Desouza, Dombrowski, Awazu, Baloh, Papagari, Kim, and Jha, (2007) identify the following five essential phases of successful innovation:
1. Idea Generation and Mobilisation
This phase is the starting point for new ideas. Successful idea generation should be stimulated by the pressure to compete and by the freedom to explore. Once a new idea is generated, it is conveyed to the mobilization phase, wherein the idea travels to a different physical or logical location. Because most inventors are not also marketers, a new idea often needs someone other than its originator to move it along. This phase is crucially important to the progression of a new idea, and omitting it can delay or even sabotage the innovation process (Desouza et al., 2007).
2. Advocacy and Screening
According to the authors, this phase is the period for weighing an idea‟s costs and benefits. Advocacy and screening have to take place simultaneously to weed out ideas that lack potential without allowing stakeholders to reject ideas impulsively solely on the basis of their novelty. Firms will have more success when the evaluation process
is transparent and standardized, because employees feel more comfortable contributing when they could anticipate how their ideas would be judged.
3. Experimentation
The experimentation phase assesses the sustainability of ideas for a particular firm at a particular time – and in a particular environment. In this phase, it is essential to determine who the customer will be and what he or she will use the innovation for. With that in mind, the firm might discover that although someone has a great idea, it is ahead of its time or just not right for a particular market. However, it is important not to interpret these kinds of discoveries as failures – they could actually be the catalysts of new and better ideas (Desouza et al., (2007).
4. Commercialisation
In this phase, the firm should look to its customers to verify that innovation actually solves their problems and then should analyse the costs and benefits of rolling out the innovation. According to the Desouza et al (2007), an invention is only considered an innovation once it has been commercialised. Therefore, the commercialisation phase is a significant one similar to advocacy in that it takes the right people to progress the idea to the next developmental phase.
5. Diffusion and Implementation
According to the authors, diffusion is the process of gaining final, company overall acceptance of an innovation. Implementation is the process of setting up the structures, maintenance and resources needed to produce it.
According to Loewe and Dominiquini (2006), good innovation processes share the following characteristics:
1. Allow divergence and exploration at the front end . This helps ensure that the new ideas generated are not simply a repeat of what has be en done before.
2. S yn t h e s i z e i n d i v i d u a l i d e a s i n t o b i g g e r p l a t f o r m s b e f o r e s e l e c t i n g individual ideas to develop further. This enables the company to avoid "gambling the farm" on one idea without first learning about the larger opportunities at hand.
Summary
An individual may concieve of something new and envision how it will be useful but not necessarily take the necessary action to make it a reality. Innovation is the process of doing new things.The innovation initiative provides a chance for the organizat ion to think more holistically about innovation from a business mo de l pe rs pe ct i ve a s a cc ou nt an t s an d p l a nt ma n a ger s wor k a l on gs i d e salespeople, engineers and chemists. As a dimension of corporate entrepreneurship, innovation is a firm‟s commitment to creating and introducing products, production processes, and organisational systems. Hence, if a firm wants to remain competitive and also prosper, it has no choice but to proactively improve its innovation effectiveness.
Review Questions
(i)The following are some essential phases of successful innovation except: (a) Idea generation and mobilization
(b) Advocacy and Screening (c)Diffusion and implementation
(d) Conference arrangement
(ii) Good innovation processes do not allow divergence and exploration at the front end. True or False?
(iii) If a firm wants to remain competitive and also prosper, it has no choice but to proactively improve its innovation effectiveness. True or False?
Tutor Marked Assessment [Essay]
1. Distinguish between creativity and innovation. 2. Describe the creative process.
3. Briefly discuss the various forms of innovation. 4. Highlight the phases in successful innovation. 1. Creativity is:
(a) the ability to bring something new into existence. (b) the process of doing new things.
(c) ability to imitate perfectly. (d) all of the above.
2. The first step in creative process according to Holt (1992) is: (a) Incubation
(b) Preparation (c) Idea generation (d) Verification
3. The following are forms of innovation except: (a) Technological Innovation
(b) Product-Marked Innovation (c) Administrative Innovation (d) Idea generation
4. When innovation brings about a new dominant design and consequently, a new set of core design concepts embodied in components that are linked together in a new architecture, it is known as:
(a) Architectural Innovation (b) Radical Innovation (c) Modular Innovation (d) Incremental Innovation
5. When innovation brings about the reconfiguration of an established system to link together components and parts in a new way, it is known as:
(a) Modular Innovation (b) Architectural Innovation (c) Radical Innovation (d) Incremental Innovation
6. Creative process according to Holt (1992) can be classified into: (a) 4 stages
(b) 5 stages (c) 6 stages (d) 7 stages
7. When innovation consists of marked research, product design, and innovations in advertising and promotion, it can be said to be :
(a) Technological Innovation (b) Product-marked Innovation (c) Consumer related Innovation (d) Administrative Innovation
8. According to Adams (2005) the following are critical to individual creativity except: (a) Knowledge (b) Thinking (c) Personal Motivation (d) Verification References
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UNIT TWO: FORMS OF BUSINESS OWNERSHIP AND LEGAL