Quiet Change ‐ Big Bang or Catastrophic Shift: At What Point Does Continuous Improvement Become Innovative?

Abstract

Bessant (1992) argues that continuous improvement programmes which support small incremental innovations are an effective means of gaining competitive success. This paper argues that Bessant does not sufficiently distinguish improvement from innovation and that his failure to explore the relationship between improvement and innovation detracts from his argument. Bessant's paper implies that innovation is the result of a continuous function arising out of aggregated small improvements. The current author argues that this is an insufficient explanation. Innovation is described as a dynamic and discontinuous stochastic process that can only be modelled using techniques which reflect these qualities. Catastrophe theory (Thom, 1972), is a model that has been successfully used to describe a wide variety of discontinuous processes. An example drawn from catastrophe theory (the cusp catastrophe) is used to extend Bessant's theses. It is argued that the resulting model adds to existing definitions of innovation by pointing to the importance of the relationship between improvement, creativity, innovation and competitive advantage.