Technology & Innovation Management

is the set of most successful and profitable practices in terms of choice of inputs, methods and technologies.

• dynamics of the relative cost structure --> a key input gets cheaper
• perceived space of innovation
• the organizational criteria and principles --> new technologies transform work, consumption and the business organization patterns.

1. increased global competition --> protection of knowledge
2. scientific research pays off in the lognterm but firms have a more short term perspective because of the high competition
3. narrowing firm scope: basic scientific research is generally more profitable for large-scope firms

possible outcomes:

• technological progress will slack down, reduce productivity growth
• reallocation of research to smaller companies and univercities

when new purposes for ideas/solution developed for one particular system are found

contains of 4 work practices:

1. capturing good ideas
2. keeping ideas alive
3. imagining new uses for old ideas
4. putting promising concepts to the test

• innovation is not a linear process but involves many interactions and feedbacks
• innovation is a learning process involving multiple inputs
• Innovation does not depend on invention processes (they are problem solving in innovation processes)

seperate the exploratory unit from the exploitative one, allowing for different processes, structures and cultures, while at the same time maintaing tight links across the units at the senior executive level.

1. become a costumer or supplier to a former internal project (join with others to fund, develop an launch it as an independent business)
2. let others develop your nonstrategic ideas --> spin off some projects to outiside investors,  keep some equity for the case it becomes big
3. make your IP(intelectual property) work harder --> sell licenses
4. grow your ecosystem
5. create open domains that either exchange information and ideas or provide shared facilities and services --> expand participation

exploitation: aims at optimizing the performance of a certain task and is associated with high level engagement, selection, refinement,choice, production and efficiency (reward related brain regions, bottom up learning). Returns from exploitation are reliably linked to the time and place in which they take place.

exploration: entails desengaging from the current task to enable experimentation, flexibility, discovery and innovation (attention control mechanism and top down learning) Returns from exploration are uncertain, more remote in time, and organizationally distant from the locus of action and adaptation

Invention refers to the creation of a brand new product or device. Conversely, innovation is an act of making changes to the existing product or the process by introducing new ways or ideas.

1. When an enterprise produces a good or service or uses a method or input that is new to it, it makes technical change. The first enterprise to make technical change is an innovator. Its action is innovation (schmookler)

2. Scientific and technological innovation may be considered as the transformation of an idea into a new or improved product introduced on the market, into a new or improved operational process used in industry and commerce, or into a new approach to a social service (oecd)

first on the market (otherwise invention), new idea, otherwise imitatation.

Research and experimental development (R&D) comprise creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications

Basic Research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view.

Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and practical experience, that is directed to producing new materials, products and devices; toinstalling new processes, systems and services; or to improvingsubstantially those already produced or installed

The ability to simultaneously pursue both incremental and discontinuous innovation and change results from hosting multiple contradictory structures, processes, and cultures within the same firm 

bottom up: purely by external factors

top down: attention control, internal guidance of attention based on prior knowledge, willful plans, and current goals

echnology and innovation management is the field of scientific enquiry focused on the analysis of how a socio-technical system of interconnected elements changes over time, whether by emergence or through design, and how such changes can be leveraged to generate value in a sustainable way.

• Scientific knowledge as an input into invention

  • The linear model: basic research leads to new knowledge, from which technology development can draw

  • Scientific knowledge makes downstream inventive activity more efficient (even without direct benefits)

• Absorptive capacity (sc. knowledge is publicly available, not usable)

  • Firms need their own scientific knowledge to understand others’ discoveries
  • (including their competitors)
  • Complementarities between internal and public research

• Attracting talented inventors
  • Staff with a “taste for science”
  • Positive relationship between intellectual challenge and innovative output

• Signaling to consumers, investors, regulators
  • Publications build a reputation for quality
  • Importance depends on sector (e.g. biotech) and maturity (start-ups)

• visible design rules (visible information): decisions that affect subsequent design decisions, should be established early in the design process.
  • architecture: what modules are part of the sytem and what is their function
  • interfaces: how will the modules interact
  • sandarts for testing: how can a module's perfomance be measured?
• hidden design rules (hidden information): do not affect the design beyond the local module, can be changed often and chosen late.

• Traditional sequential organization
  • recursive information flows, information losses and inefficiencies
  • authorithy hierarchy needed
  • tighly coupled organizational structure
• Overlapping problem solving approach
  • team based organizational structure
  • reduced information losses
  • still intensive managerial coordination needed, to suceed
  • management needs to have the autority to make design and specification decisions.
• Modular organization

• Incremental learning at the component level
• Modular learning at the component level
• Architectural learning (architectural level)
• Radical learning at architectural and component level

Product systems are deemed “modular” when they can be decomposed into a number of components that may be mixed and matched in a variety of configurations’

Products design organisations defining an information structure that holds the organisation together without need for explicit managerial authority.

• Increase of efficieny 
  • division of labour
  • use of market coordination (market coordinates, no monopols, industry leaders have less of the total market value than in normal (old) industries.
• Increase of flexibility
  • competitive pressure to innovate leads to parallel search (more speed of experimentation)
  • module designers rapidly move in and out of contracts (spped of entry into the market is high)
  • economies of substitution (without canibalization)

one to one mapping

standardized interfaces

• maintain integrity of platform (compatibility with complementary products)
• let platforms evolve technologically, while maintaining capatible with past complemets
• maintain platform leadership