Innovation Management and Visionary Leadership

Overview

A review of innovation management related studies shows that there are many multiple definitions of innovation as per the context of the area where each study is done. Moreover, it is observed that the reviewed Innovation Management studies have common theories around innovation processes, the models and frameworks of Innovation Management, and the need for technology and visionary leadership in a successful execution of Innovation Management. Therefore, in this paper, the definition of innovation, the explanation of Innovation Management, the common theories around Innovation Management, the role of technology and visionary leadership in Innovation Management will be presented and discussed.

Innovation

A quick internet search for the term innovation returns about 240M results, in less than a second, including the dictionary definitions of the term, as observed by Wright (2010).  As Wright noted, although it doesn’t mean that there are 240M million definitions, one can agree that innovation can have many hundreds of definitions, each contextually correct but all slightly different.  The following are among the definitions that are enumerated by Wright (2010):

  • Introduction of a new idea into the marketplace in the form of a new product or service or an improvement in organization or process.
  • A new idea, method or device. The act of creating a new product or process. The act includes invention as well as the work required to bring an idea or concept into the final form.
  • Creating value out of new ideas, new products, new services or new ways of doing things.
  • A novel, beneficial change in art or practice.
  • The process of converting knowledge and ideas into better ways of doing business or into new or improved products and services that are valued by the community.
  • The act of introducing something new and significantly different.
  • The process of adopting a new thing, idea, or behavior pattern into a culture.
  • Doing new things.

Until one settles down to a single definition, it will be natural to ask the same question that Wright (2010) asked, “Which definition is the right one?”.  Finally, Wright settled down with a single equation like a definition for innovation as Innovation = Invention + Exploitation, which seems to summarize the key aspects of the definitions listed above, and yet provides a clear distinction between the terms, innovation, and invention.  In line with this distinction, Howells (2005) uses the invention to describe the generation of the idea of innovation, while innovation is to describe some useful changes in technology, and technology refers to the organization of people and artifacts for some goal.   Innovation is defined as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs, whereas invention defined as a unique or novel device, method, composition or process (Latour, 2015).

In terms of its impact on the growth and long-term success of a firm, Kasemsap (2017) explains innovation as the principal factor to trigger business growth, enabling firms to meet the demands of existing or new customers and obtain long term success through continual creation of new products, systems, and services.

As observed in many of the definitions above, innovation involves a process. As pictorially represented by Peter (2008), the process of innovation involves finding opportunities, connecting to the solution, selecting the solution and making it user-friendly, getting the product to market, and starting the process all over again at the first step of finding opportunity. So, for an innovation process to result in either a one-time or a repeated desired outcome, for an organization, it should be measured and managed, through innovation management, which is discussed next.

Innovation Management

Innovation management is the discipline of managing processes in innovation and, can be used to develop both product and organizational innovation using a set of tools that allow managers and engineers to cooperate with a common understanding of goals and processes (Tuğçe et al, 2014).

For materializing innovation opportunities, reducing investment risks, assessing technical and operational feasibility and weigh its future impact, proper attention to innovation management is fundamental (Morente & Ferràs, 2017).

According to Peter (2008), innovation relies on carefully planned measures, encompassing people and processes. In line with this, for an innovation process to be managed effectively, it is necessary to get a report of certain results in areas affecting the processes being managed (Lendel et al, 2015a).

As per Tuğçe et al (2014), managers need a clear road map in innovation management which is a complex procedure especially because of the characteristic of innovation itself.  In this regard, to evaluate management’s readiness to support innovation and manage it with a clear and deeper understanding of innovation process management, Lendel et al (2015a) defined five-levels of measures (chaotic, inadequate, acceptable, high and excellent).  Once management is at an acceptable level, the innovation management process itself can be evaluated using an innovation management model, which is made up of two main parts: the innovation process and innovation competences (Lendel et al. 2015b).    

In their study, aimed at proposing a typology of innovation management models, Raoni Barros et al (n.d.)  recognized that innovation management is a complex phenomenon with strong interdisciplinary characteristics, with its practice permeates many of an organization’s focus. However, for a successful application of management of innovation process, Viliam Lendel, Štefan Hittmár, & Martin Latka. (2015) recommend the management to make a comprehensive record of innovative ideas and innovations in the company, followed by an assessment of the records. This provides an ability to evaluate the effects and benefits of implemented innovations whereby identifying the potential future value of innovative ideas that are found to be not useful currently, and not implemented (Viliam Lendel, Štefan Hittmár, & Martin Latka, 2015).

At the core of innovation management is the innovation process which starts with defining the customer and discovering unmet needs followed by defining the customer needs. Once the core needs are defined, the subsequent steps will be: finding segments of opportunities, setting market opportunity size, conducting competitive analysis, formulating innovation and pricing strategies (Tuğçe et al, 2014).  Successful completion of these steps will be followed by defining and evaluating a solution using the following 6 steps defined by Tuğçe et al (2014), which are focused at identifying techniques and tools for:

  1. Identifying innovation projects,
  2. Scoping and focusing on innovation projects,
  3. Leveraging brainpower and turbo-charging creativity,
  4. Selecting the best ideas for further development and design,
  5. Evaluating how new products/services perform prior to release and finally
  6. Diagnosis problems and improvements for prior commercialization.

Innovation Management Frameworks

A review of innovation management related studies show that there are many models or frameworks that are proposed to represent and ease the understanding of the process of innovation and its management. Among these frameworks, some focus mainly on an organization and the innovation process steps needed to ensure the long-term and continued success of the organization within its own boundary; and others are proposed to enable a mutual-benefit and success between organizations through cross-boundary innovation activities undertaken by the organizations involved. 

The following are example frameworks proposed in four different studies, with a similar intention to represent, facilitate and ease the understanding of the innovation management process.

  1. The product-service system (PSS) framework (Song et al, 2015)
  2. The innovation funnel framework (Biazzo et al, 2013)
  3. The knowledge innovation management (KIM) framework (Briones-Peñalver et al, 2015)
  4. The Integrative framework (Kasemsap, 2017)

Observations

            Based on the review of Innovation Management related researches, for this paper, three areas of interest to this paper are observed and will be explained in the subsequent sections.

Technology in Innovation Management

In innovation management, the use of technology has a great role that it can play, especially in rapid prototyping, the use of 3D-printers as intra-organizational ways, and involvement of early adopters to use them as product testers (Horn & Brem, 2012).  However, tensions between ‘stable and familiar’ and ‘dynamic and uncertain’ knowledge environments would cause a problem on the adoption process of emerging core technology (Saeed et al, n.d.). 

According to Vega-Jurado et al (2015), when new products and technologies require large R&D expenditure in areas where the company had little to none of the required technical competencies, like any other innovation process, great financial and technological challenges for the company.

Innovation can be improved through the addition of a global context on the idea or concept at hand.  This can be facilitated with the integration of the latest information and communication technology, such as video conferencing and worldwide chat enabling virtual teams to work together more effectively (Horn & Brem, 2012).  On the other hand, a tendency to support ongoing businesses may result in persisting alignment only with the existing technologies and consequently deprive the organization of a favorable environment for experimentation and knowledge accumulation in the new field (Saeed et al, n.d.). 

Visionary Leadership in Innovation Management

Innovation Management requires a change, in organizational structure, management’s understanding of the process of innovation, and management’s readiness to invest the initial cost needed for Innovation Management. For instance, technology adoption, for Innovation Management, in organizations may require spending the initial cost of a feasibility study and additional costs for implementation, training, etc., for organizations to benefit from the technology adoption.

Leaders that don’t have a long-term vision for their organization may not be able to see opportunities to be explored and may not understand the long-term benefits of innovation in keeping the organization to stay competitive, through exploring opportunities.  

Organizations with visionary leadership committed to growth-driven goals for the business appear to be more likely to adopt new processes, such as Innovation Management and use information communication technology (Ioannis et al, n.d.). 

Recurring Theories in Innovation Management Studies

In the studies related to Innovation Management, that are reviewed during the preparation of this paper, the following are some of the common theories that have been observed:

  • Innovation is different from the invention for it is a process to be followed to realize a new concept from inception to the marketing of a product or service that adds new or improves an existing value to customers.
  • Innovation has become a necessity not a choice for an organization to stay competitive, in the current market.
  • Innovation Management is a vehicle to consistently and cost-effectively execute an innovation process.
  • Innovation Management can be a success when the management of the organization has an adequate understanding of innovation processes to be managed, with the will to implement it, if it doesn’t already exist.
  • There are several Innovation Management frameworks that are proposed for different organizational contexts, and that can be leveraged by innovation process managers to effectively manage innovation processes.
  • Technology can play a great role in fostering Innovation Management whereby executing some of the innovation process steps, such as prototyping, in a cost-effective way.
  • There are agreed-upon models of Innovation Management, such as technology push, market pull, open innovation, etc., that are observed over the years in which different theories of innovation have been characterized.

References

Biazzo, Stefano, Garengo, Patrizia, & Bernardi, Giovanni. (2013). A new funnel framework to support innovation management in SMEs. International Journal of Management Science & Technology Information, 100.

Briones-Peñalver, Antonio-Juan, Roca-Gonzalez, Jose-Luis, & Martínez-Martínez, Inmaculada-José. (2015). Innovation Management Based on Knowledge: Analysis of Technology-Based Defense Companies. In Handbook of Research on Effective Project Management through the Integration of Knowledge and Innovation (p. 275). Hershey, PA, USA.

Horn, Christian, & Brem, Alexander. (2012). Strategic directions on innovation management – a conceptual framework. Management Research Review, 36, 939–954.

Howells, John. (2005). Technological Innovation. In The Management of Innovation and Technology: The Shaping of Technology and Institutions of the Market Economy (pp. 2–23). London, England: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Lendel,Viliam, Hittmár, Štefan, & Siantová, Eva. (2015a). Management of Innovation Processes in Company. Paper presented at the 2nd Global Conference on Business, Economics, Management and Tourism, 30-31, Prague, Czech Republic.

Lendel,Viliam, Hittmár, Štefan, & Siantová, Eva. (2015b). Identification of the main levels in the management of innovation processes. Paper presented at the 4th World Conference on Business, Economics and Management, WCBEM, University of Zilina, Univerzitna 8215/1, 010 26 Zilina, Slovak Republic.

Lendel,Viliam, Hittmár, Štefan, & Latka, Martin. (2015). Application of management of innovation processes in enterprises: management approach, problems and recommendations. Paper presented at the Business Economics and Management 2015 Conference, BEM2015, University of Zilina, Univerzitná 8215/1, 010 26 Žilina, Slovak Republic.

Morente, Fran, & Ferràs, Xavier. (). Innovation management from the inside: An approach from attention and everyday praxis. Intangible Capital, 13, 667.

Song, Wenyan, Ming, Xinguo, Han, Yi, Xu, Zhitao, & Wu, Zhenyong. (2015). An integrative framework for innovation management of product–service system. International Journal of Production Research, 53, 2268.

Tuğçe, Zeynep, Şimşit, Özalp V., & Ztürk, Özgen. (2014). An outline of innovation management process: building a framework
for managers to implement innovation. Paper presented at the 10th International Strategic Management Conference, Marmara University,Istanbul, 34722, Turkey.

Vega-Jurado, Jaider, Juliao-Esparragoza, David, Paternina-Arboleda, Carlos D., & Velez, Milena C. (2015). Integrating Technology, Management and Marketing Innovation through Open Innovation Models. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 10, 90. Wright, Howard. (2010). Step 1. What is this thing called Innovation? In Ten steps to innovation heaven: how to create future growth and competitive strength (pp. 9–28). 2010: Marshall Cavendish.