HONDA'S PREDISPOSITION TOWARDS RADICAL AND DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIONS

W. David Holford and Mehran Ebrahimi
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W. David Holford: Department of Management and Technology, School of Management, University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), P.O Box 8888, Downtown Station, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3P8, Canada

Chapter 1 in Creating and Managing a Technology Economy, 2010, pp 3-31 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: AbstractHonda's long term view to R&D does not seem to hamper its ‘nimbleness’ to provide innovative products that are not only new to its historical business markets, but offer significant differentiating product attributes. Honda's recognized innovative prowess in most industries that it focuses upon leads us to ask the following two research questions: 1) What type of innovation approach (e.g. sustaining, radical or disruptive) differentiates Honda as being an innovative firm; and 2) What type of organizational approach supports the type of innovation that Honda generates?A critical hermeneutical analysis of key R&D reports and second-hand interviews related to the HondaJet and Ridgeline product development initiatives followed by a review of past organizational research conducted on Honda as well as certain management literature on innovation generated the following results:Product development programs showed clear patterns of coherency with technologies and design themes developed in preceding product development projects. Certain pertinent analogies were induced by these ‘coherent innovation’ patterns: namely, ‘living’ mythologies and societies, ‘healthy doubt’ or ambivalence in regards to retained knowledge, and creative routines. These analogies are a first indication of dialectics, whether as co-existence or synthesis of contradictions. A further examination of the management literature on Honda clearly indicates Honda's dialectical approach within the organization. Our own cross reference to technical reports and second-hand verbatim in relation to both the HondaJet and the Honda Ridgeline product development programs, as well as to their respective precursor development programs, revealed that the organizational approach can best be described as a dialectical holographic metaphor. There is also a clear relationship between Honda's dialectical holograph, especially in regards to knowledge creation as seen across the HondaJet and Honda Ridgeline development programs, and a general predisposition towards producing radical and disruptive innovations. A conceptual framework is proposed with the aim of providing further insights as to how an organization can achieve the dialectic holographic metaphor; and in turn, a general predisposition towards generating either radical or disruptive innovations.Conclusions:1) Both the HondaJet and the Honda Ridgeline are viewed as being both radical and disruptive innovations. Furthermore, both product development programs showed clear patterns of coherency with technologies and design themes developed in preceding product development projects (hence, ‘coherent innovation’). Hence, Honda's resulting innovations are simultaneously characterized by both continuity and novelty.2) Honda's organizational approach in support of this type of innovation can best be described as a dialectical holographic metaphor.3) Honda's approach is also in marked contrast to certain established literature as to how to attain disruptive innovations.

Keywords: Management and Technology; Innovation Processes; Knowledge Management; Cross-Border Collaboration; Interdisciplinary Collaboration; Indicators for Measuring Innovation; Business in High-Tech Industry; Sustainability; Social Aspects of Technology Management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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