Much recent discussion has highlighted the challenges posed by what have variously
been called “disruptive”, “discontinuous”, “breakthrough” and “radical” innovations.
Although the labelling may vary, the underlying themes appear to be consistent. In
particular it is clear that under conditions in which the dominant “rules of the game”
change as a result of emergent or shifting markets, major movements at the
technological frontier, dislocations in the regulatory environment etc, even
organizations with well-developed innovation capabilities get into difficulties. This is
less a matter of particular technological, market or political stimuli than of the
limitations of the repertoire of organizational responses available to the firm. This
resurfaces a long-running concern with managing innovation in two different modes,
namely “exploitation” and “exploration”.
This thesis reports the results of exploratory research into specific aspects of the
organizational culture within the Research and Development (R&D) setting of a small
mature UK based company, Cerulean. In doing so it also identifies and discusses key
management interventions for developing an innovation culture that facilitates radical
product innovation. Cerulean designs and manufactures quality control instrumentation
and has in the past been very successful with radically new products. In recent years
this propensity for “radicalness” has declined and the company now wishes to regain
this capability. A grounded research methodology and a participative action research
approach was utilised to surface issues that clearly illustrated both the presence and
intensity of aspects of organisation culture that enabled and inhibited radical product
innovation. Participative analysis of the data identified nine emerging themes and key
constructs of an innovation culture that was found to influence “radicalness” in new
product development ventures. The interrelationships between the themes were
discussed in the context of current theoretical perspectives in the field of innovation
management. This led to the development of a conceptual model that incorporates two
“ideal” archetypal forms of innovation culture. A composite instrument was developed
based on existing evaluation tools and used to assess the innovation culture. First use of
the instrument indicated areas of opportunity in developing a radical innovation culture.
Further participative analysis of the emergent themes and the assessment and
evaluations of the extant innovation culture, resulted in a series of management
interventions to stimulate the development of a culture to facilitate radical product
innovation. The design of the interventions was also informed by the literature and
other organizations, part of a national Discontinuous Innovation Forum (DIF)
undergoing similar ambitions. The proposed interventions comprise a series of linked
management actions in the form of a plan to shift the innovation culture of the company
closer to a desired radical innovation culture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/1119 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | McLaughlin, Patrick |
| Contributors | Bessant, John, Smart, Palie |
| Publisher | Cranfield University, School of Management |
| Source Sets | CRANFIELD1 |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or dissertation, Doctoral, DBA |
| Format | 2229749 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | © Cranfield University, (2006). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright holder. |
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