(Article) Basadur, M., & Gelade, G.A. (2006). The role of knowledge management in the innovation process. Creativity and Innovation Management, 15(1), 45-62.
introduction :
The purpose of this paper is to show how knowledge management, creativity and innovation fit together. According to the authors, the organization effectiveness is a combination between efficiency, adaptability and flexibility. Efficiency is the ability to master routines inside organizations and follow well-structured processes. Whereas adaptability is mastering the process of changing a routine. That allows the organization… Read more
introduction :
The purpose of this paper is to show how knowledge management, creativity and innovation fit together. According to the authors, the organization effectiveness is a combination between efficiency, adaptability and flexibility. Efficiency is the ability to master routines inside organizations and follow well-structured processes. Whereas adaptability is mastering the process of changing a routine. That allows the organization to anticipate problems and opportunities. Finally, flexibility allow organizations to react quickly to unexpected situations.
Key Insights :
What should managers know from this article is the importance of using an innovative thinking process. The innovative process suggested by the authors consists of 4 stages:
– Generating: this stage is dedicated to finding new information, opportunities and problems. It involves questioning and viewing situations from different perspectives in order to create problems that might be solved or opportunities that might be capitalized upon.
– Conceptualizing: define problems in order to ensure that teams will address the right problem and also create new models. Thinking in this stage focuses on problems defining and finding ideas.
– Optimizing: in this stage organizations optimizes new solutions and uncover all the factors that go into a successful plan for implementation. Indeed, it is important to define all the success criteria when you manage new projects.
– Implementing: this last stage involves creating actions that get results. Teams will try things out rather than mentally testing them. Thinking in this stage also focuses on gaining acceptance. When it comes to change and implementing new ideas or new technologies, organizations can face staff resistance so it is highly important to manage effectively the implementation.
Managerial Implications :
Two key implications are crucial for the good implication of the thinking process inside companies. The first implication concerns the top managers. Top managers need to know that they are the first step of a good implementation of the thinking process inside a company. Managers have to be taught how the thinking process model works in order to encourage its daily use in the organizations. This will have several positive impacts, especially on their subordinates. Those impacts will be that subordinates will experiment thing without feeling afraid, they will learn from mistakes and it will involve them in the process inside the company.
Miscomprehension of individual thinking styles is the second key implication. For each part of the quadrant, we need different skill knowledge. The upper part of the quadrant asks for physical processing, we need people that like to act and afterwards see the positive and negative results of their testing’s. The under part of the quadrant asks for mental processing. For this part we need people that like to see the big screen, to plan and foresee future problems and issues. Those differences must be understood and accepted by everyone within the company.
Limitations:
According with the managerial implications illustrated above, we believe that if an organization does not define a clear business need and infrastructure is creating a barrier against the training of subordinates’ skills of thinking. The organization should set a clear-cut business need and infrastructure, otherwise will fail on the adequate training and even lead to getting out of the scope developing ideas which are not attractive to consumers. In addition, the size of an organization can be a limitation to be a creative thinking organization. Practically, when we applied the paper’s framework, small companies can not follow that process. By having lack of workers and lower levels of adaptability, flexibility and efficiency, those companies do not have sufficient resources neither enough budget to invest in adequate training. Lastly, we consider that culture enterprise is a limitation for creative thinking. The culture of an enterprise affects the company’s behavior and the organizational structure that may lead to a huge discrepancy in how the innovative thinking is percept. For instance, Japanese enterprises have a strongly hierarchical structure where the roles of each worker are defined not to challenge superiors constraining them to get out of their comfort zone and explore new ideas. On the contrary, in American enterprises creative thinking is really incentivized and the organizational structure of the enterprise is design to be linked between all the departments. Therefore, employees can work as team/department members and explore new ideas in agreement.
Future References:
We look for further insights and we found a TED talk called “KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION.” by Dr Kondal Reddy Kandadi and we also found a book which is called “Knowledge Management in the Innovation Process.” by John de la Mothe and Dominique Foray.
(Article) Basadur, M., & Gelade, G.A. (2006). The role of knowledge management in the innovation process. Creativity and Innovation Management, 15(1), 45-62.
Read more
introduction :
The purpose of this paper is to show how knowledge management, creativity and innovation fit together. According to the authors, the organization effectiveness is a combination between efficiency, adaptability and flexibility. Efficiency is the ability to master routines inside organizations and follow well-structured processes. Whereas adaptability is mastering the process of changing a routine. That allows the organization to anticipate problems and opportunities. Finally, flexibility allow organizations to react quickly to unexpected situations.
Key Insights :
What should managers know from this article is the importance of using an innovative thinking process. The innovative process suggested by the authors consists of 4 stages:
– Generating: this stage is dedicated to finding new information, opportunities and problems. It involves questioning and viewing situations from different perspectives in order to create problems that might be solved or opportunities that might be capitalized upon.
– Conceptualizing: define problems in order to ensure that teams will address the right problem and also create new models. Thinking in this stage focuses on problems defining and finding ideas.
– Optimizing: in this stage organizations optimizes new solutions and uncover all the factors that go into a successful plan for implementation. Indeed, it is important to define all the success criteria when you manage new projects.
– Implementing: this last stage involves creating actions that get results. Teams will try things out rather than mentally testing them. Thinking in this stage also focuses on gaining acceptance. When it comes to change and implementing new ideas or new technologies, organizations can face staff resistance so it is highly important to manage effectively the implementation.
Managerial Implications :
Two key implications are crucial for the good implication of the thinking process inside companies. The first implication concerns the top managers. Top managers need to know that they are the first step of a good implementation of the thinking process inside a company. Managers have to be taught how the thinking process model works in order to encourage its daily use in the organizations. This will have several positive impacts, especially on their subordinates. Those impacts will be that subordinates will experiment thing without feeling afraid, they will learn from mistakes and it will involve them in the process inside the company.
Miscomprehension of individual thinking styles is the second key implication. For each part of the quadrant, we need different skill knowledge. The upper part of the quadrant asks for physical processing, we need people that like to act and afterwards see the positive and negative results of their testing’s. The under part of the quadrant asks for mental processing. For this part we need people that like to see the big screen, to plan and foresee future problems and issues. Those differences must be understood and accepted by everyone within the company.
Limitations:
According with the managerial implications illustrated above, we believe that if an organization does not define a clear business need and infrastructure is creating a barrier against the training of subordinates’ skills of thinking. The organization should set a clear-cut business need and infrastructure, otherwise will fail on the adequate training and even lead to getting out of the scope developing ideas which are not attractive to consumers. In addition, the size of an organization can be a limitation to be a creative thinking organization. Practically, when we applied the paper’s framework, small companies can not follow that process. By having lack of workers and lower levels of adaptability, flexibility and efficiency, those companies do not have sufficient resources neither enough budget to invest in adequate training. Lastly, we consider that culture enterprise is a limitation for creative thinking. The culture of an enterprise affects the company’s behavior and the organizational structure that may lead to a huge discrepancy in how the innovative thinking is percept. For instance, Japanese enterprises have a strongly hierarchical structure where the roles of each worker are defined not to challenge superiors constraining them to get out of their comfort zone and explore new ideas. On the contrary, in American enterprises creative thinking is really incentivized and the organizational structure of the enterprise is design to be linked between all the departments. Therefore, employees can work as team/department members and explore new ideas in agreement.
Future References:
Show lessWe look for further insights and we found a TED talk called “KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION.” by Dr Kondal Reddy Kandadi and we also found a book which is called “Knowledge Management in the Innovation Process.” by John de la Mothe and Dominique Foray.