Innovation Framework: : How Can Departments Learn from EachOther to Increase the Innovativeness?

Abstract:

Innovate or die" is one of the mantras of today’s economy. In order to survive, companies are forced to innovate. It is extremely essential to develop innovative ability to constantly cope with rapid changes in different industries such as Telecom, IT and Media. The research aim is to design an innovation framework which helps to assess the innovativeness of a department and thereafter, derive management implications for improving the innovativeness. A single descriptive case study of a high-tech department has been chosen. The triangular research design consisted of literature study, qualitative interviews and online surveys. In the first step, various factors that influence the innovativeness of departments are identified. Consequently, key learnings from other departments within the same corporation will be discussed. The results of survey, propositions and interviews will be compared to identify parameters of the innovation framework. The framework helps to structure valuable insights that link to management implications. The novelty of this paper can be claimed since it is the first research which combines assessing innovativeness via triangulation method and deriving management implication from the results in the field of innovation research.

The outcome is an innovation framework with 17 different dimensions that have an influence on innovativeness at the department level. The study demonstrates a deep understanding of the current innovativeness of the investigated department and draws most relevant managerial implications based on other departments’ best practice.