Managing Innovation and
Change
OB 330 SPRING 2010
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
Introduction
 Innovation
The creation of either a new process (process innovation)
or a new product or service (product/service innovation)
that has an impact on the way the organization operates
 Change
 You can never step into the same river twice
 Fundamentally, change refers to the transition that
occurs from one state to another

Types of change
Four types of change which can be

Struggle based:
Life

cycle and dialectical
Vision based:
Evolutionary
and teleological
Planned change
 Change can be implemented and planned for in a
rational way
 Change is unfortunate, and driven by external forces
 Organizations must adapt quickly in order to restore
stability
 Examples:


Lewin’s model of unfreezing, changing, refreezing
Business process re-engineering
Processual change
 Change is multi-linear and multivariable, where
many changes occur simultaneously as the effect of
many different variables
 Anyone seeking to change organizations must
exhibit mastery of power and politics
 The process is cyclical; major programs of change
point in directions that top-level managers have
defined – using the results of previous change
projects to do so
 Direction is not a destination, and where the
change projects actually lead depends on the
contextual processes
Chaos?
 Chaos
 Normally
chaos is related to the
unpredictability of a system
 Complexity theory’s four principles of innovation
1. Equilibrium (or staying still) equals death
2. Self-organizing is important
3. Complex tasks need complex problemsolving processes
4. Complex organizations can only be
disturbed, not directed
Innovation
For Drucker (2001, innovation


Is the “specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they
exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or
service
Is capable of being presented, as a discipline, capable of being
learned, capable of being practiced”
Innovation
Drucker’s definition is good, but ignores
The probability of resistance
 The likelihood of organization politics shaping the
unfolding innovation process
 That innovation will always be unanticipated as well as
predictable political actions

Power and Innovation


Innovation is a political process driven by multiple
interests and stakeholders
Innovation can involve



Market–technology linkages (conception through to
implementation)
Innovation through employees
Innovation through collaboration
Mapping Innovation



The initiation period
The development period
The implementation period
Managing Innovation
Ten ways to kill innovation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Always pretend to know more than anybody around you
Police your employees by every procedural means that you can devise
Run daily checks on the progress of everyone’s work
Make sure that creative staff do a lot of technical and detailed work
Create boundaries between decision-makers, technical staff, and creative minds
Never talk to employees on a personal level, except for annual meetings at which
you praise your social and communicative leadership skills
Be the exclusive spokesperson for every new idea, regardless of whether it is your
own or not
Embrace new ideas when you talk, but do not do anything about them
When the proposed idea is too radical, argue that no one has done it before for
good reason
When the proposed idea is not radical enough, just say it’s been done