Transfer of Craft Knowledge to New Product Development through Collaboration between Craftsmen and Designers

Abstract

New product development (NPD) plays a significant role in maintaining competitive advantage and increasing market share. NPD is highly dependent on the existing knowledge of individuals within the company, which is shared and used to create new knowledge. Employees’ tacit knowledge is another significant source of know-how for companies. Craft knowledge – a form of tacit knowledge that includes material and hand-making knowledge – is transferable to industries through collaborative works. Since the management and design literatures on this subject do not meet on common ground, there is a lack of literature on this transfer. With this aim, we examined the transfer of craft knowledge to NPD in three industries: leather, glass, and furniture industries. Thirteen in-depth interviews were conducted with six companies. Interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis. Craft knowledge is transferred to industries during the idea generation and prototyping stages of NPD through problem-solving and suggesting materials and manufacturing techniques.

Keywords:

• craft
• craft knowledge
• new product development (NPD)
• collaboration
• knowledge transfer

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the companies and companies’ employees who participated in this study. Additionally, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Besides, this article is a portion of the PhD study. We would like to thank Prof. Dr. Lutfihak ALPKAN and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayse COSKUN, steering committee members of this thesis, for their contribution and guidance to this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Note

¹ This article is a portion of PhD study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Handan Temeltas

Handan Temeltas is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Industrial Product Design, Istanbul Technical University. She graduated from business administration and has an MSc in industrial product design. Her research interests include craft, design-driven innovation, and new product development.

Cigdem Kaya

Cigdem Kaya is a professor at the Department of Industrial Product Design, Istanbul Technical University. Her research on trans-disciplinary design has been published internationally. She has been a researcher on a variety of art and design research projects nationally, in Europe and in the US. She is a Fulbright alumna.