Innovation Archetypes

A new report from two leaders in the study of innovation argues that companies can not acehive sucessful innovation by simply replicating the approach used by other successful innovators.
http://www.innosight.com/research_papers.php#documents/InnovatingonYourOwnTerms.pdf
The reseach indicates that there are a small number of cultural and operational factors that companies use to drive innovation. The authors of the report call these combinations the "archetypes" of innovation. The four archetypes are:
1. The marketplace of ideas - a bottom-up approach in which employees generate new concepts, lobby for support, and then test a new product in the market. This is the Google approach, which works because its staff are creative and work in an encouraging environment.

2. The visionary leader - This model revolves around a senior executive who understands the future better than customers may. An example of this is someone like Apple's Steve Jobs, who spots and champions high-potential concepts, processes or products.

3. Innovation through rigor - Companies under this archetype create processes designed to produce results systematically. Samsung is one example, where organisational emphasis is on design strength, R&D spending, and cross-functional teams. The firm succeeds through a mix of senior executive proritization and tem processes. GE would be another example where the firm has a dynamic innovation portfolio review process. They actively manage their innovation pipeline with senior management and determine which ideas to continue funding and which to cancel.

4. Innovation through collaboration - This archetype is more externally-oriented, featuring companies that team with outside firms to evaluate opportunites, and quickly select the one to bring to trial. Collaboration organizations seek to gather "innovation intelligence" by building formal relationships with other firms that can help them shape the innovative concept and possible help to implement the solution as well.