Structured innovations – dynamics of organisational structures and innovation processes
(2015) INN920 20141CIRCLE
- Abstract
- Innovation is a key factor for sustainable growth and profitability of companies. As innovative, small, start-ups tend to grow, it is important to understand how the innovation performance can be maintained during the growth. The often relatively unstructured organisations of small companies need to implement structures in order to control the operations as they grow. There are contradictions and gaps in the academic research on structures in relation to innovation process and growing start-ups. The main purpose of this thesis is to close some of these gaps, through qualitative methods in the form of an in-depth case study and interviews, and to show if and how a company’s structures, as implemented during growth, affect innovation... (More)
- Innovation is a key factor for sustainable growth and profitability of companies. As innovative, small, start-ups tend to grow, it is important to understand how the innovation performance can be maintained during the growth. The often relatively unstructured organisations of small companies need to implement structures in order to control the operations as they grow. There are contradictions and gaps in the academic research on structures in relation to innovation process and growing start-ups. The main purpose of this thesis is to close some of these gaps, through qualitative methods in the form of an in-depth case study and interviews, and to show if and how a company’s structures, as implemented during growth, affect innovation processes.
The fuzzy front end is characterized by uncertainty in many forms and it is important to be responsive to change. To apply structures too early on in innovation processes is counterproductive. Rather, companies in the early stages apply individual freedom with responsibility. Efficiency is difficult to measure throughout the innovation processes as much of the work at the fuzzy front end is unstructured and under the radar. The small companies researched in the thesis promote individuals’ ability to deliver under stress as being the most important factor for reaching high efficiency. A balance between no structures at all and rigorous structures is needed, where creativity-enhancing structures should be applied during the idea generation phase and efficiency-enhancing structures should be applied in the two final phases – adoption and implementation – of the processes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/5155033
- author
- Karlsson, Erik LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- INN920 20141
- year
- 2015
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Innovation, Management, Structures, Radical innovations, Start-ups, Idea generation, Creativity
- language
- English
- id
- 5155033
- date added to LUP
- 2017-02-03 06:54:58
- date last changed
- 2017-02-03 06:54:58
@misc{5155033,
abstract = {{Innovation is a key factor for sustainable growth and profitability of companies. As innovative, small, start-ups tend to grow, it is important to understand how the innovation performance can be maintained during the growth. The often relatively unstructured organisations of small companies need to implement structures in order to control the operations as they grow. There are contradictions and gaps in the academic research on structures in relation to innovation process and growing start-ups. The main purpose of this thesis is to close some of these gaps, through qualitative methods in the form of an in-depth case study and interviews, and to show if and how a company’s structures, as implemented during growth, affect innovation processes.
The fuzzy front end is characterized by uncertainty in many forms and it is important to be responsive to change. To apply structures too early on in innovation processes is counterproductive. Rather, companies in the early stages apply individual freedom with responsibility. Efficiency is difficult to measure throughout the innovation processes as much of the work at the fuzzy front end is unstructured and under the radar. The small companies researched in the thesis promote individuals’ ability to deliver under stress as being the most important factor for reaching high efficiency. A balance between no structures at all and rigorous structures is needed, where creativity-enhancing structures should be applied during the idea generation phase and efficiency-enhancing structures should be applied in the two final phases – adoption and implementation – of the processes.}},
author = {{Karlsson, Erik}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Structured innovations – dynamics of organisational structures and innovation processes}},
year = {{2015}},
}