This summary contains the following articles from lectures 1-3:
- Bessant, John (2003): Challenges in Innovation Management.
-Bloom Nicholas, Sadun, Raffaella and John Van Reenen (2012): Does Management Really Work?
-Utterback, James M. and Fernando F. Suárez (1993): Patterns of Industrial ...
Artikel 1: Does Management Really Work? (Bloom, Sadun & van Reenen,
2012)
Are organizations more likely to succeed if they adopt good management practices? (is researched
(Although thinking the answer would be obviously yes, assumptions change over time).
Three things that are considered as good management are therefore researched:
-Targets: Does the organization support long-term goals with tough but achievable short-term
performance benchmarks?
-Incentives: Does the organization reward high performers with promotions and bonuses while
retraining or moving underperformers?
-Monitoring: Does the organization rigorously collect and analyze performance data to identify
opportunities for improvement?
Open questions list was sent to a lot of organizations, several things could be learned from this:
1. First, a lot of companies are bad managed, with setting no objectives or performance
indicators.
2. Second, indicators of better management and superior performance are strongly correlated
with measures such as productivity, return on capital employed, and firm survival.
3. Third, management makes a difference in shaping national performance. Variation in
management accounts for nearly a quarter of the roughly 30% productivity gap between the
U.S. and Europe.
Except the private sector, this management also can lead to improvements in other industries, as for
example the education and healthcare.
Examples from bad management were easily found: For example, inability to motivate the
employees and an too complex bonus scheme. Furthermore out of research that they did was found
that mainly firms in Brazil, China & India fail through bad management (through for example, bad
incentives for employees and failing to collect the most basic performance data).
Authors decided to help these companies and have an intervention in these. Huge results of this: The
intervention transformed the plants that had received help. On average, they cut defects by more
than 50%, reduced inventory by 20%, and raised output by 10%. Furthermore the productivity and
thus also the profits increased a lot. In such a high way that it even was possible to open a new
factory.
After look at the companies, also a look at schools and healthcare. These were overall less good
managed than the other companies. For example there weren’t even bed lines on every floor. A
nurse who was working on floor 1, goes to floor 2 for bed lines and when she came back she found
out that here patient died from a heart attack. Also in these sectors was found that there were
significant results in the sectors by just improving the management. (From other researchers)
Overall conclusion: Good management can lead to significant improvements in the private and the
public sector. But it al begins with awareness of the possibilities good management haves, although
you don’t must expect that results come in a fast way. In often takes a long time (especially for public
sector). But what is clear, is that good management can improve a whole organization, given the
potential effect on incomes, productivity, and delivery of critically needed services
, Artikel 2: Challenges in innovation management (Bessan, 2003)
Innovation is the core renewal process in the organization and unless an organization is constantly
prepared and focusing on continuous improvement, here is a big chance that an organization won’t
survive in the current turbulent environment.
In the innovation process, its not only about the innovation itself but also about things as know-how
and the correct way to implement an innovation. In fact 4 steps have to be taken for an successful
innovation:
1- Scan environment for potential signals or opportunities of an innovation
2- Select strategically the best option (which matches the best with the Core competences)
3- Find resources for this idea (through R &D or extern), or a way to exploit it
4- Grow the idea through the various steps of the innovation process to the ultimate launch of
the idea
(5)- Reflect on the process and the innovation (optional)
Challenge 1: Why change? Innovation is crucial for long-term survival, but a lot of the companies
don’t posses over the capability to innovate. Companies find it difficult to learn from old failures
or to stay open for new things. This often lead to the incapability to innovate for an organization
Challenge 2: What to change? After accepting the fact that an organization needs to change and
learn companies often find it difficult what to change. They don’t want to put the scare
organizational resources in risky options and are therefore often risk aversive to innovation. The
key is here to find an strategic portfolio that balances effectively risk and the resources a
company have.
Challenge 3: Understanding innovation. Way people think about innovation is also a problem.
Often mis confuse an invention with a innovation, and thinking that an invention might be
enough. Furthermore also other negative, not true thoughts as for example that innovation is all
about science and new technologies are in the minds of a lot of people.
Challenge 4: Building an innovative culture. Difficult to find the correct way to do it, often
companies try to build on routines which worked in the past for innovation. But in fact that often
becomes the problem for not innovating. “This was good, we always do the same here’’. Focus
needs to be on chance recognition and developing constant new routines for every
individual/comparable projects.
Challenge 5: Continuous learning. Challenge here is that firms are not focusing on the
continuous learning process, but often copy old learning curves or want to do everything from
scratch. Companies needs to find learning curves which are highly firm specific and can directly
learn from what is emerged from the environment
Challenge 6: High involvement innovation. Due the belief in one best way of ‘’’mass’’ innovation
and the constantly changes in markets, technologies and other circumstances the involvement at
innovation is often low. Solutions for this could be for example lean processes, but often the
implementation of this processes fail. If this is done correctly, high involvement innovation could
probably arise.
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