Article Summary IMM
Towards a multidisciplinary definition of innovation
– Baregheh, Rowley, Sambrook
Introduction
- Need to innovate in response to changing demands, lifestyles & to capitalize on
opportunities by technology, changing market place, structures, dynamics
- Zahra & Covin: “Innovation is widely considered as the life blood of corporate survival
and growth”
- Innovation not restricted to business organizations
- Standard of living might fall if companies fail to innovate
- Common types of innovation: new products, materials, new processes, new services,
new organizational forms
o Draw on different teams, departments and professional disciplines
- There is no common definition of innovation
Literature review
- Kimberly (1981): “There are three stages of innovation: innovation as a process,
innovation as a discrete item including, products, programs or services; and innovation
as an attribute of organizations.”
- Multiple definitions of innovation
Methodology
- Identify the recurring attributes of “innovation” that are included in diverse definitions of
innovation.
- Nature of innovation refers to the form of innovation as in something new or improved.
- Type of innovation refers to the kind of innovation as in the type of output or the result of
innovation, e.g. product or service.
- Stages of innovation refers to all the steps taken during an innovation process which
usually start from idea generation and end with commercialization.
- Social context refers to any social entity, system or group of people involved in the
innovation process or environmental factors affecting it.
- Means of innovation refers to the necessary resources (e.g. technical, creative, financial)
that need to be in place for innovation.
- Aim of innovation is the overall result that the organizations want to achieve through
innovation.
- The model seeks to present the “essence” of innovation, no matter the organizational or
disciplinary context
- Individuals within an organization may choose different starting points in the journey for
innovation
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, - Multi stage process
o Not a discrete act but a process
o Innovation can occur in various social entities
o “transforming ideas into new/ improved products
o Ideas are used and transformed
o Aim of innovation: successfully advancing!
Conclusion and recommendations
- key strategic issue: innovation and how it is managed
- each discipline requires its discipline-specific definition
- absence of consensual definition of innovation is problematic
Cracking Frontier Markets
- Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo, and Karen Dillon
- creating entirely new markets where they might least be expected
- other emerging market giants are slowing down – new opportunities have to be found
- market creating innovation
o generates new growth for companies but catalyzes industries that buy frontier
economies and foster inclusive, sustainable development.
o offer many people access to a product or service that was previously unaffordable
or otherwise unattainable
o leverage business models and value chains that focus on profitability before
growth
▪ a business model which works in the US does not necessarily work in
Nigeria (cinemas are not appropriate in Nigeria bc no one can afford that)
o generated by and for a local market
▪ innovators must understand the “in’s” and “out’s” of the market and make
product simple and affordable enough for it
o generate local jobs which fuel the economy
▪ cannot be easily outsourced
o can be scaled up – Simple and affordable means that you can reach a lot of
people
- Innovation is the process by which a society develops
o Innovation funds our infrastructure, cultivates our institutions, and mitigates
corruption.
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,Buying insurance – as easy as signing up for a ringtone
- People who need insurance the most (most natural disasters) are the least likely ones to
have it
- MicroEnsure was a major success, selling insurance to people with HIV
o New forms of protection for people,
o Creating a market was a matter of trial and error
o Buying insurance over the buying process of extra minutes with the telephone
company
o Revenue from the supplemental plans are split among Micro-Ensure, the partner
insurer and the phone-company
o Knowing nothing about the customer – just the phone number
o Others need consultancies from the company bc thy have significant insight into
the customers behavior and spending pattern
This is what sets market-creating innovators apart: the ability to identify opportunities where
there seem to be no customers and to create a business model that upends the way things
have always been done.
To capture, you must first create
- Microwave market in china before big companies came: Chinese people typically saw the
microwave as a luxury they didn’t need—and manufacturers saw them as too poor even
to consider such a purchase.
o Liang saw the opportunity to reach the Chinese market
o He reduced its costs by using different marketing channels
o He created powerful brand awareness
o Created many local jobs
- Creators wealth and Galanz’s success were built on market- creating innovations in
China, for China.
Market-creating innovators pull in the infrastructure to deliver their products.
What about corruption, institutions and infrastructure?
- Pushing (when it comes to actions against corruption)- prioritizes top-down, government-
or NGO-led efforts as a necessary precondition
o Backward thinking
o Does not apply
- Market-creating innovations don’t wait for such obstacles to be removed by resources
that are pushed in. They essentially pull in the necessary resources—creating
workarounds or funding the infrastructure and institutions needed to deliver their
products—even if those efforts are not initially supported by the local government.
Market-creating innovations can be a powerful catalyst for improvements to infrastructure
and education: Over time, governments and financial institutions take note of innovators’
efforts and begin supporting the new markets
Bringing market-creating innovations to life
1. every nation has within it the potential for extraordinary growth.
o Significant opportunities exist in frontier markets
2. Most existing products have the potential to create new growth markets if we make them
more affordable
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, o Offering cardiac care in Indian at a much lower price than in the US (15000$ to
1000$)
3. A market-creating innovation is more than just a product or a service.
o system that often generates new infrastructure, regulations, and jobs for people
who make, distribute, market, sell, and service the offering
4. Obstacles can be mitigated through innovation; innovation doesn’t have to wait for their
elimination
o Infrastructure improves, institutions strengthen and corruption is hindered
5. When innovations target nonconsumption, scaling them up becomes inexpensive.
o First step: realize area of nonconsumption
Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating competitive advantage through
streams of innovation – Ireland, Webb
- Companies have to change constantly to stay up to date and meet needs of stakeholders
o Extremely challenging conditions
o create a more attractive value proposition for customers is making it quite difficult
for some of the more traditional hard-drive manufacturers
- there are a lot of tension-filled questions for firms:
o in what markets should we compete?
o Should we offer standardized products across all markets or should we modify
product?
o How much risk are we willing to accept?
o What kind of skills should we develop?
- Question of this paper: the need for a firm to learn how to simultaneously exploit today
that “which it does well relative to rivals”, while also exploring to determine what it needs
to do to be successful in the future
o Necessary to consider for long-term success
Introducing strategic entrepreneurship
- Strategic entrepreneurship (SE) is a term used to capture firms’ efforts to simultaneously
exploit today’s competitive advantages while exploring for the innovations that will be the
foundation for tomorrow’s competitive advantages.
o Balance between opportunity-seeking (exploration) and advantage-seeking
(exploitation) behaviors
o Firm positions itself to properly respond to changes that face many organizations
today
o Develop relatively sustainable competitive advantage
o -> continuous innovation
The challenge of strategic entrepreneurship
1. Outcome of exploration are uncertain. Some stakeholders might be uncertainty avoider –
reluctant to participate
o Employees might find it hard and perhaps undesirable – have to come out of the
comfort zone (do other things than they have been doing before)
o The known is preferred over the unknown
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