Exam

Course: Business: Concepts and Prototypes – Fall 2021

Vanessa Akhtar Bhatti: 150010

Study Program: M. Soc. Sc. Organisational Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Date of hand-in: 2021-11-04
Number of characters (with spaces): 22.616
Number of pages: 12
Introduction

Due to the rapid changes in the business world, we have experienced, throughout the course
‘Business: Concepts and Prototypes’, that thinking creatively and innovatively are vital
components in order for a business to not only avoid liquidation but also to continuously
thrive in a competitive setting. For the purpose of approaching this realm of
entrepreneurship, we executed reflective diaries weekly to constantly assess our actions,
emotions, and perceptions, to reach new understandings of our idea revolving HarvestSide
and simultaneously alter our value proposition (Neck et al., 2014). To truly grasp upon our
segments’ needs, beliefs, and perceptions we discovered how important value creation is
and how it can affect whether a business is flourishing or not (Czarniawska, 2014). The
subject of value and value creation will serve as essential concepts throughout this paper
as this paper aims to unfold how value is understood and how our understanding can be
utilized to create new value offers.

The first section entails a theoretical framework where self-selected theories from the course
will be delineated to assist the reader through the analysis and critical reflection. Hereafter,
an analysis will be conducted where it is considered how the value was created throughout
the different stages of HarvestSide’s value creation process together with the readings. A
discussion will follow up with a critical view of HarvestSide’s process and concurrently
present three suggestions that could be utilized differently next time a value-creation
process is encountered. Finally, a conclusion will be executed which sums up the main
results from the analysis and discussion sections.

Theoretical framework

Before digging into the readings and having begun the idea creation, the group and I
neglected the matter of value creation and the importance of value in general. However, we
quickly realized the significance of the topic when starting to execute interviews and
investigating, what we assumed, was a general need in our society. With the assistance of
Corvellec and Hultman (2014), we came to an understanding that value and value creation
included social construct and thereby sensemaking of our interviewees who collectively act
as subjects in a society that continuously adapts new meanings hence new consumer needs

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and preferences. This comprises social psychology and how businesses address and
approach deeply embedded values of potential consumers. Corvellec and Hultman (2014)
mention that “Value derives from how people conceive of the cosmology of their world...More
specifically, value derives from how people conceive of worth and of ends in order to give
meaning to their choices and to give direction to their actions…” (p. 358). This statement
seeks to illustrate consumption behaviour which also incorporates the theme of the different
regimes of value that is determined by context and segments (Corvellec & Hultman, 2014).
Ruckenstein et al. (2011) also accounts for the matter of value creation and tie it together
with how businesses innovate new ideas that suit their segment. She implements a cycle of
value, which include social value, meaningful difference, and lastly economic value
(Ruckenstein et al., 2011). These dimensions aid businesses in thinking innovatively as they
constantly adapt their products to their desired target group who finds their goods desirable
and meaningful. This is also how a company distinguishes itself from their competitors and
stays unique in order to survive in the business world (Ruckenstein et al., 2011).

One could argue that the above section easily relates to the theory of human-centered
design (hereafter referred to as HCD) articulated by Norman and Verganti (2014) which
focuses on how innovative ideas of a business completely relies on their knowledge about
their users and their activities. This process embodies two components, where the first
entails an analysis of what the users need in order to be satisfied. Whereas, the second
component includes a repetitive process of prototyping and testing the product to assure its
usability and meaning behind it. Norman and Verganti (2014) also refer to this as the hill-
climbing method which guarantees improvement and incremental innovation to create value.
This theory goes hand in hand with Cope’s (2003) statement of discontinuous events that
trigger higher learning for entrepreneurs. Deakins and Freel (as cited in Cope, 2003) account
that an entrepreneurial process is “...a process that is characterised by significant and critical
learning events. The ability of entrepreneurs to maximise knowledge as a result of
experiencing these learning events will determine how successful their firm eventually
becomes.” (p. 431). This statement relates to the matter of higher-level learning, as Cope
(2003) formulates it since it integrates a varied knowledge acquisition that, ultimately, aids
the company in obtaining information on how to go about their business operations and
make innovative initiatives (Cope, 2004). Cope also refers to higher learning as ‘double-
loop’ learning which can completely change the entrepreneurs’ assumptions and future

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strategies (Cope, 2004). The theory of Cope assisted us in understanding how to create
value when utilizing higher-level learning throughout the process of acting as entrepreneurs,
which I will investigate further in the analysis section.

Finally, it is fundamentally essential that the execution of our methods is brought into
consideration when discussing how value is understood since, without our empirical data,
we would not have clearly understood the meaning behind the value and thereby the making
of our prototype. This interaction with potential customers, farmers, experts, and more
equipped us with insight knowledge about their preferences and how they in general
perceive the outside world (Czarniawska, 2014). However, biases among observers can be
crucial for understanding the recipients’ perspective of the problem, it is, therefore, of utmost
importance that the interviewer is “...located outside the object of his or her creative
understanding - in time, in space, in culture.” (Czarniawska, 2014, p. 45). The matter of
biases and political correctness during interviews will be unfolded in the subsequent
sections.

Analysis

The Beginning

We quickly adopted the lean start-up methodology as we learned the necessity of taking
advantage of the time we had and the importance of feedback for our prototype (Blank,
2012). As our business idea was solely based on our assumptions and hypothesis that
citizens of Copenhagen needed organic and local products, not only for their own benefit,
but also for the benefit of supporting Danish farmers, it was inevitable for us to test it out
(Blank, 2012). During session three, we went out around the campus to interact with, what
could be, potential customers. Without any biases, we approached several people with
diverse demographics to get insight into their thoughts about the problem we were
addressing. Executing interviews this way, we also managed to capture the recipients in a
natural setting, which was also the case when doing observations (Czarniawska, 2014). As
these interviews were executed around the Frederiksberg mall and metro station, the
majority of people we approached were in a rush and did not have time to talk with us.
However, the ones we had a conversation with saw our idea as an opportunity to integrate

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organic and local goods into the urban culture. This was also evident in our interviews as
most of our interviewees were into our idea, some especially mentioned that they were more
likely to support local productions during and after the pandemic rather than companies from
foreign countries who mass produce their goods. This sensemaking of our interviewees
reflects a huge adjustment of an entire society, where almost all of the consumers’ habits
were adapted to a new norm (Corvellec & Hultman, 2014). This social adjustment was
repeated but from a different perspective when we interviewed a farmer’s wife in Lolland.
She told us that COVID-19 helped their business gain more customers, since a lot of Danes
from urban areas dispersed to summerhouse areas in the countryside as it became possible
to work from a home office during the pandemic. What was also noticeable when analysing
value, was that several of our interviewees and observation spots appreciated sustainability,
which can be transferred into understanding the regimes of value (Corvellec & Hultman,
2014). This is considered an environmental value for our segment as a majority clarified that
they found an economic value in minimizing waste when shopping from local farms and
private producers (such as booths in the countryside) or green gastronomic areas around
Copenhagen (Ruckenstein et al., 2011). This also made the shopping experience more
meaningful for them in terms of supporting Danish produce and minimizing waste from
these, some even referred to the EatGrim organization that focuses on selling vegetables
that are thrown out simply for its displeasing appearance. This added to our value
proposition and was turned into a customer gain in our Value Proposition Canvas due to the
fact that buying consciously served as a social gain from the consumer perspective
(Ruckenstein et al., 2011).

Discontinuous events as an addition to the value creation process

The Middle

The initial idea of HarvestSide was to bring the people to the farms and farm booths in the
countryside, but when executing interviews a discontinuous event occurred that made us
turn back to our value proposition and revise what potential customers valued (Cope, 2003).
It became clear that convenience served as an important keyword in our investigation as
almost all our interviewees expressed that they mostly shopped for their groceries where it

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was most convenient for them, which would typically be the nearest supermarket to their
home. In order to incorporate this value in our future procedures and prototyping process,
we had to, innovatively, find a way that would not only make it possible to bring the people
to the countryside, but also bring the farmers to the urban areas where it would be most
convenient for the consumers (Cope, 2003). As we acquired this knowledge through higher-
level learning, we also perceived this as the process of hill-climbing where we got to revise
and reframe the usability of the meaning of our prototype which eventually made us alter the
idea (Norman & Verganti, 2014). This knowledge acquisition forced us to rethink our
business model canvas, which made us come up with the idea of ‘drop-offs’ in the
Copenhagen area (Blank, 2012).

This new meaning that was derived from the interview results equipped us with an
understanding that goes to a deeper level and refers to socio-cultural meanings that are
embedded in society (Verganti & Öberg, 2013). By interacting with the pupils of Copenhagen
society, we learned about a collective characteristic that includes the matter of convenience,
which interviewees stressed was a vital, if not the most vital, aspect when going grocery
shopping. In order to create a more meaningful experience, we had to envision a solution
that would suit both the consumers and the farmers, thereby making sure that the experience
is maximised from the perspective of both parties (Verganti & Öberg, 2013). While listening
to our interviewees, we realized that to achieve this, it was necessary to add meaning to the
buyer experience by modifying the existing meaning attributes they had around grocery
shopping. By making fresh and local goods available and simultaneously convenient for the
urban citizens, the concept of convenience for our segment alters as countryside farmers
now have a chance to blend in with the urban competitors and eventually become a
normative integration in Copenhagen society. This introduces the concept of problem setting
as we analyze a need of a specific segment and combine it with a socio-cultural context
which, ultimately, allowed us to discover a creative realm of entrepreneurship and forced us
to think in new paths (Verganti & Öberg, 2013). One could argue that this also relates to
what Hjorth and Holt (2016) calls enhancement of living conditions by revealing new
possibilities for this particular segment, the potential customers and farmers. This change of
buying habits challenges the conventional meanings of grocery shopping, and at the same
time, combines both the enterprise and entrepreneur to discover new value offers by adding
both social and economic value into the equation (Corvellec & Hultman, 2014; see also

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Hjorth & Holt, 2016). Our next task was then to reveal this newly created value for the
interviewees and farmers, and assess whether it was something that would be useful and
meaningful to them (Blank, 2012). This iterative process of constantly moving between
feedback and reassessing our value proposition brings in the matter of lean start-up
methodology (Blank, 2012; see also Norman and Verganti, 2014). Nonetheless, in order to
improve our product and think innovatively, this process was inevitable to avoid in achieving
the best outcome.

Distinguishing ourselves from competitors as part of value creation

The end

Taking all of the above values into consideration: environmental, social and economic, we
felt set to explore whether HarvestSide, with renewed value offerings, would be a viable
business that could thrive and eventually grow. We quickly learned about our competitors
during the investigation. We could not find that many, however goforlocal.dk and REKO-
ring, which exist in various countries, were the most vital we encountered. By incorporating
design thinking into our process, we thought of how to tackle this bump on the way and
generate ideas on how we differentiated from our competitors in order to create unique value
to HarvestSide (Johansson-Sköldberg, 2013). However, when interviewing a couple of
Danish farmers during and after our excursion to Lolland, we recognized how goforlocal.dk
lacked in creating value and in general understanding its users (Norman & Verganti, 2014).
Most of the farmers, who were signed up with the platform, revealed that being part of
goforlocal.dk did not help with exposure. However, the firm had the same idea of showing
farms in the countryside on a map of Denmark, but it only included the more well-known
farm stores and excluded small farm booths on the roadside, which was our intention to
incorporate in the map. We, furthermore, found out that the organization did not have any
app in contrast to HarvestSide, thereby making it difficult for their users to reach the farms
and being not very user-friendly. REKO-ring has a very complex way of offering local and
fresh goods to consumers. There was not a system as such, REKO-ring could be found as
Facebook groups where private and non-private farmers post their products and interested
members of the group can then comment if they want to pre-order some of the produce.

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There is then a weekly meeting point where farmers and members who pre-ordered products
gather and finalize the purchase. We thought that this would be too complicated to introduce
in Denmark, but we liked the idea about REKO-ring, however, it had to be simplified.

By reevaluating our competitors in the field, we came to an understanding that both of them
lacked certain aspects which would make us stand stronger than them if HarvestSide was
to be realized. REKO-ring has a too complex and time-consuming system, whereas
goforlocal.dk does not give users the possibility of purchasing goods through their website
and are in need of a more user-friendly channel. We considered this higher-level learning
as we gained knowledge about our business through an interdisciplinary approach which
led us to reevaluate the values yet again (Cope, 2004). In our interviews, we found that
interviewees perceived a shopping trip as something that should be quick, easy and nearby.
As mentioned in the previous section, convenience was a must. Almost all of our potential
customers expressed that they would not make the effort to drive or go with public
transportation to the farms in the countryside. So, bringing the farms to the city people was
a requisite. Another aspect we picked up on from our research of the competitors, was the
matter of promptness. In order to incorporate this into HarvestSide’s values, we generated
ideas on what could be most suitable to our segment (Ruckenstein et al., 2011). This led us
to consider letting the ‘drop-offs’ be unmanned and consist of a cool cabin where consumers
could pick up their package(s) with a code on our app whenever it fits them. We reached
this solution as we tried to comprehend the culture and everyday life of Copenhagen citizens
based on our empirical data (Czarniawska, 2014; see also Corvellec & Hultman, 2014). This
clearly showed us that when living in the city everything needs to be easily available.

Critical reflection

By examining and evaluating the analysis section, we found our results from our research
to be valuable in our investigation. With our prototype, we grasped upon “...efficiency-
maximising adjustments to the modification in the variables of the environment - and creating
surprising results from often known ingredients” (Hjorth, 2021). With the assistance of known
resources, we had at our disposal, from every part of our research, we accomplished to
create value within different value regimes for the consumer (Corvellec & Hultman, 2014).

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By doing this, one could argue that we invented new possibilities of life that could be
considered incremental innovation (Hjorth, 2012; see also Norman & Verganti (2014).
However, this could not be executed if the group, HarvestSide, did not have as diverse
backgrounds as it showed to be. Not only did we have different academic backgrounds, but
also nationalities which played part in triggering the creative dynamic of the group (Harrison
& Rouse, 2014). Nevertheless, we experienced some discontinuities with small arguments
on how to go about our idea creation and determine which values were involved throughout
the course, this aided us in thinking creatively on the grounds of our diversities (Harrison &
Rouse, 2014). While also being individual actors in the entrepreneurial venture, we came to
a solution by discussing and assessing what would be the most optimal outcome for our
consumers. Taking these factors into consideration, it could be argued whether we were as
diverse as we thought, or could the group be even more diversified? We shared some
demographics, such as age, social status, and similar contemporary perspectives of the
world; it could, however, be interesting to include individuals with more dispersed
demographics when encountering a value creation process again in order to gain a different
degree of insights to, ultimately, approach the problem setting differently.

Another limitation that could be addressed is the matter of time. As we were only given a
fixed set of weeks to execute this research and act as entrepreneurs, I personally believe
that more freedom, also in terms of it being a school setting, would help us experiment more
with other ideas that were simply too time-consuming and complex. Instead of doing only
fieldwork in Lolland, we could have explored other relevant areas in e.g. Jutland. In this way,
we could analyse whether our idea was also a need in urban cities such as Århus, Aalborg,
and Esbjerg and determine if the need is solely one of Copenhagen citizens or a national
preference. This would force us to do more intensive research, in terms of interviews,
competitors, stakeholders, and much more. However, this would require a more developed
training of how to go about the idea, e.g. a well-developed knowledge on how to execute
interviews with the absence of biases and in some way forcing one’s own perspectives onto
the interviewee. I found this as a constraint when executing the interviews as, it could be
argued, that political correctness became a crucial aspect in our interviews. When talking
with the interviewees, it was difficult not to ask leading questions, which in some way,
shaped their answers. I believe that more in-depth training on how to do interviews was
needed in the course as we were to gather 15 interviews each. The quantity of interviews,

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therefore, became more important than the quality of them. In order to understand the values
of the recipient, we as interviewers must completely immerse ourselves into the
phenomenological world of our addressee, which I believe we only did partly (Czarniawska,
2014).

Conclusion

In the above sections, it has been demonstrated how value can be understood in relation
with the processes HarvestSide went through. Feedback from farmers and from, what
potentially could be our segment, uncovered how crucial and vital it is to receive feedback
and reflect on this in order to assess certain situations, e.g. with our initial idea to just create
a map over farm booths. We quickly found out that potential consumers did not want to make
the effort of driving to the countryside, rather the experience had to be easy, quick, and close
to the consumer in the Copenhagen area. This led us to reevaluate our initial idea, and both
bring the consumer to the farmer but also bring the farmers to the urban cities, which would
serve as our most significant features in the app. We learned about the different regimes of
value, which equipped us with a set of knowledge of how to understand our interviewees,
their beliefs, preferences and general view of the world. This assisted us in gaining insights
of how each interviewee makes sense of their surroundings, this especially included the
vitality of COVID-19 and how this societal crisis was a crucial factor in shaping new
perceptions. It is illustrated that the matter of sensemaking is a continuous process that
constantly changes the consumers’ perspective of what is valuable when they purchase a
good. This is also affected by trends, friends and family members. Together with the above
mentioned characteristics, consumers form a unique sphere that expresses their
individuality which is important for a business to examine in order to fully grasp their
consumers’ needs.

As a lot of businesses provide incremental innovation, it is interpreted that we also present

this due to minor changes of what already exists. However, with our solution we provided
new opportunities for the users.

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Bibliography

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Books

• Czarniawska, B. (2014) Social Science Research: From Field to Desk. Sage. (chapter
1, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7).

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• Ruckenstein, M., J. Suikkanen, and Sakari Tamminen (2011) Forget innovation:
Focus on value-creation. Helsinki: Edita Prima Oy. Download for free at:
[http://www.sitra.fi/julkaisut/sitra293.pdf] or order for free: publications@sitra.fi.
(chapter 2-4 & 8)

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