Innovation reading list

Citation

(2006), "Innovation reading list", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 34 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2006.26134dae.003

Innovation reading list

Volume 34, Number 4, September 2006 (article accepted)

“The golden spur: innovation independence,” Liisa Välikangas and Quintus Jett

Innovation independence confers a privilege on those with a passion for creativity and experimentation – the opportunity to follow one’s instinct. Is such an approach impossible or undesirable in most corporate settings?

Volume 34, Number 4, July 2006

The strategist’s bookshelf“Building the self-renewing organization through continuous innovation,” Brian Leavy

A review of Geoffrey Moore’s Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of their Evolution.

“Building an innovative organization: consistent business and technology integration,” Marc Chapman

IBM’s 2006 CEO study takes a comprehensive, global look at a topic that is increasingly important to leaders worldwide: innovation. Interviewers talked to 765 CEOs, business executives and public sector leaders. Two out of every three expect fundamental changes for their organizations over the next two years and see innovation as the key to seizing opportunities.

“Making the case for the added-value chain,” Wayne McPhee and David Wheeler

Is the time ripe for an update of Michael Porter’s value-chain model? This case, a consulting assignment that proposed a radical two-pronged innovation in a firm’s business model, suggests that value-chain analysis needs to take into account newly important business drivers.

Volume 34, Number 3, May 2006

“Managing webmavens: relationships with sophisticated customers via the Internet can transform marketing and speed innovation,” Alistair Davidson and Jonathan Copulsky

Empowered by the internet, a new player has emerged to influence the buying behavior of customers – the webmaven. For many firms, marketing to webmavens and other information sources on the Internet may also prove to be a strategic and cost effective means to stimulate innovation and revenue growth.

Volume 34, Number 2, March 2006

The strategist’s bookshelf“Building successful new businesses within established firms,” Brian Leavy

A review of 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble.

“The practice of co-creating unique value with customers: an interview with C.K. Prahalad,” Brian Leavy and Deependra Moitra

Managers in firms that consider implementing the process of co-creating unique value with-customers want to know how it creates innovation. Strategy & Leadership asked C.K. Prahalad to discuss the experience of the early adopters of his theory.

“How technology-driven business strategy can spur innovation and growth,” Kevin McCurry, Saul J. Berman and Jeff Hagan

Many of today’s exciting and ‘disruptive’ innovations now occur at the intersection of market insight and technological know-how. As a result, companies can seize the initiative in this new competitive environment by taking a technology savvy, market inspired approach to strategy innovation, according to IBM Consulting.

Volume 34, Number 1 January 2006

“Overcoming the barriers to effective innovation,” Pierre Loewe and Jennifer Dominiquini

The obstacles most executives identify as the causes of innovation dysfunctionality are merely symptoms – the root causes are deeply embedded in the leadership behaviors, management processes, people skills, and values and culture of their companies. Companies that want to become truly good at innovation need to act systemically on all four root causes – action in one area alone will not yield sustainable success.

Volume 33, Number 6, November 2005

The strategist’s bookshelf“Collaborative strategies for getting and staying ahead,” Brian Leavy

In The Only Sustainable Edge John Hagel III and John Seely Brown explain why firms must accelerate capability building across both business and geographical boundaries if they hope to secure a sustainable edge.

“Value pioneering – how to discover your own ‘blue ocean’: interview with W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne,” Brian Leavy

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne discuss the ideas and tools proposed in their book Blue Ocean Strategy. They provide guidelines for developing a compelling new value proposition that can create uncontested market space – the “blue ocean” of the title.

“How two Japanese high-tech companies achieved rapid innovation via strategic community networks,” Mitsuru Kodama

To produce rapid innovation, leading Japanese companies manage the unique learning experience of working in networks of strategic communities for new product development. Two cases show how such networks reach inside and outside the corporation to rapidly develop unique knowledge of high value.

Volume 33, Number 5, September 2005

The strategist’s bookshelf“Building healthier business networks,” Brian Leavy

In The Keystone Advantage authors Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien explore the concept of “business ecosystem.” One of the most essential insights of business ecology is that in the competitive landscape “the crucial battle is not between individual firms but between networks of firms” and that strategy is becoming “the art of managing assets that one does not own.”

“Visible options,” Jane C. Linder

A new visible options tool displays potential project benefits graphically and gives a more complete picture of possible results over time. It’s a more sophisticated tool than a combination of discounted cash flow and real options approaches.

“Different leadership skills for different innovation strategies,” Jean-Philippe Deschamps

Selecting the right manager to lead a major innovation initiative is one of the most important decisions a CEO has to make. However, innovation comes in many different varieties, so it’s appropriate to ask, “is a specific leadership profile needed to pick the best manager for each particular type of innovation?”

Volume 33, Number 4, July 2005

Special issue on innovation“Three trips around the innovation track: an interview with Clayton Christensen,” Daniel J. Knight

Clay Christensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School and an author of three groundbreaking books on innovation, suggests: organizations should segment their markets by “customer jobs to be done” in order to identify new growth opportunities, and if you want your business to survive and thrive in the long-term, implement alternate business models in parallel with your current one.

“Coordinating operations to enhance innovation in the global corporation,” Peter Koudal and Gary C. Coleman

When companies bet their future on their current innovation projects, those that make significant investment in the supporting processes and infrastructure generate far better business performance, with profit levels dramatically higher than those that do not. The authors identify the most successful innovators as “complexity masters” and show how they manage both “sustaining” and “disruptive” innovation.

“Innovation at Xilinx: a senior operating manager’s view,” Brian Leavy

Xilinx Corporation, with worldwide headquarters in San Jose and European headquarters in Dublin, is on Fortune magazine’s “top-10-best-companies-to-work-for” list and is the market leader in the programmable logic segment of the semiconductor industry. Strategy & Leadership interviewed Paul McCambridge, Vice President of Xilinx, to find out what’s behind the company’s sustained success as an innovator.

“A leader’s guide to creating an innovation culture,” Brian Leavy

Today, CEOs must learn to inspire their organizations to new levels of inventiveness in everything that they do, not just in marketing or new product development. As a start, they need to tap into the creative potential of all the employees and their knowledge about customers, competitors, and processes. The key to success is to establish the right organizational climate.

“Innovation networks: good ideas from everywhere in the world,” Stephen Fowles and Wayne Clark

Corporations are now in an ideas-to-market race, in which many of the best and most innovative products and services (and their inspirations) come from new and varied sources. To reap ideas from everywhere, leading companies are establishing innovation networks, and taking practical steps that can help protect intellectual property.

Volume 33, Number 3, May 2005

The strategist’s bookshelf“Value pioneering: how to swim in your own ocean,” Brian Leavy

Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (Harvard Business School Press, 2005) offers practical guidelines for companies that pioneer compelling new value propositions capable of transforming existing market spaces and creating new ones.

“The networked idealist’s advantage,” Alex Lowy and Philip Hood

Networked Idealists are revolutionizing marketplaces around the world using financial, transportation and communications networks in novel ways to circumvent normal barriers to market entry. Combining the rascal-like idealism of Robin Hood with the network-based business models of the early Internet, these innovators not only want market share – they, or their customers, want to change the world.

“Transformational innovation: a journey by narrative,” Stephen Denning

Transformational innovation requires offering or doing something fundamentally different, entailing a corporate metamorphosis. To accomplish such a difficult task, leaders need to learn to use narrative tools to persuade people to change, work together, transfer knowledge, and envision a compelling new future.

“From breakthrough to value creation: mastering profitable discovery,” Robert McKinnon, Chris Gowland and Ken Worzel

Increasingly, executives are looking for ways to enhance innovation programs through closer alignment with business priorities, better resource allocation, and a stronger performance-oriented culture. These Marakon consultants propose a fresh three-part approach for combining commercial disciplines and scientific creativity in a way that will increase the chances of breakthrough, value-creating discoveries.

Volume 33, Number 1, January 2005

CEO advisory“Integral leadership: overcoming the paradox of growth,” Michael Putz and Michael E. Raynor

To grow persistently and profitably, companies need leaders who can master the conflicting challenges of the innovation survival paradox: current success depends upon improving upon what they now do well, but future success requires creating entirely new capabilities.

“Improving the creativity of MBA students,” Mary C. Pinard and Robert J. Allio

Perhaps the right place to start teaching innovation is with MBA students. Here’s how the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College fosters creativity in its two-year MBA program.

“Why the best and brightest approaches don’t solve the innovation dilemma,” Steve Denning

Innovation remains a management dilemma – long-term survival requires a commitment to transformation via disruptive growth, but it is a strategy few companies survive. This article examines what six leading management theorists have to offer to solve the paradox of disruptive innovation.

“Strategic frontiers: the starting point for innovative growth,” J. Douglas Bate and Robert E. Johnston, Jr

When CEOs recognize the need to commit to the creation of new internal capabilities for growth they are ready for strategy innovation and the exploration of their company’s strategic frontier. The essence of such strategy innovation is providing new value for customers, which in turn produces non-incremental growth opportunities for the corporation.

“Interview with Henry Chesbrough: innovating innovation,” Robert J. Allio

Henry Chesbrough, the author of the provocative book, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology says, “Corporate leaders know that half of their R&D investment is wasted, but they just do not know which half.”

“Growing into new businesses: have faith in strategic planning basics,” Andrew Campbell

In order to promote diversified growth, many consultants urge managers to do more: invest in more projects and take more risks. New research concludes that managers need to assess innovation opportunities more strategically and stop investing in projects that have little chance of success

“Technology brokering and innovation: linking strategy, practice, and people,” Andrew Hargadon

A number of the firms that are most successful at innovation pursue a strategy termed “technology brokering”. Rather than chasing wholly new ideas, these firms focus on recombining old ideas in new ways. The results have produced a steady stream of growth opportunities.

“Metrics for innovation: guidelines for developing a customized suite of innovation metrics,” Amy Muller, Liisa Välikangas, and Paul Merlyn

These Strategos and Woodside Institute authors suggest that the real problem is not a lack of innovation – it’s sustaining it by good management, a process guided by measurement. They offer managers both general principles of innovation metrics plus sample metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of their innovation programs.

Volume 32, Number 4, July 2006

CEO advisory“Crisis of disruptive imagination,” Doug Randall

Too often large, established organizations spurn imaginative, but disruptive ideas. Because no one will take the effort to put them into the context of a radically different business scenario, they are soon exiled to the great dump of missed opportunities.

“The InnoCentive model of open innovation,” Robert J. Allio

InnoCentive, a three-year-old Boston-area company, connects a virtual global community of 50,000 highly qualified scientists with client companies seeking solutions to high-tech problems (www.innocentive.com). Headed by CEO Darren J. Carroll, InnoCentive is on the cutting edge of two strategic management innovations – managing open innovation and co-creating unique value with customers.

Volume 32, Number 3 May 2004

“Co-creating unique value with customers,” C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy

The future of competition lies in an altogether new approach to value creation, based on an individual-centered co-creation of value between customers and companies, say these internationally known Michigan professors. Armed with new connective tools, customers want to interact and co-create value, not just with one firm but with whole communities of professionals, service providers, and other consumers. Here’s how a few leading edge firms are pioneering the management of this radical innovation process.

“Partnering with the customer,” Brian Leavy

C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy seek to shift our whole business paradigm, or “dominant logic,” by impelling us to rethink the very nature of value creation and competition as we have come to know them. They predict that in the business world of tomorrow, value will be interactively co-created by companies and consumers.

“Collaboration with other firms and customers: innovation’s secret weapon,” Bettina von Stamm

The head of the Innovation Exchange, a networking initiative based at London Business School, says that too many companies ignore a key source of innovation – collaboration with other firms and with customers.