Aligning the Innovation Process Routines With Organizational Agility : A Case Study of a Healthcare Firm

Abstract: Introduction: Traditional organizational routines for the innovation process, like the Stage-Gate Model, are often characterized by rigid and inflexible activities, limiting firms' ability to identify, develop, and commercialize software and digital/connected products and services. Examples of inflexible activities include predefined project milestones, linear progression through development stages, and a lack of iterative feedback loops. This rigidity can lead to prolonged development timelines, increased costs, reduced competitiveness, and the risk of losing market share. Specifically, the rigidity inherent in traditional innovation processes hampers the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing digital landscape, where swift recognition of opportunities, flexible development strategies, and repeated enhancements are key to achieving success. The literature has suggested organizational agility as a potential approach to address the consequences of rigidity. The medical device-development healthcare industry has unique characteristics. It faces challenges that increase the lead time from idea to market in innovation processes, reducing the number of innovations that are developed. Therefore, for medical device development, healthcare firms may need to understand how their innovation process routines align with organizational agility to address the unique features of their industry. Purpose: This thesis aims to understand the current organizational routines of a medical device-developing healthcare firm's innovation process and how these routines align with operational, customer, and partnering agility. Method: A single case study with 12 semi-structured interviews was conducted at a leading European medical device-developing healthcare firm, hereafter referred to as MedTech X. Findings: MedTech X's innovation process routines align with organizational agility through its customer-centric approach, adaption or modification of its extended network to access diverse knowledge, assets, or competencies, practical and iterative operations, and adaptable informal routines. However, as MedTech X further ventures into the realm of software and digital/connected solutions, there is a failure to realize the full potential of real-time customer data. Moreover, there is a recognized need to improve its partnering agility. Also, over-reliance on external resources for sensing may limit the firm's operational agility. Conclusion: Despite certain routines aligning with agility, inconsistency, and overreliance on external resources for sensing pose challenges. Therefore, reassessment and redesign of current innovation routines are advised to balance stability and flexibility. Formalizing innovation processes may be critical for MedTech X to handle unexpected changes, and informal routines play a significant role in this process, suggesting a future research direction.