been carried out against a fee, which could also affect especially the decision-making situations compared to an expert role in the staff. Thirdly, this study does not give answers to the questions of whether the approaches focus on the most problematic areas, and whether these approaches are the most effective ones. It is obvious that the practical situations are so multifaceted that it can be expected that different approaches are useful in different situations.

Goal relevance refers to the extent to which the research results refer to matters the practitioner wishes to influence. From the viewpoint of an expert, the goal relevance of this study is obvious: the results help an expert in his/her work. There are also indications that the results can be utilized without regarding the expert role, for example the applications of knowledge maturity models and knowledge accumulation strategies could be applied to managerial work as well.

Operational validity refers to the extent to which the practitioner is able to control the independent variables in the model. This study considers a variable and multifaceted set of situations. However, operational validity has been a primary underlying target of the study: to provide applicable results or practice.

In the aim towards a reductionistic format of technological rules, there is a risk of overly obvious research results. However, it can be argued that already the finding of this study that the organizational aspects related to SCM should not be seen as managerial issues only, but also related to the active role of an SCM expert, is a non-obvious result.

Timeliness is always a problem of the research on business. However, as this study appears to be one of the first attempts in the research area, it depends on the viewpoint whether this study is hopelessly late or ahead of its time.

The nature of scientific research is that it is expected to contribute to the theory. In practice this means that it builds new research results above the previous research. In chapter 2 it has been noted that the research questions place this study outside the mainstream of SCM research, but that there two related research streams to the study in hand. For the research stream taking the perspective of an individual SCM manager and his/her skills, this study suggests that the manager and expert roles could and should be approached as separate issues in order to dig deeper into the work in the area of SCM. This study has shown that there are ways to improve the development work from the perspective of an expert, which justifies the distinction. The second research stream considered above was focusing on the implementation of supply chain management practices. For this research stream this study gives an alternative viewpoint to the implementation task. It shows that it is possible and worth trying to dig deeper in the development processes, not only in the ends of the processes.