Innovation is one of those words that suddenly seems to be all around us. Firms care about their ability to innovate, on which their future allegedly depends, and many management consultants are busy persuading companies about how they can help them improve their innovation performance. Politicians care about innovation, too: how to design policies that stimulate innovation has become a hot topic at various levels of government.
There is extensive scope for examining the way innovation is managed within organisations. Most of us are well aware that good technology can help companies achieve competitive advantage and long-term financial success. But there is an abundance of exciting new technology in the world and it is the transformation of this technology into products that is of particular concern to organisations. There are numerous factors to be considered by the organisation, but what are these factors and how do they affect the process of innovation?
I choose ealy on to deeg into the explanation on how and why most of the most significant inventions of the past two centuries have not come from flashes of for-profit inspiration, but from communal, multilayered endeavour – one idea being built on another until a breakthrough is reached.