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...service introduction. The role and value information technology (IT) in these stages of innovation is fairly well understood. For example, IT tools may be used for data collection during project scoping, prototyping during technical assessment, computer-aided design in the design stage, and project management and portfolio management throughout all stages.
However, before an innovative idea becomes a project and before the semi-structured process described above can begin, the innovative idea--the spark of the innovation--must somehow form and coalesce in the minds of its innovators to the extent they can recognize its financial or strategic potential and can present it to others as a project worth undertaking. This activity, which is ultimately a creative one, is called by various names, including "ideation," "discovery," and the "fuzzy front end of innovation." The role and value of IT in this creative activity has not been well studied, and is the focus of this research.
The front end of innovation (FEI) is a divergent process that requires much redundancy for analyzing and solving complex problems, with many human touch points and interactions, and creative activities that do not typically lend themselves to efficiency or predictable sub-processes. IT, in contrast, is well suited for converging processes. IT processes are typically employed for removing redundancy, reducing human error and touch points, and improving the efficiency of decision-making. Although people generally recognize the value of IT for project management and execution, they are also likely to believe that an inherent conflict exists between the characteristics of the FEI and the types of applications to which IT is normally effective.
Still, because IT can be effective in supporting many FEI activities, such as collaboration and intelligence gathering, it is natural to ask, "How can IT best support and encourage innovation in its earliest stage?" In particular, we ask, "What types of IT tools and resources best support the FEI?" and, "How can innovators be encouraged to learn to use and continue to use these tools and resources?" Because organizations can develop various IT capabilities or competencies, such as for knowledge management, by combining tools and resources we also ask, "Which IT capabilities are most conducive to improving the FEI?" Finally, we ask, "How can companies assess their readiness for applying IT to the FEI?"
This research is directed primarily at innovators and their managers rather than IT departments. While we understand that IT departments are the sole providers of IT resources at many companies and that IT departments often advocate the use of IT tools for all sorts of activities, including innovation, we also recognize that innovators at many companies create their own IT tools and obtain their own IT resources. While we have not ignored the role of an IT department in this research, we have viewed companies holistically as we address what they can do to use IT more effectively for innovation.
Background to the Study
What we know about the role of IT in the front end of innovation comes broadly from four streams of research: research on the innovation process, research on IT competencies or capabilities, research on high-tech innovation, and research on creativity and other FEI skills.
The Innovation process
Research on the innovation process examines the activities and skills required to advance an innovation from ideation to market (1-3). It focuses on delineating stages in the process, understanding how these stages fit together, controlling the progress of individual innovation projects, and optimizing the mix of projects at different stages. Recent research has pointed to the need for a more detailed understanding of sub-processes within the FEI and how they affect later stages of innovation (4-6).
Koen et al., in research performed for the Industrial Research Institute, identify five FEI activities (because these activities are unstructured, we are hesitant to call them processes), which they label opportunity identification, opportunity analysis, idea generation, idea selection, and concept and technology development (7). A review of the FEI research indicates that a huge potential exists for applying IT to activities of the FEI for functions such as customer collaboration (8,9), knowledge management (10) and market research (11).
IT competencies
The concept of "IT competencies" evolved from the resource-based view of the firm (12-14), a rich area of research which suggests that resources can provide a sustained competitive advantage to a firm if they are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and non-substitutable. With the exception of patents, few firms possess resources rare enough to provide a sustained competitive advantage. However, firms can combine resources in unique ways to achieve "competencies" or "capabilities" that are not easily duplicated and which provide competitive advantages to the firm (15,16).
The information technology literature has begun to explore the effect of IT competencies on the effectiveness and success of various firm processes. Many IT competencies have been identified that appear likely to affect the innovation process, such as managing change (17), sharing knowledge (18), and forming business/IS relationships (19). Gordon and Tarafdar (20) apply IT competency concepts to the innovation process, finding that information and knowledge management, project management, collaboration and communication, and business involvement are IT competencies that are likely to improve an organization's ability to innovate. The authors are aware of no prior research that studies the effect of IT competencies on the FEI.
High-tech Innovation
One would expect that in technology-intensive industries, such as computing, nanotechnology and pharmaceuticals, the strong possibility of incorporating IT into...
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