Changing Nature of Innovation

Insights from Recent Research on Innovation

1. There is substantial evidence that innovation is critical for long-term growth. Thus there is an expanded imperative to innovate in order to succeed in today’s world.

Recent research confirms the fact that innovation is critical for opening up new business opportunities and setting the stage for continuing change in any organization. (This research assumes that any innovation involves a new combination of existing ideas, capabilities, skills, resources, etc.)

2. Innovation is a powerful explanatory factor between differences in performance between firms, regions and countries. However, organizing for innovation is a delicate task. This topic was ignored in mainstream social science for a long time because many researchers felt it was impossible to explain how innovations occur.
3. In periods of fundamental change, following the classical standard behaviour rules for strategy often will not work (i.e., survey all the available information, assess the data and identify the “optimal” choice). To be able to move in different, faster ways requires strong leaders with clear vision and courage—the qualities associated with entrepreneurship.
4. We assume also that most people do not intrinsically enjoy involvement in major changes so any entrepreneurs engaged in the innovation process need to recognize the prevalence at all levels of society of resistance to new ways (inertia) which has to be overcome if one is to successfully introduce any novel initiative.
5. One needs to also acknowledge the fundamental uncertainty inherent in all innovation projects which suggests that innovations would do well to have a high tolerance for ambiguity.
6. The locale for turning inventions into innovations is most likely to occur in business firms (and often in public agencies and nonprofits), but not frequently in universities (although these institutions are a major source of the inventions).
7. Increasingly, innovation is seen as “a social system” and thus cultivating a capacity for “systems thinking” is an important part of the innovations skill set.
8. When we think of innovation systems we need to move beyond a focus only on the firms and the economic sectors and consider the nature and strength of the wider societal framework in which these firms operate. This has given rise to an interest in comparing state, regional and national systems of innovation which include: regulatory bodies, political organizations, public research infrastructure, financial institutions, labour force and so on.
9. This systems approach leads to a renewed interest in strengthening linkages in the system which has sparked some breakthrough efforts in creating “innovation networks” which can quickly connect clusters of organizations (public and private) without any geographic constraints or complex regulations but with a capacity for collective action.
10. Openness to new ideas is essential for innovation, as is the thinking required to transform technologies and work out how to connect with new markets. This underscores the fact that one of the key elements for innovation is learning at both the individual and collective level.
11. The complexity of innovation cannot be fully understood from the perspective of any single discipline—to get a comprehensive overview requires insights from several disciplines. This assume that building a culture of innovation in an organization is a collaborative effort in both entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship which requires teams with diverse backgrounds, expertise and experiences.