Strategic Innovation

This chapter examines innovation in the context of the small scale fashion
industry. The chapter tells a story of the struggles of translating innovative
ideas into material forms, and shows that the work of innovation consists
of continuous attempts to create material order. Hardy negotiations are
involved when innovative ideas are given durable form. The process of
materialization is a complex process, where abstract ideas may meet material
obstacles and textural boundaries. Innovation, thus, is a continuous
process of negotiating material realities.
The main points of the chapter are that innovation is a continuous
process of working for order. Very often, material objects are central in
fixing and materializing an innovative idea. This chapter argues that it does
not make sense to talk about innovation without focusing on the materialities
which the innovative efforts are centered around. Innovation is viewed
as a process which works against a background of fluidity, of continuous
decay and disintegration. Central to innovative efforts are two things: materializations
- working at and with physical objects - and conversational
processes which aim at sharing perspectives on the innovation activities.
Processes of innovation are processes of social and material conversation
and negotiation.
The concept of innovation with care points to relations between the
diverse sets of actors which may participate in innovation, and the advice
that these relations must be handled with care that they must be worked
at and bridged together. This chapter suggests that this bridging is undertaken
with explicit attention to the role of material entities. Material objects
are viewed as potential stabilizers, they are viewed as the boundary objects
which may give concrete form to innovative ideas, but they are also viewed
as entities which are fragile. Their cohesion may be obstructed, and their
materialization may fail to emerge, and even once they are constructed,
they may easily fall apart again. This shows that innovation is a continuous
process, and that maintaining an innovation is just as crucial as the initial
birth of an idea. Innovation is portrayed as taking place in tightly knit,
inseparable, and co-creative socio-material relations in continuous making
and decay.

This article will illustrate how a Strategic Corporate Innovation Management™ 1 system can generate shareholder confidence 2 through the continues and timely introduction of newly anticipated inventive solutions that will successfully be adopted by a specified target market. In this context, shareholder confidence is the result from a positive perception about a corporation, where the acquisition of shares is based on the expected or predicted financial performance of the corporation in the foreseeable future. With the assumption that shareholder confidence has a direct correlation with share price, this research will illustrate there is also a direct correlation between the introduction of new inventions in the market (as corporate innovation) and the share price. With the share price as the common factor, there should then also be a direct correlation between corporate innovation and shareholder confidence. Tesla Motors' historic share price was analyzed in comparison with product release dates as a case study. It was possible to observe from the "share price vs corporate innovation" graph that shareholder confidence increased just before new inventive solutions were launched into the market. It was also observed that in order to sustain the share price value and market capitalization, it was important that the market successfully adopt the new inventive product as well. As an additional benefit from this approach to deliver shareholder confidence through corporate innovation, the corporation itself will grow organically.

Bu çalışma, çeşitli makaleler, kitaplar, ders notları, röportajlar ve daha önce incelenmiş örneklerden yola çıkılarak hazırlandı. Çalışma bu alandaki uygulamalara destek olmayı amaçlayan bir kaynak ortaya koymayı hedefledi. Çalışmada, inovasyon, strateji, yönetim kavramlarının köken ve açılımları detaylı olarak incelendi. İnovasyon türleri arasında stratejik inovasyonun ayırt edici özellikleri ortaya koyuldu. Organizasyon kavramı çerçevesinde, stratejik inovasyonun konumlandırılmasıyla birlikte organizasyonda yer aldığı süreçler ve bu süreçlerin oluşturacağı çıktılara olan etkileri incelendi. Çalışmada, düzen bozucu inovasyon olarak tabir edilen stratejik inovasyonun, organizasyonun örgütsel süreçleri, finansal yapısı, pazarlama ve üretim süreçleri bağlamında yarattığı değişimin, sonuç odaklı olumlu veya olumsuz etkileri incelendi. Bu çalışma ile, objektif bir yaklaşımla, teori ve uygulama temelinde hazırlanan röportaj soruları organizasyonların çeşitli kademelerinde çalışan saha aktörlerine yöneltildi. Gelen yanıtlar üzerinden mevcut durum analiz edildi. Yapılan röportajlar sonucunda ulaşılan ortak tahayyül ile çalışma pekiştirilerek, stratejik inovasyonun organizasyon başarısına dair saha uygulamaları temelli çıktılarına ulaşıldı. Sonuç olarak, stratejik inovasyonun organizasyon süreçlerine olumlu etki ettiği, yaşanabilecek bazı olumsuzluklara rağmen, çoğunlukla yaratılan yeni ürün ya da hizmet ile organizasyonun yetkinlik ve kapasite geliştirmesini sağladığı sonucu elde edildi.

Anahtar kelimeler: İnovasyon, Strateji, Stratejik inovasyon, Organizasyon

Innovation strategy enables organizations to remain relevant in a highly competitive arena by focusing the organization’s efforts on doing things differently.  The purpose of this study was to analyze the determinants of strategic innovation implementation in the banking sector, a survey of Commercial Banks in North Rift Region. It was guided by the following objective: to assess the effects of organizational culture, on the implementation of strategic innovation. The study was guided by the Higgin’s eight S model and the theory of transformation; it adopted a survey research design. The study targeted 229 respondents, who included regional managers, branch managers, and departmental heads of best performing commercial banks in the north rift region ranked by CYTONN’S Investment as at 10th December, 2017. Therefore the study included all the respondents in the study. Questionnaires were used as data collection instruments. Research experts were used to determine the validity and their suggestions and comments were used as a basis to modify the research items. The research instruments were pre-tested to ensure reliability, further split half method was adopted to calculate cronbach alpha coefficient. A value of above 0.7 confirmed the reliability of the research instruments. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and presented in tables. The study findings indicated that organizational culture (β = 0.103; ρ =0.023), influence the implementation of strategic innovation by Commercial Banks in Kenya North Rift Region. Therefore it is recommended that commercial banks should ensure existence of norms and values that ensure collaboration, flexibility as well as innovativeness among employees to ensure effective implementation of strategic innovations. When considering organizational leadership, Commercial banks need to oscillate between the four major leadership styles at the various levels of strategic innovation implementation. Effective value assessment will ensure that commercial banks allocate adequate resources in terms of finances, human resource, equipments and infrastructure so as to ensure effective strategic innovation implementation and commercial banks may need to appreciate that different strategic innovations may require different types of structures to be in operation at the same time in order for effective implementation to materialize

The construct ‘value proposition’ is becoming evident in the world of design, as business and marketing intersect with the processes of design. Value proposition can be a powerful way of modelling ideas for products, rather than the actual realisation of those products. The paper offers a brief overview of literature referencing value proposition, found in relevant fields of business and innovation. The paper details a primary investigation of the usage of value proposition by design companies. This is conducted through an analysis of industrial design firms’ websites across six key countries. The findings are that value proposition is still a minor component of the offerings of design firms. However, it was found that larger companies do utilise similar forms of ‘idea modelling’. The paper goes on to propose a structured method of building and communicating a value proposition for designers – VP(d). This offers a bridge between various pre-product and post-product states. An implication is that it strengthens design and designers’ role in business and strategic innovation.

This is a working paper from the exploratory phase of Visions and Pathways 2040 project. The paper presents a scan of futures inquiry trends, an outline of recent advances in relevant theory, and critically reviews similar ‘transition’-focused and related projects in Europe and the United States.

Co-authored with Stephen McGrail