The survey showed that revenue growth, profitability, productivity, cashflow and other elements of business performance were higher for innovation ‘leaders’. And innovation performance is strongly linked to business performance.
Sustainable and systematic innovation requires a holistic approach across a range of innovation activities in order to maximise innovation performance, from leadership through innovation, strategy and process management.
The survey revealed specific innovation practices that are significant predictors of innovation performance, including aspects of strategy and leadership, a strong customer focus, the embracing of risk and change, human resource management and a culture that supports innovation, strong innovation process management and a focus on sustainability.
So who should take responsibility for innovation?
Although 46% of managers surveyed reported that specific responsibility for innovation rested with an assigned individual or group, the development of systematic innovation capability is best served if everyone in the organisation takes responsibility for innovation.
Systems and structures, as well as the organisational culture, should reflect a joint commitment to developing and sustaining innovation throughout the organisation.
It is important for organisations to create a workplace culture where everyone feels they have an opportunity, if not an obligation to contribute to the innovation process.
Therefore, to galvanise the collective brain power of an organisation, the report findings advocate that innovation should be viewed as a shared opportunity for all employees.
This finding has two important implications.
Firstly, all employees can and should be given the skills and incentives to exercise their creativity on opportunities from process innovation to product and service enhancements.
And second, organisations should have robust processes in place to evaluate and channel the best creative ideas and inventions to where they can create value: in scaling them up to the marketplace.
This piece originally appeared at The Conversation.
Marianne Gloet is a research fellow, department of management and marketing at University of Melbourne, Danny Samson is professor of management (operations management) at University of Melbourne.
