The Diffusive Approach: Elements

Survival and continuity of services are highly dependent on the amount of innovation, something that companies usually do not have specific and compiled program for, asthey only have sparks that quickly vanishing. The sparks come from of the expertise of the variety of sources that are scattered throughout the company. The essence of innovation is desultory and control might limit it in the sense that it could completely vanish. On the other hand, innovation cannot be implemented in highly established companies as an organic phenomenon.

Building an intra-organization innovation network makes a mix of mechanical and organic structure, like a republic within a kingdom, which rapidly boosts enterprises towards innovation.

In previous post, a framework of innovation enabling tools was presented comprising: Networking, Corporate Competency Mapping, Communication Channel, Project Selection Criteria and Knowledge Spillover Management as its ingredients which interact with each other in order to suppress the heavy barriers ahead of innovation process in highly established enterprises. It is also proposed a simple rule to decide where to start this framework and who could be responsible implement the model.

To this end, a simple organization is proposed for such stiff enterprises which have a pine leaf property. That means, the manner of interaction of innovative nodes to the main body line business, would be a simple and informal model presented for the entire company, just like any tiny leaf of pine which represents the whole structure of the tree.

Networking 

Innovation is almost impossible without any kind of networking, especially intra-organization one.Networking by itself enables knowledge transfer, especially innovative ones within the firm.   While many different kinds of relations in the networking context can be distinguished, a broadly accepted distinction is between formal networks of organizationally mandated relations on the one hand, and the informal networks of emergent relations on the other hand. Although formal networks have a quite positive impact on the firm’s innovative capacity, they donot guarantee to be effective enough to have a high innovation performance. Thus it is insist on the informal type of intra-organization network as a means of guaranteeing for innovation performance. The network of informal relations refers to the “interpersonal relationships in the organization that affect decisions within it, but either are omitted from the formal scheme or are not consistent with that scheme” The informal relations that make up the informal network are the emergent patterns of individual behavior and interactions between individuals within organizations, commonly believed to be based on shared norms, values, and beliefs.

 Corporate Competency Mapping 

A successful network requireshaving complementing competencies embodied within the network. Hence, in order to have an innovation enabling network, at least a shallow competency map is required to guide where the network should develop. Even in large enterprises, it is not required to run a heavy employee competency mapping project to find the highly competent people as they stand up in the crowd.The network initiator (process owner) shall monitor innovative activated and attitudes over the organization and draw an innovative competency map to feed the highly competent people into the innovation network.

 Communication Channel 

Networking is almost impossible without having an effective communication channel. In the 21st century, innovative communication networks have been developed and implemented in almost every aspect of human life as we cannot even imagine having an active life without these technologies..As effective innovation network shall include an integrated, not necessarily unified communication channel between network nodes. As a single communication channel would not work for everyone, a set of difference tactics that can enable both increasing awareness and build the relation with the innovation network shall be utilized. Online communication is the easiest and fastest way to spread the message across and make connections in the world where a lot of people do use computers and the internet.Diffusion cannot be obtained without sharing and exchanging information and ideas between people Therefore, the process of maintenance, growth, and evolution of this communication channel plays an infrastructuralrole for the diffusive approach as nothing has replaced the power of face to face, natural way of conveying information through the idea exchange.Hence, as much as a technology gets closer to the natural communication, it becomes more power full, accepted and effective.

 Project Selection Criteria

Synergy is the most important factor of such an inter-organization innovation network to select the best suitable, acceptable, feasible and enduring project. Network nodes (individuals or group of individuals) shall feel the synergy lingering between them while working on a project. Actually this synergy can be measured indirectly when people have a similar or alike attitudes and aims. In theory, partnerships achieve synergistic outcomes that amount to more than can be achieved by individual partners working on their own.Hence, selecting a project within the firm’s innovation network based on potential synergy would definitely enhance the network’s synergy towards innovation. This could be achieved by the Project management Office (PMO)

Knowledge Spillover Management 

An innovation network is defined based on high competency, so there must be unused potential scattered over the network that must be guided to accelerate the pace of innovation. On the other hand, the explicit knowledge can easily be shared or utilized in the innovation network using formal methods like breaking down the project into tasks that could be dispatched through the network. But the main encountering problem is the tacit knowledge that is essential for innovative activities and sharing such knowledge shall definitely enhance the synergy discussed the previous section. For tacit knowledge to be accessed and acquired by another individual, it needs to go through explicit channels. If an individual is able (and wants) to express this knowledge, it then becomes explicit. The expressed knowledge (no longer tacit) can vary in the degree of clarity, depending on the channel of explicitness and in most cases is best understood through direct interaction.