WHETHER PRIOR EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY FOR INNOVATION

I wish to start with a quotation from Thomas Edison the inventor of the electric bulb who said and I quote “I have invented one more way of how NOT to make a light bulb, there are still infinite ways to go”

I will now proceed with the provision of a definition of innovation by Denning and I quote 'innovation is a transformation of practice in a community'. This statement carries with it the concept that a successful innovation is one that is taken up by a community with an accompanying adjustment to expected work methods and/or practices. There is an important distinction between the meaning of 'invention' and 'innovation'. Carayannis, Alexander, and Mason state that: 'Invention is the development of a new idea that has useful application. Innovation is a more complex term, referring to how an invention is brought into commercial usage.'

Colonel Eli Lilly founded the global pharmaceutical company named after him in 1876 in an old dilapidated warehouse building with only three workers. Today, they have 41,000 employees handling an ever flourishing business across the globe in 138 countries. They have an annual budget of 2.3 billion dollars spent on Research and Development alone in consideration of the progressive manufacture of New Products through a process of new ideas and innovation.

The list can go on….the founding of KFC……McDonalds etc.

Therefore, the answer is an emphatic NO to the question of whether prior experience is necessary for Innovation. In other words, innovation commences without prior experience.

The founding fathers of such global giant organizations of today, required no experience that led to the innovative products that they finally produced and are progressively manufactured today.

Broadly speaking in the early phases, news of an innovation spreads through a range of communication channels, including face-to-face, email (one-to-one or one-to-many) or telephone. These initial contacts are likely to be with trusted colleagues and a high degree of control over the information imparted is assured. As the introduction of the innovation progresses, other forms of dissemination are introduced. This might be via a Web site or newsletter, through focus groups, at committees or departmental staff meetings. These approaches exploit existing communication channels and people networks, although they may also involve the creation of new networks specific to the innovation. As communications spread outwards, the originators of the initiative are less able to control which individuals receive information, and the content of the correspondence. There is also a greater potential for skeptics to be encountered. Despite this, awareness of the initiative grows, is diffused across campus, and clusters of individuals with greater awareness appear.

The process of adopting any new tool involves a learning curve for individuals. This describes the need for learners to be creative in their approaches to learning in a rapidly changing environment. An organization that is devoted to change is the most likely environment for a culture of learning to flourish. This in turn enables learners to share experiences thus enhancing the learning process. Positive experience with technology inclines an individual towards adoption of other technologies.

Therefore, potential adopters of innovation evaluate the possible 'value' that the innovation has to them. This value can be measured in terms of 'cost' and 'benefit', with the value being determined by the balance of these two factors. Another necessary factor is the importance of 'resources' and 'communication'. Thus, personal and institutional factors combine to determine adoption of an initiative. Such factors are:

Personal factors

?Costs

Effort to acquire new skills

Time

Resources

Necessary skills

Prior experience with similar innovation

Risks of failure

Loss of self-esteem

Loss of social approval

Institutional factors

Resources

Equipment

Finances

Training

It could be argued that some of the factors that are classified as 'personal' are equally applicable to institutions. For example, the risk of failure is a consideration for a university committee that is approached to support a scheme. The costs in respect of time and effort are also valid considerations for the institution as a whole.

Additional factors to be considered include:

The nature of the initiative - whether it is a local, national, collaborative or a distributed venture.

The aspects of institutional activity that are set to gain from the innovation - these may be related to teaching and learning, research, administrative functions or a combination of these.

Both personal and organizational processes influence a culture of innovation. These organizational processes are: "management values, rewards, prohibitions, encouragement of new ideas, encouragement of risk-taking, and the like".

To this list we can add services, support, communication channels and staff networks. An institution with these key components in place is better placed to ensure that innovations are facilitated, encouraged, accepted and diffused across its campus.

Thus, the institutional environment shapes the development of the initiative, its adoption and implementation. Culture also affects the success or failure of a new innovation. Basically, in a culture of innovation, people will have a habit of constantly looking for ways to improve things.

Organizational culture is understood as the "values and beliefs shared by personnel in an organization". These cultural beliefs translate into "communication and mutual understanding" and they influence the beliefs and behaviors of individuals. Organizations use different resources and processes to guide behavior and change. This emphasizes the importance of the pervading culture within an organization in relation to the degree of acceptance of a new innovation.

The influence of organizational culture on creativity and innovation are viewed as the main determinants leading out of: strategy, structure, support mechanisms, behaviors that encourage innovation, and communication. This highlights the requirement for institutions to encourage: flexibility, autonomy and co-operation at the 'structure' level; reward, recognition and resources at the 'support mechanism' level; support for risk taking, change, learning and conflict handling as the behaviors that encourage innovation; and finally open communication.

Two important determinants are 'push' and 'pull' factors. Institutional push factors might be rewards offered by an institution to encourage the adoption and use of a new innovation, or mandate to enforce adoption. Personal pull factors include the perceived need for the resource and the benefits to be gained by using it.

The institutional framework is bounded by external influences, which in turn influence decisions taken at institutional, faculty, department, and project level. The strength of the boundaries between faculties and departments, or the existence of cross-disciplinary collaborations can affect diffusion of innovations across an institution.

In today's world of Marketing, it is important to learn how developing the creative ideas that lead to innovative products is a discipline by itself. It is important to learn techniques that can lead to products that will have lasting competitive advantage in the marketplace. In addition to going out to speak to customers, it would be of further advantage to discover the other research techniques that can lead to insights that will ensure the development of products that create significantly more value for the customer.