Balancing actions for radical and incremental innovations in SAES Getters

Abstract

In a context of limited resources, in terms of time, competencies and money, companies face the problem of being ambidextrous, i.e. to manage and achieve both radical and incremental innovation, by adopting both technology push and market pull approaches. The paper tries to enrich the empirical evidence on the topic, with the practical experience of a company, SAES Getters, which defined a set of actions that could help in finding and maintaining a sustainable balance between incremental and radical innovation. Organisational and cultural actions are implemented by SAES to manage ambidexterity: the definition of an organisation structure able to capture simultaneously technology push and market pull forces, a leadership and a decision making structure able to enable the coordination of such forces, the development of a new language for innovation.