Solving the Innovation Dilemma by Creating Organizational Think Tanks

Abstract

In business venturing, the simultaneous activity of searching for hitherto unknown opportunities while pursuing already identified opportunities gives rise to high-tension and contradictory processes. This innovation dilemma presents a key managerial challenge to corporate entrepreneurship. To this dilemma the authors apply the exploration/exploitation framework and argue that a balance of the divergent organizational and managerial needs of these two activities can be achieved more efficiently and effectively in a network-like structure of organizations. They take a design-oriented approach and, as a solution to the innovation dilemma, argue the case for a centre of explorative excellence as both focal point and mediator in an inter-organizational network, which they call an ‘organizational think tank’.