Jay L. Abraham and Daniel J. Knight
The explosion of growth in the new economy intensifies and exacerbates the need for performance management, yet many managers consistently fail to seriously support these efforts…
Abstract
The explosion of growth in the new economy intensifies and exacerbates the need for performance management, yet many managers consistently fail to seriously support these efforts because they focus on routine and stability in business. Strategic Innovation involves making knowledge creation and innovative action a way of life, seeking to create and expand markets rather than just reacting to customer demand, and redirecting resources from profitable but dwindling lines of business to support emerging lines that are potentially more profitable. The strategic innovation cycle contains five phases: generating – sharing knowledge and experience; conceptualizing – going from tacit to explicit knowledge; optimizing – evaluating to find the best answer; implementing – testing solutions and creating new knowledge, and capturing – codifying explicit knowledge and identifying gaps.
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“Leveraging intellectual capital requires a company to become a knowledge‐based organization and to revise its performance measures accordingly.”
Interviews Professor Clayton Christensen, who has authored or co‐authored three groundbreaking books that together frame the daunting problems that managers must confront when…
Abstract
Purpose
Interviews Professor Clayton Christensen, who has authored or co‐authored three groundbreaking books that together frame the daunting problems that managers must confront when they lead innovation initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Strategy & Leadership contributing editor, Dan Knight, asked Christensen about the finding of his research and its implications for managers.
Findings
Most managers are not familiar with Christensen's contention that leading companies fail after only a few decades at the head of the pack because they rely on two conventionally accepted concepts: listen to your best customers and focus investments on the products with high profit margins. Companies that pay exclusive attention to their current top customers and ignore the first minute signals of disruptive forces emerging in their market will not adopt innovation that will make them successful long‐term.
Research limitations/implications
Christensen alludes to his research methodology and suggest that it is superior to that of most observers of the innovation process. A comparative study would be valuable.
Practical implications
Christensen suggests that organizations segment their markets by “customer jobs to be done” in order to identify new growth opportunities. He explains why when you are growing, innovation proves to be a lot easier than when you stop growing. Another nugget: “being a serial disrupter means that on a regular and rhythmic basis you launch new disruptive innovations when you don't really need new growth.”
Originality/value
While all of Christensen theories have been explained in his books, many managers are likely still unfamiliar with the many practical implications of his unconventional wisdom. The interview serves as a lucid introduction to ideas like managing disruptive innovation.
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Michael Putz and Michael E. Raynor
To make top management aware of the innovation paradox: their current success depends on doing and improving upon what they now do well, but their future success requires creating…
Abstract
Purpose
To make top management aware of the innovation paradox: their current success depends on doing and improving upon what they now do well, but their future success requires creating entirely new capabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
One of the authors is director of development at Cisco, a firm that acquires disruptive technology through it's M&A program. The other author is one of the world's leading authorities on innovation.
Findings
A critical element of the solution to the disruptive innovation dilemma lies in setting up an autonomous organization that can adopt radically different resources, processes and values.
Research limitations/implications
A subsequent article will detail the M&A search for firms with technology needed or disruptive innovation.
Practical implications
In a firm with no history of innovation disruption, executives must use their personal authority to create a strategy process that is more emergent than intentional, focus on customers that appear unattractive, and develop new capabilities.
Originality/value
The authors propose that to achieve renewal via disruptive innovation that CEOs must become integral leaders, who learn to go beyond trade offs between constituencies within a set of constraints and see the necessity of changing the constraints themselves.
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Ask an expert to describe an innovation system that enables companies to successfully advance valuable technologies that fit their current business model – and those that do not…
Abstract
Purpose
Ask an expert to describe an innovation system that enables companies to successfully advance valuable technologies that fit their current business model – and those that do not fit it.
Design/methodology/approach
Strategy & Leadership interviewed Henry Chesbrough author of Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business School Press, 2003). His book is based on numerous research projects he conducted.
Findings
He developed an open innovation model based on the observation that great inventions can come from both inside and outside the company and should then be commercialized both using the current business model and with alternative business models.
Research limitations/implications
Case studies are needed. Tools are needed for bringing the customer into the open innovation process.
Practical implications
Corporate leaders should review and consider the open innovation model as one approach in their search for new growth businesses.
Original/value
Open innovation is a radical approach to business growth that is being pioneered by a number of cutting edge firms.
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The author has spent the last ten years studying the innovation process in modern organizations and found that the most successful firms pursue an innovation strategy termed…
Abstract
Purpose
The author has spent the last ten years studying the innovation process in modern organizations and found that the most successful firms pursue an innovation strategy termed technology brokering.
Design/methodology/approach
How are the objectives achieved? Include the main method(s) used for the research. What is the approach to the topic and what is the theoretical or subject scope of the paper?
Findings
Rather than chasing wholly new ideas, these successful firms focus on recombining old ideas in new ways. The results have sparked many technological revolutions and produced a steady stream of growth opportunities for existing businesses.
Research limitations/implications
Needs cases showing that technology brokering, and the complementary work practices and people, can successfully execute such a strategy.
Practical implications
By transforming traditional R&D organizations through a strategy of technology brokering firms can build competencies for continuous innovation..
Originality/value
To pursue a strategy of recombinant innovation, corporate leaders must put themselves in position to be the first to see how existing technologies in one market could be used to create breakthrough innovations in another.
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J. Douglas Bate and Robert E. Johnston
To encourage top management to recognize the need for adding new value to their organizations and commit to the creation of new internal capabilities for growth via the…
Abstract
Purpose
To encourage top management to recognize the need for adding new value to their organizations and commit to the creation of new internal capabilities for growth via the exploration of their company's strategic frontier.
Design/methodology/approach
Explains how the CEO can select a team and initiate a project to identify strategy frontier options.
Findings
The authors’ experience suggests that the team should first explore all areas of future growth potential in and adjacent to their industry, creating a long list of potential options. Identifying a breadth of strategic frontier options is more important than a depth of information on any one option.
Research limitations/implications
More case studies of strategy frontier projects in action, with quantitative results, would be valuable.
Practical implications
The goal of this frontier team is to identify a portfolio of innovative new business opportunities that exist on the strategic frontier. It will be the responsibility of another, more qualified group with quantitative skills (strategic planners, business development) to develop a detailed business design and determine its profitability and attractiveness to the company.
Originality/value
The article offers top management an innovative how‐to approach to finding truly new growth opportunities.
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Mary C. Pinard and Robert J. Allio
Describes how The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College features creativity as one of the early and essential components of its innovative two‐year MBA program.
Abstract
Purpose
Describes how The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College features creativity as one of the early and essential components of its innovative two‐year MBA program.
Design/methodology/approach
Article reports on the indicators that the program is a success.
Findings
For corporations seeking creativity in new hires, MBA graduates who have completed the “Creativity stream” offer increased confidence in their ability to express themselves creatively; willingness to accept ambiguity and the uncertainty of process as part of discovery; openness to alternatives ways of seeing a problem, solution, or scenario; and renewed trust in themselves and their potential as creative thinkers.
Research limitations/implications
Employer survey results suggest that there is a link between Babson MBAs’ success at producing more and better creative solutions on the job and their exposure to creative process in the “Creativity stream”.
Practical implications
There is only limited evidence that arts experiences as part of corporate creativity training are noticeably beneficial, but Unilever's management contends that such training leads to changed perceptions and better decisions.
Originality/value
Creativity training can help employees and their managers develop new approaches to resolving corporate challenges.