Role of cloud systems as a global innovation crucible

Abstract

Innovation offers the promise of dramatic improvements in productivity and performance, and is quickly becoming a vital component of competition, especially in global competition. It has been shown [34, 35] that the innovation chains entail a number of necessary activities including knowledge transfer from both internal and external organisational sources. Although a number of articles pointing to learning as one of innovation's imperatives have been published [35], still there is no research that points to how to transfer knowledge and what tools would be required to conduct the knowledge transfer. Furthermore, there is no published work that identifies how to assess the goodness of the knowledge transfer. Given that the learning organisation concept requires the innovative organisation to ensure efficient and effective transfer of appropriate innovation knowledge, it would be imperative for an organisation to study and understand the important factors that could ensure the efficient transfer of innovation knowledge. The transfer of innovation knowledge could be facilitated by implementation of new technology tools such as cloud systems. The use of cloud systems for delivering explicit knowledge over the Internet has been on the increase in particular in innovation settings. A cloud System for innovation has distinct characteristics that differentiate it from traditional internet services. These distinct characteristics are due to significant innovations in virtualization of distributed computing systems. In addition it is noted that the improved access to high-speed Internet has accelerated the innovative firm's interest in the implementation of cloud systems In general, the main goal of cloud systems is to provide easy, scalable access to computing resources and Information Technology (IT) services. However, the specific aims of cloud systems application in innovation settings could also include assisting the innovator in assessing the knowledge transferred. It has been shown [36, 37 and 38] that not all knowledge transferred is useful or relevant to the innovation. In other words, it would be necessary for the innovative firm to ensure that the knowledge transferred is screened for compliance against some known knowledge characteristics [34, 35, 36, 37 and 38]. This means the cloud System used should also result in efficient delivery of innovation knowledge in an effective way. This paper presents an approach for assessment of the success of cloud systems usage in innovation, on the basis of a system's abilities to differentiate between the various knowledge characteristics required for the innovation. The paper also discusses the various success factors of cloud System for global innovation.