KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION SYSTEMS

Knowledge and Innovation Systems: Organizational Change and Human Resource management



Knowledge and Innovation Systems: Organizational Change and Human Resource management

Introduction

Being in a human resource development (HRD) or organization development (OD) role in a large company undergoing rapid and significant organizational change does not necessarily mean that one occupying such a role is knowledgeable about facilitating this kind of change. This opening statement no doubt seems obvious. Yet in a recent organizational assignment, to our chagrin, we were lulled into overlooking the obvious.

Knowledge, Innovation and Change management

The importance of managing innovation has been growing with increasing awareness of its impact on competitiveness. OECD (2007) defines competitiveness as “the ability of companies, industries, regions or supranational regions to generate… relatively high factor income and factor employment levels on a sustainable basis”, while remaining exposed to international competition. In fact, it is thought that this competition between firms stimulates innovation in each firm and enhances its competitiveness, and this innovation ushers business excellence and results in overall lowering of costs and improvement of product quality in the industry, and thereby spurs industry growth by increasing demand. Innovation performance, an outcome of management of innovation by a firm, is hence seen to be a crucial determinant of its competitiveness. The underlying factors that contribute towards successful management of innovation have been analyzed quite widely by researchers from different domains. Two broad streams of thought are evident; one stream focuses on strengthening of existing core capabilities for retention of business stability; and the second on acquisition of new capabilities to meet the onslaught of change. Since quite some years, different modalities of handling discontinuous change for achievement of better performance and competitiveness attributes have been researched upon. (Shenhar, 1990, pp: 25-37)

There has also been some focus on continuity management for retention of performance levels in recent years. However, the stress on managing continuity together with change is only now gaining some importance. The word 'innovation' reportedly originates from the Latin word 'innovare' meaning to review, to make new or to alter. Alternatively, the word innovation can be said to be derived from 'novus' or new, leading to the same meaning. It is understood to be the mechanism by which firms produce new and improved products, processes and systems required for adapting to changing markets, technologies and modes of competition. It is not a single action but a total process of interrelated sub-processes. In its quest towards enhancing its growth, a firm is invariably faced with the perplexing task of managing a maze of these processes that influence innovation in different ways. This paper identifies the set of key firm processes, continuity and change dimensions of which need to be managed in order to enhance competitiveness, by integrating the findings of research studies that have previously been undertaken. The manner in which these processes are interrelated is also arrived at in the paper, through empirical analysis of Indian manufacturing firms. (Afuah, 2002, pp: 171-185)

Previous Literature

Innovation is neither just the conception of ...