IS RADICAL INNOVATION MANAGEMENT MISUNDERSTOOD? PROBLEMATISING THE RADICAL INNOVATION DISCIPLINE

Jimmi Normann Kristiansen and Frank Gertsen ()
Additional contact information
Jimmi Normann Kristiansen: Aalborg University, Department of Business and Management, International Business Centre, Fibigerstraede 4, 9220 Aalborg Oest, Denmark
Frank Gertsen: Aalborg University, Department of Business and Management, Center for Industrial Production, Fibigerstraede 10, 9220 Aalborg Oest, Denmark

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2015, vol. 19, issue 06, 1-23

Abstract: This paper poses a critical view on radical innovation (RI) management research and practice. The study investigates how expected RI performance influences firms’ understanding of their RI capability. RI performance is often based on output measures such as market shares or fiscal return. On the contrary, RI capability building advocates for exploration, learning, and accepting uncertainty. Hence, RI capability building often focuses on the processes of the firms, and not the outcome. Thus, it is argued that the RI capability-building and RI performance expectations are based on different managerial orientations. Coupling a discussion of the literature with case findings from four large international firms, this paper identifies a discrepancy between RI capability-building and RI performance within literature and practice. This is regarded to be a major contributing factor to RI program failure. This study presents three misunderstandings related to RI research and practice and discusses implications of these findings.

Keywords: Innovation management; radical innovation; discontinuous innovation; breakthrough innovation; capability building; performance output (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919615400101
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:ijimxx:v:19:y:2015:i:06:n:s1363919615400101

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1363919615400101

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) is currently edited by Joe Tidd

More articles in International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().