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0:00
I'm Joe Tidd, and
I am Professor of
Technology and
Innovation Management
at the Science
Policy Research Unit
at the University of Sussex, UK.
This session is about how
we organize for innovation.
0:14
If we look at the evidence and
practice on how we
organize for innovation,
we find that it's not a
single component, but many.
In this session I
want to focus on
the top three most
important aspects.
These are key individuals,
diverse teams,
and creative climate, and we
discuss these in turn and
then how they interact.
0:35
Key individuals. We tend
to think of innovation,
and particularly
entrepreneurship as
about a lone genius
or entrepreneur,
but what we're going to
argue is that there are
different individual roles that
are critical to
managing innovation.
0:49
Typically, it's more than
a single lone genius,
or an inventor, or
an entrepreneur.
In terms of organization
for innovation,
we find there's a range
of key individuals,
and these include
innovation leadership,
knowledge gatekeepers,
and organization
champion or sponsor.
We'll discuss each
of these in turn.
1:09
Innovation leadership is really
about what works in what
different contexts.
What you find is that there is
no one best leadership style
for the purpose of innovation,
that really is
about what types of
innovation and what types
of people you're
trying to manage.
The key is you have to
tailor leadership style to
the type of innovation and
the context in which
it's being managed.
There is no one best way.
1:34
The second type of
individual that's
critical are the so-called
knowledge gatekeepers,
and their job is to promote
the flow and sharing of
internal and external knowledge
within the organization.
Here's a bit of jargon.
Communities of practice are
people who interact naturally.
They work together,
or they work on
similar things. That's easy.
What's difficult is to get
different communities
of practice,
different groups,
and individuals
to communicate with each other.
The exchange of
knowledge between
communities of practice
is a challenge,
and that challenge is primarily
dealt with by what we
call a gatekeeper.
There are different
ways they manage this.
Sometimes it's simply
moving between
these different communities,
translators or brokers.
Sometimes it's creating
projects or objects,
working together on something
to build those bridges.
Thirdly, actively seeking
external partners,
so-called open innovation.
