Linking Theory & Practice Navigating the innovation landscape pas.docx

Linking Theory & Practice Navigating the innovation
landscape: past research, present practice, and future trends
Shanthi Gopalakrishnan1 , Eric H Kessler 2 , Joanne L
Scillitoe3 1 School of Management, New Jersey Institute of
Technology, Newark, NJ, USA; 2 Lubin School of Business,
Pace University, New York, USA; 3 School of Management,
New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY, USA
Correspondence: Shanthi Gopalakrishnan, School of
Management, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NY
07102, USA. Tel: þ 973-596-3283; Fax: þ 973-596-3074
Abstract The management of innovation is among the most
critical capabilities contributing to the success of modern
organizations. It is also complex and frequently misunderstood.
In this paper we first provide a broad overview of the
organizational innovation literature [the Past] to distill five
fundamental themes: What is innovation, why is it important,
where does it come from, who engages in it, and how can it be
best executed? Second, we illustrate how these concepts are
applied by three companies on the vanguard of innovation
management [the Present] – Google, Walt Disney, and Johnson
& Johnson. Third, we project the discussion forward by
considering key issues and emerging trends [the Future] of
innovation management such as nanotechnology, ethical
dilemmas, information technology, globalization, and
sustainability. Fourth, we derive from the above analyses
concrete guidelines for managers to leverage these insights and
enable more effective innovation practices. Organization
Management Journal (2010) 7, 262–277.
doi:10.1057/omj.2010.36 Keywords: innovation; management;
industry; organization Introduction In today’s increasingly
turbulent business environment, largely attributed to continual
and rapid globalization and technological advancements, change
has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. Innovation has emerged
as an important mechanism to facilitate adaptation to this

shifting competitive landscape. Although considered
controversial by some skeptics, innovation plays a critical role
in nurturing the economy, creating and radically transforming
industries, sustaining the competitive performance of firms, and
improving the standard of living and creating a better quality of
life for citizens. Understandably, research that is focused on
this climate of change displays a strong “pro-innovation”
perspective (Kimberly, 1981; Abrahamson, 1991) and visualizes
innovation as an inherently beneficial organizational activity
with profound consequences for multiple constituencies. Indeed,
it is an organization’s capability for sustained innovation that
oftentimes determines its success. However, when discussing
the management of innovation, one must also consider the more
ambiguous, potentially destructive, and less readily understood
social and ethical dynamics of the innovation process. This
paper attempts to provide a broad overview of the innovation
management landscape. First, we survey the existing
Organization Management Journal (2010) 7, 262–277 & 2010
Eastern Academy of Management All rights reserved 1541-6518
www.omj.net innovation management research (The Past) by
focusing on five fundamental yet significant questions in an
attempt to synthesize and cohesively present what is known
about the management of innovation: (1) What is innovation?
(2) Why is innovation important? (3) Where does innovation
come from? (4) Who engages in innovation? (5) How can
innovation be best executed? In addition, in order for
innovations to be effective and to lead to positive outcomes, one
must be sensitive to the nuances found in the innovation
literature and extract and apply what is relevant in a particular
context. Thus, in the second part of this paper (The Present), we
take a detailed look at how innovation management concepts are
put into practice by three companies that have rightly earned the
reputation of being innovative and successful in their industry
and were named by Business Week as one of the 50 most
innovative companies in the US – Google, Walt Disney, and
Johnson & Johnson ( J&J). These companies represent a

combination of a relatively young organization and more mature
companies across different industries involved in both the
manufacturing and service sectors. In addition, though each of
these firms has taken different paths to being innovative, they
all show a remarkable ability to be proactive and adapt their
products, services, and business processes to varied industries
whose structures and boundaries are being radically altered. We
highlight some of the best practices within these companies and
how they implement and leverage new ideas, bring new products
to market, and adapt to a rapidly changing competitive
environment. Thus, we explore how companies practically
conceive and implement the innovation concepts that we have
elucidated in the first section. In the third section, we discuss
the relevance of past knowledge and present practice to
emerging trends that will exert a growing influence on the
management of innovation (The Future). Major advances such
as the continued proliferation of the internet, evolution of
personal communication devices, and increasing awareness of
issues associated with ethics, sustainability, and global
interdependence have changed the way individuals, groups, and
corporations communicate, operate, and interact. We outline
how these changes have created or magnified
challenges/opportunities in the management of innovation
across the following four areas: (a) nanotechnology and issues
of customization; (b) biotechnologies and related ethical issues
intertwined with them; (c) how information technology and
social networking affect the creation, diffusion, and
assimilation of innovations; (d) how globalization,
sustainability, and green management affect innovation focus
and diffusion. Finally, in the fourth section, we conclude by
presenting specific guidelines for managers (Actions) on how
they might leverage the preceding insights to enable more
effective innovation management and subsequent organizational
competitive advantage. The past – key ideas and insights for
managers Innovation is a focal point of an organization’s
strategy and a crucial element of its long-term survival

(Tushman and Anderson, 1997). Thus, the practice of
innovation management is important for firm sustainability and
success. As with other disciplines, the best practices tend to be
based upon sound theory. In this section we present established
theories and concepts associated with innovation, based upon
the following five questions, to serve as the foundation for its
management. What is innovation? Defining innovation is an
elusive but important task since innovation can be understood in
differing yet not mutually exclusive ways. This, in turn, can
offer valuable descriptive power and influence decisions
regarding where innovation has originated, the type of
organizational structure implemented, and the manner in which
systems integration is approached, and can ultimately determine
the impact on firm profitability. Innovation is not only the
creation of faster objects – it is much broader than this. In
short, innovations can and should be conceived as new useful
initiatives that are administrative vs technical in their focus
(Damanpour and Evan, 1984), product vs process in their
orientation (Utterback and Abernathy, 1975; Ettlie and Reza.
1992), radical vs incremental in their nature (Dewar and Dutton,
1986), and architectural vs component in their scope
(Christensen, 1992a, b). We elaborate more on each of these
below. Navigating the innovation landscape Shanthi
Gopalakrishnan et al. 263 Organization Management Journal
Innovations can be administrative or technological in focus.
Administrative innovations involve new organizational
structures and administrative processes such as recruiting
personnel, allocating resources, distributing rewards, and
structuring tasks or units. Technical innovations can be product
or process innovations, further discussed below, depending
upon their application, but are generally more observable, more
testable and are perceived to be more advantageous than
administrative innovations (Damanpour and Evan, 1984). The
distinction between these types of innovations is important as
each follow distinctly different paths, and is facilitated by
different kinds of organizational structures. Technical

innovations often originate among scientists and engineers
(technical core) of an organization and follow a bottom-up
implementation process, whereas administrative innovations
originate among the top management personnel (administrative
core) and follow a top-down implementation process (Daft,
1978). Product innovations are new products or services
introduced to meet a market need while process innovations are
new elements introduced into an organization’s production or
service operations (Utterback and Abernathy, 1975; Ettlie and
Reza, 1992). A product innovation generated by one firm can
become a process innovation for another. The distinction
between these two types of innovations is important as their
adoption requires differing organizational skills; product
innovations require that firms assimilate customer need patterns
with design and manufacturing during development while
process innovations enable improved efficiency and
effectiveness of product development (Ettlie et al., 1984).
However, the frequency of occurrence of product and process
innovations varies significantly over the stages of the industry
or technology life cycle with process innovation following
product innovation (Utterback, 1978). Radical innovations,
those that are new to the firm, industry, and/or world, have
sometimes been described as competence destroying or
destructive in nature to reflect the impact they have on markets,
firms, and industries (Schilling, 2008). In contrast, incremental
innovations reflect additive improvements to existing products
or processes. Incremental innovations are often customer driven
while radical innovations are usually internally driven. Radical
innovations tend to require more time for development and
involve greater risk for market adoption but can have greater
positive impact on firm profitability as well as industry and
economic dynamics. We further discuss the impact of radical
innovations when addressing why innovation is important. An
innovation may also be a part of a system. An innovation is
component in nature if it does not change the overall system
configuration of the product (Schilling, 2008). An innovation is

architectural in nature if it requires changing the system
configuration (Henderson and Clark, 1990). For example, the
microprocessor is a component within the configuration of a
laptop computer system. A faster microprocessor would be a
component innovation and changing from a laptop to a tablet PC
would be an architectural innovation. Existing customers tend to
initially resist architectural innovations and prefer component
innovations due to system reconfiguration costs, making
architectural innovation adoption more challenging for
incumbent firms. Why is innovation important? Not all
innovations are equal in their impact. In particular, as
mentioned above, radical innovations can have a significant
impact on the emergence of new industries and the success of
new technologies through the establishment of dominant designs
(Benner and Tushman, 2003). While incremental innovations
can provide real, tangible benefits to firms and consumers
within the confines of existing industries, the impact of
incremental innovations is frequently overshadowed by the
game-changing magnitude of radical innovations. We further
discuss the influence of radical innovations on industries,
designs, and firms below. Radical innovations can alter,
redefine (Kim and Mauborgne, 1999), or rejuvenate existing
industries by de-maturing moribund technologies or cause the
creation of a new industry (Anderson and Tushman, 1990).
However, these radical innovations are often not the outcome of
industry incumbents. Large incumbent firms tend to favor
exploiting existing technology through incremental innovations
(Kusunoki, 1997), whereas industry outsiders or newcomers are
more likely to develop radical technologies (Bower and Keogh,
1996) that can redefine industry or transform industries.
Google, for example, a rank outsider to the field of telephony,
took the lead in internet telephony, using their technological
expertise in web and VOIP technologies. This move by Google
has changed Navigating the innovation landscape Shanthi
Gopalakrishnan et al. 264 Organization Management Journal the
nature of competition for telecommunication players in both

wired and wireless telephony. When several competing
innovations simultaneously enter the market, typically one
dominant design emerges to become the industry standard.
Dominant designs can emerge in several ways. First, as a
technology begins to be used, it is understood better and
subsequently applications and performance associated with the
technology develop faster. Second, the more a technology is
utilized, the greater are the economies of scale and cost
effectiveness that are developed. Third, complementary assets
of the technology develop faster and more effectively. Fourth,
the developing firm may co-opt key partners that help determine
which dominant design emerges. Fifth, the government may
stipulate adherence to a design. Finally, a larger installed base
of consumers can influence the dominant design. With regard to
firm success, the alignment between innovation strategy and
business strategy underlies organizational competitiveness and
success (Burgelman et al., 2008). Companies can choose to
focus on a few innovations that have a tremendous impact or
many innovations of limited impact (Kimberly and Evanisko,
1981; Damanpour and Evan, 1984). Organizations that are
willing to adopt many innovations or undertake a “high
innovation magnitude strategy” are consistently willing to face
uncertainty and take on risks. Such a high magnitude strategy
works in industries where many incremental innovations are
needed to make an impact on the market (Gopalakrishnan and
Damanpour, 2000). Other industries favor a “low magnitude
innovation strategy” (Gopalakrishnan, 2000) where one or two
radical innovations alter the industry and generate profit
streams. Where does innovation come from? Innovations can be
either generated or adopted by organizations. Innovations that
are generated can be used internally within the organization or
sold to other organizations or users. The generation process of
innovations (Saren, 1984) is typically viewed as a five-stage
integrated, but not always, linear sequence that includes idea
generation, project definition, problem-solving, design and
development, and marketing or commercialization. Each stage is

devoted to removing different ambiguities about the innovation,
focusing on both technical feasibility and commercial viability.
Innovations that are adopted originate from outside an
organization. The adoption process consists of two main stages:
initiation and implementation (Rogers, 1983). The initiation
stage occurs before adoption and involves making members of
the organization aware of the innovation, initiating the
development of an attitude toward it, and evaluating it from an
organizational standpoint (Ettlie, 1980). The decision to adopt
an innovation marks the beginning of the implementation stage,
where there is a trial implementation with limited application of
the innovation within the organization followed by a sustained
implementation where the innovation is completely assimilated
into the organization (Zaltman et al., 1973). If an organization
focuses on innovation generation, then its strategic thrust will
be consistent with “first movers” to introduce radical products
and processes that are new to the world. Therefore, the
resources required, risks undertaken, and the probability of
failure are all significantly higher. Emphasis on innovation
adoption more often ensures that organizations adapt to existing
products or technologies. This can include imitators that are
capable of bringing out new products that are not necessarily
“new to the world” or are less radical in nature. Who engages in
innovation? Innovation can involve multiple actors at multiple
levels of analysis such as individuals, teams, organizations, and
networks across permeable organizational boundaries and
technical domains. Innovation, once perceived as a process
internal to an organization, has experienced a paradigmatic shift
to include a variety of actors that transcend organizational
boundaries and technical domains (Von Hippel, 1988) which has
recently been described as “open innovation” (Chesbrough,
2003). Most firms are successful innovators due to their ability
to use multiple sources, reaching beyond the firm’s boundaries
to include sources such as customers, complementors,
competitors, suppliers, universities and/or government
laboratories for all or portions of the innovation process

(Roberts, 2001). However, individuals serve as the foundation
of innovation through their creativity, generating novel and
useful ideas that feed the innovation process. These individuals
can include employees, customers, users, and inventors.
Individuals provide the valuable “human factor” for innovation
(Livesay et al., 1996) and the loss of a key person within an
innovation system can negatively impact organizational
innovative competitiveness (Aime et al., 2010). Navigating the
innovation landscape Shanthi Gopalakrishnan et al. 265
Organization Management Journal Three specific and unique
groups of individuals involved in the innovation process most
worthy of further discussion are inventors, lead users, and
innovative intra/entrepreneurs. Inventors are individuals who
specialize in the creation of new technological products and
processes whether working independently or for an
organization. Although there is controversy regarding whether
inventors can be “made” or whether invention is an innate
ability, research has characterized inventors as individuals who
are focused on problems, able to think abstractly, are curious in
nature, able to integrate knowledge across disciplines and
fields, and willing to challenge existing assumptions (Root-
Bernstein, 1989). Interestingly, inventors are not necessarily
entrepreneurs seeking commercial gain from their inventions.
Thus, inventors often need to connect with others to transform
their invention into an innovation (Livesay et al., 1996). While
end users of an innovation typically have a deep understanding
of their unfulfilled needs and ways to fulfill them to help drive
the innovation process, many of these solutions are incremental
in nature. Lead users are a specific group of end users, though,
who experience and understand significant new trends before
other users, sometimes years before they emerge, and when
identified and tapped, can be a valuable source of ideas for
more radical innovations with large market potential while
simultaneously saving on development time and costs (Von
Hippel, 1988). Gatorade is one of the more famous examples of
a lead user-based product, developed by University of Florida

doctors to improve the performance of their football team late
in games (Von Hippel et al., 2009). Finally, innovative
entrepreneurs (external) and intrapreneurs (internal) are
individuals who, rather than simply administer the innovation
process as is typical for most managers and executives, actually
drive the innovation process. Innovative intra/entrepreneurs
include famous icons such as Steve Jobs of Apple, Jeff Bezos of
Amazon.com, A.G. Lafley at P&G, and Bill Gates of Microsoft.
Research has found that these intra/ entrepreneurs exhibit five
key discovery skills that distinguish them from others:
associating, questioning, observing, experimenting, and
networking (Dyer et al., 2009). Teams also engage in innovation
but must be properly organized and led for maximum
effectiveness (Burgelman et al., 2008; Bierly et al., 2009). For
innovation, development teams must ensure proper
communication among members through physical co-location,
open and continuous communication, boundary-less
interactions, advanced electronic connections, and cross-
functional integration along with clear roles. Innovative teams
must also have the right type of leadership. They could be led
loosely or closely, by local or heavyweight managers, and
within defined or openended parameters, depending on the
particular nature of the endemic projects and challenges.
Organizations as a whole also engage in innovation and must be
properly designed and managed to facilitate appropriate
processes and metrics. These organizations can include small
and large firms, universities, government organizations, and
non-profit organizations and the networks among them. For
example, universities and government laboratories are
organizations that often serve as sources of new knowledge,
particularly basic research knowledge that is important for
innovation. Many universities have created technology transfer
offices, incubators, and science parks, often with the help of
government sponsorship for economic development goals, to
facilitate links with other organizations or the creation of
spinoffs for commercialization of university knowledge (Shane,

2004; Link and Siegel, 2005). Technology clusters are regional
clusters of connections in a geographic area based upon a
common industry where firms seek the transfer or spillover of
tacit knowledge and agglomeration economies through regular
interactions (Almeida and Kogut, 1999; Porter, 2000). How best
to execute innovation? Understanding best practices for
innovating involves observations regarding different aspects of
the innovation process as well as the application of different
management techniques for optimum leverage. In this section
we offer several distilled insights regarding the best way to
execute innovation. To begin with, there are different success
factors for basic (i.e., invention or technical success) and
applied (i.e., implementation or business success) components
of the innovation process. Each of these must be properly
managed, either within or between organizations, for innovation
to happen (Lengnick-Hall, 1992; Drucker, 2002; Burgelman et
al., 2008). Success in the “fuzzy front end” of innovation should
involve inspiring creativity, stoking ideas and inventions, and
institutionalizing new knowledge generation. As noted
previously, individuals are the foundation of innovation.
Individuals who engage in innovation must Navigating the
Organization Management Journal therefore be properly
oriented, motivated, and prepared to innovate (Simon, 1991;
Katz, 2004; Kessler, 2004). For example, achievement,
opportunity, recognition, and creative freedom can be more
important than traditional monetary remuneration during this
stage of innovation as innovative people typically have different
personality traits, attitudes, and behavioral predilections.
Management can promote creativity by enabling employees to
work on projects they are interested in and enjoy, tapping the
imagination of employees, encouraging creative insights,
facilitating creative autonomy and collaboration, enabling
access to needed resources, and serving as a champion of ideas
(Amabile, 1988; Amabile and Khair, 2008). However, creativity
can also be stifled within organizations through factors such as

excessive workload pressures and misaligned motivational and
managerial systems (Amabile et al., 1996), conservatism, lack
of attention to new opportunities, reinforcement of existing
practices, and rigid, formal management structures (Van de
Ven, 1986). The translation of possibilities to profits requires
an entirely distinct yet complementary set of parameters that
capture new knowledge and apply it in strategically functional
ways. Superior technology does not always translate into
superior market performance. Ideas must be implemented and
leveraged both within and across the organization to support
viable business models. To this end, carefully designed
innovation funnels, rigorously enforced stage-gate processes,
diversified technology portfolios, and strategic S-curve
mappings are just some of the tools available to managers for
instilling “discipline” into an otherwise loosely governed
inventive process and building the bridges from technical
success (ideas) to business success (dollars). When pursuing
innovation, managers must also achieve a balance between
preservation (e.g., their identity, core competencies, and
competitive advantages) and destruction (e.g., their
possibilities, future trajectories, and adaptations to new market
realities) (Lieberman and Montgomery, 1988; Leonard-Barton,
1992; Schilling and Hill, 1998; Gopalakrishnan et al., 1999).
This equilibrium is achieved by simultaneously leveraging and
adapting core competencies so that an organization can keep
doing what it does well but adapt to, or even shape, the patterns
of technological evolutions and avoid getting bogged down in
formerly useful but ineffectual core rigidities. They must also
achieve a balance between different innovation performance
metrics including the synergistic deliverables of minimizing
time-to-market (speed), maximizing fit with customer
requirements (quality), and optimizing the development process
(cost). The most successful innovators recognize that these
outcomes are inherently intertwined and that trade-offs must be
managed to produce innovation that is simultaneously efficient,
effective, and fast. However, it is important to recognize that

there is a difference between speed and haste. Whereas
competitive, technological, and other forces demand that
managers execute the innovation process with extreme
efficiency and effectiveness, there are both promises and
pitfalls in pursuing an accelerated innovation paradigm (Clark
and Fujimoto,1991; Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995). From a
management perspective this means properly establishing
orientation criteria and innovation strategy, setting innovation
scope and project parameters, infusing project staffing and team
structures, and enabling innovation capability and processes.
Looking at the big picture one must consider that speed is not
an end in itself but a tool bringing advantages, as well as
exposures, that can be used to support pioneering, fast follower,
or late mover strategies. Overall, research has clearly
established that there are more and less facilitative approaches
to creating a sustainable platform for innovation (Van de Ven,
1986; Damanpour, 1991; Schilling and Hill, 1998; Kessler et
al., 2001; Burgelman et al., 2008). Managers need to shape a
deep seated innovationconducive culture through drivers that
include tolerance for failure, dedication to continuous learning,
taking reasonable risk, and creating comfort for acting and
reinventing oneself in uncertain environments. Innovative
organizations also need to create requisite structural capacity to
process and acquire the raw material for innovation, as well as
the “absorptive capacity” (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Tsai,
2009) to recognize and properly integrate external knowledge as
well as to enhance innovative capacity and success. Finally,
managers need to achieve “ambidexterity” – the ability to
behave like “big little” firms with unique yet complementary
control systems, structures, cultures, decision parameters, and
patterns of operations to drive the innovation process (Kanter,
1988; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2008). This requires the
establishment of systems that harmonize bureaucratic and
organic mechanisms of governance and regulate design
parameters such as Navigating the innovation landscape Shanthi
Gopalakrishnan et al. 267 Organization Management Journal

differentiation and integration as well as formalization and
centralization to achieve a balance of tight and loose systems,
and prudently pursue concurrent, parallel project management
strategies. For example, some of the most successful firms
manage innovation by seeking to be initially creative and
organic in their structure and processes to promote creativity
and novel ideas but become more mechanistic as an invention
progresses toward production and commercialization (Burns and
Stalker, 1961), all the while continuously crossseeding
initiatives, leveraging developments across projects and
platforms, and accelerating learning opportunities. The present
– best practices from innovative companies In this section, we
briefly profile three companies – Google, Walt Disney, and
Johnson & Johnson – to illustrate how the previously discussed
questions of what, why, who, where, and how are put into
practice. Though they operate in very different industries their
approaches to managing innovation reveal some startling
similarities. All of these companies early in their life cycles
seem to rely more on internally generated growth than on
acquisitions. However, in later stages, they have all developed
the skill to scan their industry and adjacent industries and make
important mergers or acquisitions that have either increased
their existing product lines and expanded market share or
changed the scope of their business. All three of these
companies have found distinct ways to develop or assimilate
products, processes, and practices and integrate their businesses
with those of the acquired companies to create positive systems.
In short, they apply many of the above lessons to achieve
sustainable innovation success. Google Google runs over one
million servers in data centers all over the world, and processes
over one billion search requests every day. The name “Google,”
which in popular parlance has since become a verb, has its
origins in the word “googol,” which is a mathematical term for
1 followed by a hundred zeros and is emblematic of the
immense volume of information that exists and the scope of the
company’s mission, which is to organize the world’s

information and make it universally accessible and useful. The
company founded in Menlo Park, California in 1998, focused on
search engines. Google’s search engine is the market leader
with a nearly two-thirds market share in 2010
(www.comscore.com). Since its founding, the company has
grown rapidly and has expanded to a chain of products,
acquisitions, and partnerships beyond its core search engine
business (www .pandia.com; Kuhn, 2009). Google has
introduced many product innovations, some of which have
broadened its product line. Others have expanded the scope of
its market and moved the company into new arenas with new
categories of competitors. Some of Google’s products and
services have enabled the company to enter new industries and
diversify their product lineup. In 2004–2005, Google launched
Google maps, later Google Earth, which provided high-
resolution monochrome images of the earth. In 2006, Google
acquired the online video website YouTube, which facilitates
the uploading and viewing of videos. Google’s other product
innovations such as Gmail, the e-mail software that has many
new product components such as “chat,” web phone calling
(Google Voice), and “buzz” (social networking) are built into
the platform. This product has significantly altered the email
experience. Some of the new industries that the company has
entered include social networking with Orkut, an online
community to help individuals maintain existing relationships
with pictures and messages. The company has also launched an
open source web browser “Chrome,” to compete with
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. In addition to the consumer
market, Google has forayed into the enterprise market with its
Google search Appliance, targeted at providing search
technology to larger organizations. Google launched Google
Apps premier edition targeted for the business user. This
provides additional disk space for email, API access, and
premium support for a monthly fee. Google also provides
security services to businesses (http://www.google.com/
Top/Business/Business_Services/). Most recently, Google

launched “Google Wave products,” which can be compared to
Microsoft’s Sharepoint, where users can instantly communicate,
collaborate, and work together. Finally, Google has also entered
new industries such as the smart phone software market with the
Android phone operating system. This phone system competes
with other smart phones like Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s
Blackberry and is used on phones such as Nexus One and Droid
Eris (http://Alexa.com/siteinfo/google.com). Google’s growth
has been facilitated by a combination of organic evolution and
strategic acquisitions. The company has an inherently
Navigating the innovation landscape Shanthi Gopalakrishnan et
al. 268 Organization Management Journal entrepreneurial spirit
(http://www.xconomy.com/ national/ 2009). According to
Google’s Managing Director Jim Lecinski, there are nine
cornerstones of the company’s innovative culture that include:
(1) launching new products early and often, rather than trying to
perfect the ideas; (2) believing in transparency in the workplace
and open communication; (3) hiring brilliant generalists rather
than specialists; (4) allowing employees to pursue their dreams
(Google has a 70–20–10 rule; this means that the company
spends 70% of its engineering resources on core products, 20%
on emerging areas, and 10% on wild and crazy ideas. Google
Earth was the result of one such “wild and crazy idea”; (5)
believing that data beats opinion; (6) keeping employee
generated ideas streamlined toward the company goals; (7)
focusing on creating products that are innovative and useful, not
just something the company can sell; (8) not killing ideas, but
morphing them into something useful; and (9) believing that
good ideas can come from inside as well as outside the
company. This openness to ideas and Google’s ability to
identify and assimilate the opportunities from the outside has
led to its successful acquisition strategy. Since 2001, Google
has acquired more than 50 companies to accomplish its growth
objectives. Some of the more significant recent acquisitions
have been AOL’s broadband internet access for $1 billion in
2005, followed by YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock.

In April 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion
and the acquisition gave Google access to DoubleClick’s web
publishers and advertising agencies. More recently, the
company has acquired Grand Central, which subsequently
changed to Google Voice. Google has also purchased AdMob, a
mobile display and technology provider, which allowed the
company to bring innovation and competition to mobile
advertising. Overall, a combination of factors identified in the
research literature has continued to keep Google as one of the
fastest growing and innovative companies. Its ability to recruit
and manage innovative individuals, its design of a structure and
culture promoting freedom and risk-taking from within, its skill
at identifying opportunities from the outside, its leadership, that
is, willingness to invest the resources in bold business ideas,
and its ethos of integrating numerous initiatives into a
streamlined vision within the company’s broad boundaries.
Ultimately, Google’s managers have been able to anticipate the
changing industry realities and to use the resources at their
command to accelerate innovation and place the company in an
advantageous strategic position. The Walt Disney Company The
Walt Disney Company is the largest media and entertainment
conglomerate in the world. Founded in 1923 as Disney Brothers
Cartoon studio, the company was reincorporated in 1929 as
Walt Disney Productions. In 1984, the then CEO Michael Eisner
renamed the company The Walt Disney Company, which
substantially increased its scope (Kirkman, 2001). The Walt
Disney Company operates four primary divisions: The Walt
Disney Studios, which includes its film, recording label, and
theatrical businesses; the Parks and Resorts business, which
features the company’s theme parks, a cruise line, and other
travel-related assets; the Disney consumer products division,
which produces toys, clothing, and other merchandising based
on Disney-owned properties, and the Media Networks business,
which includes ABC TV network, and 10 owned TV stations,
radio networks, and other internet-based businesses. By 2009,
The Walt Disney Company had 144,000 fulltime employees and

revenues of over $36 billion (Hoovers, 2010). A broad analysis
of Disney’s approach to innovation reveals that it tends to
harmonize three distinct management strategies. First, the
company has internally generated, brought to the mainstream,
and popularized several frame-breaking product ideas. For
example, the concept and production of the first full-length
feature film with animated characters in a movie began with the
Disney hit film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” paving the
way for a succession of future animated films that remain
popular to this day. Second, the company, through its creativity
and innovation, has reshaped and redefined the boundaries of
industries. The Walt Disney Company challenged the existing
tradition of amusement parks as being somewhat messy and
rather folksy and created the concept of a “theme park” (Croce,
1991). These “theme parks” envelope the visitor in a carefully
constructed, thematically focused atmosphere (King, 1981). The
theme parks not only showcase the studio characters, but also
carefully control the illusion of entering Disney’s cartoon and
movie world, leveraging their film business. The execution of
the theme park concept relied largely on the six tenets of
Disney’s culture further Navigating the innovation landscape
Shanthi Gopalakrishnan et al. 269 Organization Management
Journal discussed below. Finally, through its history, the
company has reinvented and transformed its businesses,
products, and services as technology and customer preferences
have evolved. Through their transformation, they have built
synergies across their businesses. For example, the Disney
characters Mickey Mouse and Sleeping Beauty are used in their
movies, theme parks, and television broadcast programs
(Kirkman, 2001). Walt Disney’s core management principles
continue to remain at the heart of the company’s culture and
strategy (Capodagli and Jackson, 1999) and form the bedrock of
its innovative reputation. Here we outline six of those
principles. The first principle, “make everyone’s dream come
true,” outlines the importance of allowing individuals to dream
and develop their creative talents and also to meet customer

desires. The second, “never a customer, always a guest,”
emphasized the need to understand and integrate the wishes of
all guests and treat them with respect and honesty. The third,
the principle of “all for one and one for all,” highlights the
importance of teamwork and structural empowerment of the
employees. Teamwork is described as a method of fostering
intense loyalty, enthusiasm, and commitment. The fourth
principle, “dare to dare,” encourages a culture of risktaking as a
method for cultivating innovative ideas. The fifth principle is
“practice, practice, practice,” which outlines the importance of
formal and continuous training. The sixth principle, “make your
elephant fly,” stresses the creation of a longrun, sustainable,
institutionalized orientation on innovating for excellence rather
than disjunctive creative leaps. The Walt Disney Company
recognized the importance of creativity but felt that it required
careful and constant management (Capodagli and Jackson,
1999). Disney, like Google, has grown through a careful
combination of internal generation of ideas and external
acquisitions. Some of their significant acquisitions include
Miramax Films in 1993, American Broadcasting Company in
1996, The Muppets in 2004, Pixar Animation Studio in 2006,
and Marvel Entertainment in 2009. Their acquisitions have
reinforced internal capabilities to propel Disney to a more
dominant position in key industries like film production and the
creation of animated characters. In addition, their innovation
system has allowed Disney to expand its capabilities to capture
new market segments and enter new industries such as
television broadcasting. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) J&J is a
large, diversified, and well-established firm that is an
innovative leader in the health-care industry. J&J was founded
in 1886 in New Jersey and operates worldwide today in three
segments through more than 250 operating companies within 60
countries, employing over 115,000 workers. Its three divisions
consist of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics,
and the consumer market. The Pharmaceutical division
manufactures drugs for a variety of ailments such as

neurological conditions, blood disorders, autoimmune diseases,
and pain. The Medical Devices and Diagnostics division offers
products such as surgical equipment, monitoring devices,
orthopedic products, and contact lenses. The Consumer division
makes over-the-counter drugs and products for baby care, skin
care, oral care, first aid, and women’s health. Among its well-
known product innovations and brands are Band-Aid bandages,
Tylenol medications, Johnson’s baby products, Neutrogena skin
and beauty products, and Acuvue contact lenses (Hoovers,
2010). Part of J&J’s sustainable success can be attributed to its
evolution from a closed to open innovation system, with regard
to research and development initiatives. J&J had historically
relied on internal sources of innovation until a few decades ago,
relying particularly on internal scientific knowledge and
competencies, reflecting a closed innovation system. Until a
few decades ago, J&J viewed this early paradigm as beneficial,
worth the billion dollar investments made. It resulted in high-
impact benefits not only to the firm but also to consumers, such
as reduced deaths associated with HIV/AIDS, heart disease, and
cancer. However, over time, the firm found that adopting a more
open innovation system offered better solutions in an evolving
environment. Specifically, the shrinking of the drug pipeline
and the sequencing of the human genome pushed J&J into more
complex areas of human health that required greater
collaboration, which was enabled through advances in
information technology. Today, J&J seeks knowledge from
other firms, universities, and research institutes across
disciplines and geographic areas. It also continues its internal
research and development efforts to retain absorptive capacity,
to tap a wider range of expertise, capabilities, and resources for
more useful technologies, and to find solutions to advance
health care (Stoffels, 2009). As J&J mostly generates product
innovations rather than adopting them, Navigating the
Organization Management Journal protecting its intellectual
property is also critical to appropriating new knowledge and

economic benefits, particularly within the open innovation
model where multiple sources may have varying rights to an
innovation (Johnson & Johnson, 2010). J&J is also structured
such that both centralization and decentralization processes
drive its innovations process. J&J allows its global operating
companies to be extremely entrepreneurial in character and to
function as individual small businesses closely aligned to
customer needs. They can offer creative and high-quality
solutions while also drawing from and sharing the immense
competencies, know-how, and data that exist within the larger
corporation, such as scientific breakthroughs, marketing
insights, and manufacturing expertise: “y it’s like having dozens
of strategic partners at their fingertips” ( Johnson & Johnson,
2010). The innovation processes discussed above at J&J have
been described as pervasive and systematic and are executed
through individuals, teams, culture, structure, training, and an
overarching set of clear and measurable objectives. A council of
innovation leaders helps develop strategy and align all divisions
to common innovation objectives. This strategy continuously
nurtures an innovative culture that spawns a community of
practice in which the best innovation practices are shared
throughout the firm. Innovation training is provided to leaders
to best facilitate innovation project progression. Goals and
metrics are created to judge the effectiveness of the innovation
efforts (Frey, 2010). Innovation is not a passing fad at J&J; it is
a lifestyle. The future – key trends and emerging issues for
managers Nanotechnology The first emerging area of innovation
management that we would like to highlight pertains
specifically to nanotechnology (Roco, 2005; Shea, 2005; Meyer,
2007; Islam and Miyazaki, 2009). Nanotechnology refers to
innovative processes for manipulating materials on the atomic
and molecular level (“nano” refers to one-billionth of a meter).
As such, it enables the creation of novel structures and
materials and is at the forefront of an emerging paradigm shift
whose impact may equal or surpass that of computers and the
Internet. Nanotechnology has attracted massive public and

private investment and promises to dramatically change
protocols in many different fields, even creating whole new
industries (www.nano.gov). Some expect that it will usher in
numerous inventive processes that could transform a broad
swath of technical domains. For example, according to the
United States National Nanotechnology Initiative, the budding
applications of nanotechnology are said to touch areas as
diverse as aerospace, agriculture, biotechnology, homeland
security and national defense, energy, environmental
improvement, information technology, medicine, and
transportation. Nanotechnology is a potential radical
innovation, which brings with it a new bottom-up approach to
manufacturing and design. It is, in a sense, a general-purpose
technology that can contribute to a wide variety of process and
product innovations due to its ability to introduce advanced
components and manufacturing techniques and, thus, create
super-functional properties of materials at nano-scale. To cope
with this new technique, organizations must be prepared to
explore this frontier prudently and strategically adapt their
product and process base to consider new business models,
policies, and sources of competitive advantage. Amazingly, we
are only in the embryonic phase of this technology. In addition,
whereas there are many who recognize its future possibilities or
possible dangers of research, there is little innovation-related
literature on how organizations should manage this emerging
area. Yet, its reach is rapidly spreading to almost every field of
science and technology, and it has been identified as one of the
most promising new growth technologies. Thus, taken together,
nano-technological advances promise to have a pervasive effect
on future innovative activity. Ethical Issues on Biotechnology
The second area we focus on relates to ethical issues where, for
example in biotechnology, innovative activity proliferates and
is directly intertwined with ethical challenges. In its simplest
form, biotechnology is technology based upon biology. While
this can encompass many different and established areas such as
breeding animals, developing useful crops, and the creation of

cheeses, more recent advances have allowed applications at the
cellular level with DNA serving as the cornerstone of research
and applications. Armed with cell and DNA information,
multiple industries are being revolutionized by new innovations.
In health care, genetic diseases and predispositions to diseases
can be identified as can best treatments and dosages for a
particular patient, revolutionizing the health-care Navigating
the innovation landscape Shanthi Gopalakrishnan et al. 271
Organization Management Journal industry from a reactive to
proactive stance on health management. In addition, pollution-
eating microbes can be harnessed to facilitate hazardous waste
clean-up and genetically modified crops that are pest-resistant
can reduce the need for pesticide application, subsequently
improving the quality of food, soil, and water. In addition, the
creation of bio-fuels from plant cellulose offers an alternative
fuel source (BIO, 2008). While the biotechnology discipline
offers high potential for product innovations, it also offers
potential for process innovation. Understanding the molecular
basis of a given process allows many products to be tested in
cells, saving firms time and money and leading to better
products. For example, pharmaceutical firms can use
biotechnologies such as cell-culture and microarray
technologies to test the safety and efficacy of drugs and observe
their side effects early in the drug development process (BIO,
2008). In addition, the targeted nature of biotechnology based
upon DNA knowledge can offer more precise health
management with fewer side effects for patients. However, with
this advancing biotechnology knowledge and subsequent
applications come several ethical concerns. Accessibility of
biotechnology products and processes is an important concern to
developing nations. Intellectual property rights associated with
biotechnology have resulted in limited product diffusion
worldwide, and the vast majority, up to 90%, of biotechnology
research dollars are spent on the needs of the wealthiest 10% of
the world’s population with perhaps too little focus on the needs
of developing nations (Daar, 2006). For example, the societal

benefits for biotechnology, such as improved and sustainable
foodstuffs and quality health care, are in great need in
developing nations where there are fewer financial resources.
The cloning of animals and humans is another hotbed of ethical
debate. While many agree with the premise that human cloning
crosses clear ethical lines (BIO, 2008), animal cloning is less
clear. On the one hand, animal activists argue that such cloning
violates animal rights and welfare. On the other, some scientists
argue that cloning of food-producing animals raises health
concerns for human consumption. Other scientists argue that if
properly controlled and managed, animal cloning can offer
benefits to humans with regard to treating diseases and organ
transplants (BIO, 2008). Another ethical challenge is the use of
embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells serve as
undifferentiated cells offering greater benefit than other forms
of differentiated stem cells. However, the use of embryonic
stem cells and the related religious and legal issues associated
with how these stem cells are gained, has resulted in a complex
and fluid maze of restrictions across national and regional
boundaries that are only beginning to be understood (Chivian
and Bernstein, 2008). Finally, issues related to medical privacy
and genetic discrimination are an ethical concern. Since
biotechnology offers the unique benefit of individualized health
care based upon genetic makeup, irresponsible use of this
information, especially information on the predisposition to
certain afflictions, can result in discriminatory practices in
unintended ways in contexts such as employment or health
insurance. Challenge of Social Networking The third emerging
idea concerns how aspects of information technology and social
networking affect the creation, diffusion, and assimilation of
innovations. Social networking is facilitated by networking sites
such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter; these sites
comprise an online community that allows users to share
information. Together, they act as collaborative platforms
allowing entire networks to grow in value as the user base
increases (Schmugar, 2009). Today, social networking is seen as

a major, potentially disruptive technology, which affects the
way businesses interact and build relationships with their
constituencies, whether they are clients, prospects, or current or
prospective employees (Connell et al., 2009). Social networking
increases the number of active connections that each person can
maintain and increases their number of social ties; it also raises
the ability of businesses to target specific target market niches
even if they constitute smaller numbers (AT&T White Paper,
2009). All of these factors produce tools that foster a collective
intelligence, collaborative work, and support communities that
influence each other’s behavior and emotion (Ellison et al.,
2007; AT&T White Paper, 2009). Social networking also
provides numerous opportunities for corporations in terms of
how they innovate and diffuse innovations. These opportunities
include the ability to turn customers into fans, evangelists, and
sales people through peerto-peer recommendations as well as
allowing product ideas and technologies to be accepted faster,
increasing product usage and reducing uncertainties (Connell et
al., 2009). Networking will also Navigating the innovation
landscape Shanthi Gopalakrishnan et al. 272 Organization
Management Journal increase the extent to which activities of
corporations become transparent. Consequently, firms will need
to rethink their image control. Finally, changes in
communication and collaboration will change the structure and
dynamics of direct marketing; they will enable better
understanding of customer needs, aid faster launches of new
products, transform Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
in “personalizing” the contact with customers and reconnecting
with the web and online service centers for a better customer
experience and retention (AT&T White Paper, 2009). Broadly,
social networking will affect the way customers communicate
about products and, therefore, stories of successes and failures
will be transmitted more rapidly through the community of
users. Information exchange occurs instantaneously and can
have profound consequences on how products are developed,
commercialized, marketed, and serviced. Emergence of

Globalization and Sustainability The fourth emerging area of
innovation management pertains to large systems, specifically
globalization and sustainability. To the issue of globalization,
the most effective organizations are embracing the
internationalization of business processes by transforming their
innovative activities to leverage the expanded resources which
lie beyond traditional national and corporate borders
(Gerybadze and Reger, 1999; Doz, Santos and Williamson,
2001; Narula and Duysters, 2004). The trend toward globalized
innovation is such that the term is practically redundant.
Multinational firms and localized competency centers are
uniting to change the landscape or arena where innovation takes
place. Trans-national innovation “systems” are thus bringing
together resources and combining knowledge bases to produce
rapid and significant advances both in the public and private
sectors. It is not unusual for companies to have innovative labs,
institutes, or other facilities on numerous continents,
simultaneously supporting and complementing efforts. In fact, it
is becoming more difficult to tell where company and national
bounderies begin and end, such as in the significant Indian,
Russian, Chinese, Brazilian, Eastern European, or American
outposts integrated within foreign corporations’ governance
structures. From an organizational perspective, the globalization
of innovation has increased the collaborative potential that
powers the innovation engine. Advances in communication and
transportation technologies have enabled a sharing of
knowledge, processing of information, utilization of techniques,
insight into market developments, and leveraging of technical
expertize unparalleled in modern history. Research scientists
and management professionals are linked together around the
world in virtual networks to operate as highperformance project
teams to spread out the risks and challenges of innovation, gain
access to new science and technology discoveries, exploit cost
differentials, increase efficiencies, and tap into the cross-
fertilization of ideas that come with internal off-shoring or
external out-sourcing. Of course, these opportunities do not

come without challenges such as the management of cultural
differences, communication linkages, and process complexities.
In this sense, the trend toward global innovation value chains,
R&D networks, and open systems innovation will represent a
continuing and growing area of focus. To the issue of
sustainability, the most effective organizations are embracing
the “greening” of business processes by transforming their
innovative activities to address this central societal and
business challenge (Bansal and Roth, 2000; Kessler and Wong-
Mingji, 2009; Marcus and Fremeth, 2009; Taylor, 2009).
Sustainability refers to the challenge of advancing current
standards of living without impinging on future standards of
living. It is often represented by a triple-bottom line of the
“3P’s” – people, profits, and planet. Meeting the call of
sustainability has moral as well as strategic implications.
Organizations that can harmonize efforts to “do well” and
(vs/or) “do good” and recognize the synergistic/reinforcing (vs
conflicting/trade-off ) nature of the two goals will gain
significant advantage over their competitors. For example, in
automotive industries, firms that have harnessed green
technologies and innovations to leapfrog others by appealing to
resonant needs have gained increased revenues and market
share. More than these immediate effects, the challenges of
green business can serve as a critical catalyst to inspire
innovative activity that, in the spirit of the aphorism that
necessity is the mother of invention, propel rather than inhibit
win-win thinking about being simultaneously financially
successful and environmentally responsible. This type of
thinking is evidenced by worldwide efforts to increase funding
for eco-friendly, energy-saving, and lifeenhancing technologies.
Those managers who adopt this innovative mindset will open
new doors for the most forward-looking companies not just to
al. 273 Organization Management Journal garner much goodwill
but also to address new market opportunities, gain premium
pricing, enhance knowledge resources, and improve processes

and products. Actions – guidelines for managers Whereas the
preceding sections have effectively laid out the fundamental
insights of the field [the Past], best practices of select firms at
the forefront of these areas [the Present], and key trends and
future developments that promise to impact organizations [the
Future], this final section offers resultant prescriptions for
action that can guide managers as they seek to incorporate this
information to promote effective innovation practices and
programs. Our first guideline for action, which is based on the
insights of the past, is the following: Managers should firmly
ground their innovation initiatives in solid theoretical and
empirical frameworks y or live (and perhaps die) with a sub-
optimally structured and capriciously managed innovation
program. There are many useful corollaries to this
recommendation. For example, managers are advised to: Focus
on the entire innovation process and range of innovation
possibilities: The impact of innovation is more pervasive and
interconnected than is normally understood. Heeding this
insight will enable a broader innovation portfolio that spans
administrative and technical, product and process, radical and
incremental, and architectural or component initiatives. Be
congruent in adopting appropriate innovation types at
appropriate times: This will enable a better alignment between
your organization, its structure and culture, its overall business
strategy, and its innovative enterprises. Establish necessary
systems and strategies for innovation: Innovation is not simply
an “a-ha” moment but instead, more often than not, the product
of proactive planning and facilitative contexts. Heeding this
insight will enable you to more efficiently manage fluid and
fuzzy front-end processes, leverage dominant designs, and
shape as well as ride technological transitions to achieve both
technical as well as business success. Tap internal as well as
external and general as well as specific sources of innovation:
The seeds for innovation can be found in a variety of places yet
tend to grow in somewhat predictable patterns. Heeding this
insight will enable you to maximally spur and capture

innovative ideas by inspiring creativity, connecting with lead
users, and empowering “intrapreneurs” (internal) as well as
overcoming “not-invented-here” mindsets, constructing
absorptive capacity, and facilitating technology transfer
(external). Diversify competencies and integrate networks to
drive innovation: Innovation is a multi-level process that
involves a variety of actors working together interdependently.
Heeding this insight will enable you to hire, motivate, and
integrate innovative individuals, structure and manage them
within high-performing project teams and design overarching
innovative structures to institutionalize these capabilities into
your organizational culture and identity. Engage and execute
innovation in a way that balances countervailing forces and
seemingly contrary expectations: Indeed innovation is the
prototypical “balancing act” – walking the proverbial tightrope
between stability and change. Heeding this insight will enable
you to proactively destroy (before someone else does) and
recreate your advantage while maintaining identity, and mining
core competencies during the process of breaking core
rigidities, and simultaneously as well as synergistically
pursuing speed (vs haste), quality, and cost-based metrics. Our
second guideline for action, which is based on an analysis of
leading innovative organizations of the present, is the
following: Managers should benchmark against the best
innovation practices and profiles of the most innovative
companies y or remain insulated and at a competitive
disadvantage. This suggests that it is useful to constantly seek
out and learn from those who have mastered the preceding
principles to a greater extent than their contemporaries. Of
course, it is not advised to blindly emulate these complex
innovative systems – this may lead to problems if one’s
ambition exceeds one’s capabilities (Kessler et al., 2001) where,
to borrow a phrase, “one’s eyes are bigger than one’s stomach.”
Instead, it takes discipline to understand at a deep level how
these organizations and managers are able to produce
sustainable innovation success. It takes intellectual and physical

capacity to process the significant challenges endemic in the
innovation process. It also takes vision to customize learned
al. 274 Organization Management Journal insights for one’s
personal situations to effectively engage innovation in one’s
own domain. Therefore, we do not intend this paper as a
blueprint or to be interpreted as a manifest punch-list for
innovation. Rather, it should be used to better orient
perspective, highlight issues, and inspire action that is proper
for the general truths and specific circumstances of the
manager’s focal organization. Our third guideline for action,
which is based on the forecasts of the future, is the following:
Managers should anticipate, appreciate, and acclimate to
emerging innovation trends y or risk being left behind in a
perpetually and even increasingly changing world. This raises
the specter, be it labeled an opportunity or threat (or perhaps
more accurately – both!), that innovation processes and
paradigms constantly progress. The tools and techniques in
which they are deployed are expanding and becoming
increasingly customized. The ethical frameworks and social
systems in which they operate are changing and raising new
managerial issues. Managers must embrace and assimilate the
social phenomena driven by technology adoption. The
organizational and system boundaries to which they are oriented
are shifting and becoming more complex. Innovative
organizations must constantly operate at the vanguard of these
evolutions and revolutions. Taken together, we believe that a
broad consideration of the scholarly literature, a prudent
benchmarking of its applications, and a progressive projection
of its trends necessitate a grounded, systematic approach to the
management of innovation. In the highly complex and dynamic
competitive business context which characterizes our times,
innovation capacity stands out as one of the most important
differentiating factors enabling sustainable success. Managers
must therefore look beyond the fads, fashions, and headlines of
the day to the underlying fundamentals. Indeed, the central

message of this paper is that understanding the core insights of
the innovation process and mastering the practical principles for
its management will enable organizations to be more successful
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Shanthi Gopalakrishnan, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management
and the Associate Dean at the School of Management at NJIT,
as well as a Past President of the Eastern Academy of
Management. She has published and presented over 75 scholarly
papers and has won several research awards at regional and
national conferences. She serves on journal editorial and
advisory boards and consults with both public and private
organizations. Gopalakrishnan currently serves on committees
related to business school accreditation at NJIT. She can be
reached at [email protected] Eric H. Kessler, Ph.D., is a
Professor of Management and founding Director of the Business

Honors Program at Pace University as well as a Fellow and Past
President of the Eastern Academy of Management. He has
published or presented over 100 scholarly papers, won
numerous research and teaching awards, led multiple
international field studies, been inducted into a wide range of
national and international honor societies, served on several
editorial boards and review panels, consulted with public and
private organizations, and produced three books: Handbook of
Organizational and Managerial Wisdom (2007), Cultural
Mythology and Global Leadership (2009/Paperback, 2010), and
Applying Management Theory to Practice: Real-World Lessons
for Walking the Talk (2010). He has recently been appointed
General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Management Theory. He
can be reached at [email protected] Joanne L. Scillitoe, Ph.D., is
an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at New York
Institute of Technology. She is an active member and has served
in several board positions of the Eastern Academy of
Management. She has published and presented over 35 scholarly
papers, has won several research awards, and serves as a
consultant to both private and public organizations. She can be
reached at [email protected] Navigating the innovation
landscape Shanthi Gopalakrishnan et al. 277 Organization
Management Journal Copyright of Organization Management
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