BEYOND THE STEADY STATE: MANAGING DISCONTINUOUS PRODUCT AND PROCESS INNOVATION

Wendy Phillips (), Hannah Noke, John Bessant and Richard Lamming
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Wendy Phillips: Centre for Research in Strategic Purchasing and Supply (CRiSPS), University of Bath School of Management, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
Hannah Noke: Lincoln Business School, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, LN6 7TS, UK
John Bessant: Innovation Studies Centre, Tanaka Business School Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Richard Lamming: School of Management, Southampton University, UK

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2006, vol. 10, issue 02, 175-196

Abstract: Research on the innovation process and its effective management has consistently highlighted a set of themes constituting "good practice". The limitation of such "good practice" is that it relates to what might be termed "steady state" innovation — essentially innovative activity in product and process terms which is about "doing what we do, but better". The prescription works well under these conditions of (relative) stability in terms of products and markets but is not a good guide when elements of discontinuity come into the equation. Discontinuity arises from shifts along technological, market, political and other frontiers and requires new or at least significantly adapted approaches to their effective management. This paper highlights empirical findings from a selection of companies involved in a project sponsored by the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry. The results indicate a number of key routines that organisations could implement to enable discontinuous innovation.

Keywords: Discontinuous innovation; inter-firm learning; managing innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1142/S1363919606001478

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