Читать книгу Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 - Группа авторов - Страница 24

There are many representations of the innovation process in literature. One of the simplest visually, and yet one of the richest in terms of interactions and representation of time, is that proposed by Cohendet and Simon (2015). Their work has been widely used in literature on creativity and innovation (Bathelt et al. 2017). It is a holistic model that brings creativity, knowledge and innovation into interaction and can easily be described in four main steps encompassing the views and discourses of all managers. Figure 26.1 is a reproduction of this model.

The process from idea to product is long, complex and highly strategic (Birkinshaw et al. 2012). Once ideas are generated, companies must convert them, which takes time, financial resources and skills. During the process, different points of view, storytelling techniques and worldviews collide. The classic representation of the innovation process is mostly in the form of a stage-gate (Pahl et al. 2006), which is shown in the lower part of Figure 26.1.

Figure 2.1. An innovation process (source: Cohendet and Simon 2015). For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/uzunidis/innovation1.zip

The first step is the ideation. Innovation management is interested in techniques to generate a large number and variety of ideas (Agogué 2016). During this stage, the selection of ideas is not final; the least promising ones are not entirely discarded. In this representation, non-validated ideas are put into organizational memory for later use. It is a “stock” with special characteristics.

David (2018) shows that each step of the process requires knowledge management based on human interaction or relying on an information system. The main challenge of knowledge management is the pooling of knowledge from the different phases of the stage-gate and its reuse in other projects, leading to its improvement or the creation of new knowledge (Hussler and Burger-Helmchen 2019). A fundamental element of the process is the “pool” or repertoire of ideas. This pool of ideas not only contains possibilities to be explored, but above all contributes to the selection process. This creative pool, whose characteristics are shaped by the culture and history of the company, has strategic implications throughout the innovation process. Thus, creativity – non operationalized – will not disappear during the other phases of the process: it feeds the pool of ideas, shapes and co-creates the decision-making process for future decisions.