Innovation Life Cycle Research Articles

Innovations: the new unit of analysis in the knowledge era

For quite a while the issues of knowledge management, innovation and performance measurement have been on the agenda of researchers and practitioners alike throughout the world. Not too long ago it was recognised that there are direct cause and effect relations between knowledge reuse and invention. The present paper therefore discusses the constituent elements of innovation from a knowledge perspective which have been identified in the context of a European Union co‐sponsored research project. The six facts of the “innovation cube” are: reuse of existing knowledge; invention of new knowledge; exploitation (i.e. turning knowledge into value); stakeholders' contributions (to the innovation life cycle); the enabling ecology or operating context in which the innovation occurs; and the performance facet, i.e. the bottom line. A toolkit based on performance measurement thinking and implementation process for better management of the balance between reuse and invention in development environments is proposed and results from their deployment in three real‐life case studies are discussed.

Connectivity creates innovation

Innovation powers growth and reduces cost. Recently, whole new innovation approaches have become available with the rise of connectivity. While noting that connectivity can be used to enhance all stages of the innovation lifecycle, this paper focuses on how companies are using online forums to enhance the generation and development of new ideas by informal networks of people. It describes the essential elements of such forums (open contribution, peer review, joint development and context setting), drawing upon work done by several companies and on the development of a software application to support collaborative idea generation and development.

TESTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES IN UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER PROGRAMS.

This paper examines the process of commercializing university faculty-invented intellectual property, which is commonly referred to as university-industry technology transfer (UITT). I develop a model of the UITT process based on a review of tech transfer operations at 139 research universities. I then show that the tech transfer process can be viewed as a special case of the technology innovation life cycle and use the model to empirically test the organizational effectiveness of UITT operations. This study shows that although UITT operations tend to be similar in organization and functional goals, there are profound differences in their policies, procedures and view of their role in the process of developing faculty IP for potential commercialization. There is a fundamental continuum of primary activities from basic research through commercialization of the IP that lead to the desirable results of deploying technology for the public good and generating revenues for the university. Universities that recognize this continuum and provide support and funding at all steps of the life cycle perform better than those who do not.

Radical innovation: triggering initiation of opportunity recognition and evaluation

The gap between a firm’s reservoir of technical knowledge and the formation of a project to explore the commercial potential of a breakthrough technical insight or discovery is the first major discontinuity in the radical innovation lifecycle. The first step toward bridging that gap occurs when the researcher with the technical insight recognizes that it might have commercial potential and decides to alert a research manager. In our longitudinal study of eight radical innovation projects in six large, multi‐national, R&D‐intensive firms, the initiation of a radical innovation project was neither frequent nor routine. In fact the participants in the study indicated that the initiation of a project – in their terminology, the ‘fuzzy front end of innovation’– was the most challenging and uncertain part of the lifecycle. In this paper we explore the case data to illuminate the nature of the initiation gap. In addition we present an assessment framework that can help researchers decide whether or not to bring their technical idea to the attention of management. If the decision is positive, the assessment tool can help them prepare for the discussion with management and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the case to submitted for evaluation.

Life cycle assessment and green chemistry: the yin and yang of industrial ecology

The practice of life cycle assessment has been well documented as a tool for comparing products and processes or comparing various components within a life cycle. This paper addresses the question of how changes can be made once an assessment has been completed, such as identifying the improvements that can be made to address environmental problems and to decrease impacts on human health and the environment. Green chemistry, a fairly recent approach that addresses environmental concerns at a fundamental level, has already demonstrated examples of what we call ‘life cycle innovation’, that is, improvements at all stages of the product or process life cycle. This paper explores various applications of green chemistry methodologies to all stages of a product or process life cycle.

Innovation cycles and flexible automation in manufacturing industries

Flexible automation technologies have modified some of the assumptions of the Utterback and Abernathy model about the innovation life cycle. Using data from the Canadian manufacturing industries, this paper shows that high-technology industries are more intensively automated than other manufacturing industries, and also finds that the technological level and the growth of the industry are the best explanatory variables of automation intensity.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY AND FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION

Data from Australian manufacturing industries show that high technology industries are more intensively automated that other manufacturing industries and that the technological level and product complexity of an industry are the best explanatory variables for automation intensity. The empirical evidence shows the need to modify some of the assumptions of the Utterback and Abernathy model of the innovation life cycle.

Impact of customer coconstruction in product/service markets

This paper visits a scenario that we believe will be increasingly common in the decades ahead. It focuses its attention on an environment in which customers and producers interact where (a) society is deeply and diversely interconnected; (b) computer and information technology is widespread, accepted, and greatly used; and (c) consumer needs become increasingly ill-structured, so that consumers have only a vague perception of the product they need. We have proposed that organizations would need to gear up, at the very least, to allow for (a) rapid prototyping of the product as delineated through the customer-producer coconstructive activity and (b) customer experimentation with the product so that customers can see the manner in which the product will interface with their world and alter it. We also discuss how the structure of our organizations will be radically altered by the integration of the customer as the coconstructor of the product. We revisit several notions on the management of marketing, design, operations, and risk; we discuss concepts, such as product innovation life cycle, risk sharing, and process promotion, that need to be incorporated within the organizational processes to effectively meet future customer demands.

The Foundations of a Hierarchial Theory of the Long-Wave Phenomenon

Long waves of economic development, estimated to last approximately 50 years, have been studied by such noted economists as Adelman [1], Kuznets [11; 12], Rostow [15], and Schumpeter [18]. A name recently added to the list of scholars who have studied the phenomenon alternatively referred to as Kondratieff waves, long cycles, or long waves, is van Duijn [20]. Van Duijn's primary contribution to this body of literature has been an extensive theoretical synthesis of three critical concepts-major product innovation, innovation life cycle, and infrastructure investment -into a model that endogenously explains the occurrence and recurrence of long waves. This synthesis is a significant addition to the study of the long-run economic activity, having been attempted unsuccessfully by previous long-wave theorists including Kondratieff [9; 10], Kuznets [11], and Schumpeter [18]. While van Duijn provides a theoretical framework that can be used to explain endogenously recurring long waves, a more fundamental explanation is possible. This paper presents a theoretical analysis based on four simple axioms of human behavior that offers a fundamental explanation for van Duijn's theory, and consequently provides a more fundamental explanation for the longwave phenomenon. The basic premises of this analysis, building on the earlier work of Amos and Currier [3] and Amos [2] are that 1) people are motivated through the desire to fulfill unfulfilled aspirations, and 2) aspirations are endogenously affected by the economy. Although this theory offers an important, and more fundamental, explanation for long waves, of equal importance is the widespread implications for other areas of socioeconomic behavior.

Perspective: Market adaptation as a process in the product life cycle of radical innovations and high technology products

Sales for radically new products often depend on the development of an associated infrastructure. This is particularly true in the case of high- technology innovations. This infrastructure reflects society's and/or industry's adaptation to the new product's potential or capability. Supportive infrastructure developments can hasten product growth in early stages of the product life cycle or retard growth in their absence. Shelby McIntyre shares his thoughts about the role of infrastructure in this perspective and presents useful guidelines for evaluating its impact. A radical innovation lives or dies, in part, by a company's vision and commitment to developing its long term potential. It is in this sense that a product or innovation can be “ahead of its time” (i.e., ahead of its infrastructure).

Organizing for modern technology and innovation: A review and synthesis

Classical and modern organization designs are reviewed and evaluated in terms of their capabilities for handling radical or major innovations. The choice of an effective organization design is shown to be related to the nature of the technological and market environments. Only Type IV organization designs, the modern-integrative organization designs, are shown to have the necessary qualities for handling all the phases in the life cycle of a major innovation. Though difficult- to implement and maintain, Type IV organization designs are shown to be a potent tool for those modern managers who fully understand how to use them.

Fluctuations in innovations overtime

This paper first explains the concept of innovation life cycles and their relationship to leading sectors of the economy. It then briefly describes the relationship between innovation life cycles and long waves in macro-economic development, and presents a chronology and characterisation of the four phases of the long wave derived from Schumpeter. Various phases of the long wave could be expected to have different effects on the propensity to innovate, and this propensity probably varies also between new industries and existing established industries, as well as between product and process innovations. A list ef 80 major innovations is classified by sector and date, to provide a preliminary empirical validation of the hypotheses advanced on the varying influence of the successive phases of the long wave on different types of innovation. Finally, the author's findings are compared with those of Mensch and Schmookler.