Summary for “Targeting innovation and implications for capability development”
Francis, D., & Bessant, J. (2005). Targeting innovation and implications for capability development. Technovation, 25, pp.171-183.
In the introduction, the authors point out the important role of innovation in organizations and argue that innovative organizations generally possess innovation capability which can be managed. The authors then discuss in detail the four types of innovation capability (4Ps framework) and the challenges they may bring. Cases are cited to illustrate how those enterprises managed innovation capability and cope with challenges. The 4Ps framework works well in ‘steady state’ context, under which the aim of enterprise is ‘do better’. However, when discontinuity comes into play, the ‘do better’ innovation strategy is not sufficient as demonstrated by the fact that incumbent firms tend to be outperformed and thus displaced by new entrepreneurial players. Therefore, a ‘do different’ innovation strategy must be pursued by enterprises who want to explore ‘outside the box’. The authors develop an ‘innovation agenda’ covering the entire spread of 4Ps in two dimensions, ‘do better’ and ‘do different’. Managers are encouraged to specify their innovation agenda in the form of diamond diagram, including all possible innovation activities. The 4Ps model was tested through a preliminary study in an effort to assess whether this model provided a useful heuristic device capable of being used by managers. The result that 60 percent of the total initiatives are ‘do different’ innovations suggests that this type of innovation strategy needs higher level of top management involvement than ‘do better’ strategy does.
In nowadays, when technological discontinuities prevail and ‘doing different things in different ways’ become the norm, the 4Ps model will be useful for