The purpose of this article is to deal with the generation of ideas within a firm. It helps also to understand the processes that lead to manage the quality of these ideas.
Firstly, successful idea generation in innovation usually depends on the quality of the best idea. In most innovation contexts, an organization would prefer 20 bad ideas and one exceptional idea to 21 just right ideas. In the world of innovation, it is the extremes that count, not the average.
Secondly, we analyze two forms of organization to generate ideas in an innovation process. The first is teamwork at the same time and space. The team approach is widely used in organizations. The second is a hybrid process, also called the nominal group technique. The group works individually for a certain fraction of the time, followed by group work. This is a way of effectively combining the merits of individual and team approaches.
Finally, the best ideas generated by a hybrid process are better than the best ideas generated by a group process. The hybrid process generates about three times as many ideas per unit of time and these ideas have a much higher average quality. The hybrid process is also better at identifying the best ideas, but both processes are weak at selecting the best ideas. On average, ideas that build on previous ideas are not statistically better than any random idea.

These processes involve several managerial implications. Ideas are indeed generated by access to technology and previous experience but also sharing information processes. This creative stimulus depends on access to and use of technology. This leads to to a higher quality of ideas. Then, the guideline consists in creating many ideas, choosing the best ones, testing, and refining them. It is also important to have diversity in the team and not just high-level members dominating the various discussions to select ideas in the best way. Another managerial implication tells that brainstorming is not a good managerial choice because building on other team members’ ideas does not make our ideas better. Moreover, it blocks the creation of ideas. This technique is counterproductive.

This paper does not apply in the manufacturing industry where good quality productions are preferred to exceptional quality ones followed by one scrap production. Furthermore, there are sectors where it is hard to meet (because of move requirements, time conflicts etc.). A solution to that can be a Web-based idea management systems.

Further references
• ZHAO, Z., RENARD, D., ELMOUKHLISS, M. & BALAGUE, C. (2016). WHAT AFFECTS CREATIVE PERFORMANCE IN IDEA CO-CREATION : COMPETITIVE, COOPERATIVE OR COOPETITIVE CLIMATE ? International Journal of Innovation Management, 20(04), 1640002. https://doi.org/10.1142/s1363919616400028
• How to manage for collective creativity. https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity Linda Hill, (2015)

Managerial implications
1. Complete reframing
Discontinuous innovation requires a complete reframing of the traditional methods of innovation within the organisation. This is because innovation does not fit into the existing frame of reference in the company. It therefore requires a huge effort on the part of the company to move beyond its existing framework and modify it or abandon it completely for a new one.
2. Analyse
The use of discontinuous innovation needs to be analysed due to its new aspect. That can be done by using the three different clusters of innovation practices, which are enable, engage and experience. It is important to note that these innovation practices can be combined and are complementary; successful discontinuous innovators manage a portfolio of these innovation practices, which enables them to react differently to different contexts.
3. Avoid conflict
Not only is there a need for different innovation practices to deal with the selection challenge of discontinuous innovation, but there also needs to be an awareness that the deployment of both, innovation practices for incremental and discontinuous innovation, is likely to create tensions and conflicts inside the organization. In order to avoid that, it would be effective to operate separate or parallel selection regimes rather than to attempt to run both within the same organisation framework.
4. Right choice
The last implication involves the discussion of choosing the appropriate innovation practice (or set of innovation practices) to reduce the risk of adopting a ‘wrong’ discontinuous innovation, for example, making a false technology choice.

Limitations

1. When you realize that there are too many uncertainties or that the unknown territory you want to explore is too dangerous for the business. It is better sometimes better to cancel the project or at least delay it, before having too large problems without back to the past. We won’t be afraid to drop out a project. If you are not ready to explore this new area it is better to wait or rethink about the strategy.
2. There is a limitation of discontinuous innovation if firms that want to develop a new market or transform an existing one, totally refuse to accept ideas, people, or help from the outside. A company that operates solely in-house could be quickly limited because it is impossible for a firm knowing nothing about a business to well develop something. Help or just information from outside is essential even if there are only few things from the outside.
3. A third limitation could be when a firm or an organization refuses to change these methods of working of innovation. Discontinuous innovation is based on the principle of adaptation. If an organization is not willing to modify its habits, methods, or philosophy, Discontinuous innovations are impossible.

Further references

1. Codini, A. P. (2022). Business Model Innovation and exaptation: A new way of innovating in SMEs. Technovation. doi: 10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102548
2. Chaoji, P., Martinsuo, M. (2022). Managers’ search practices at the front end of radical manufacturing technology innovations. Creativity and Innovation Management. 31(4). doi: 2443/10.1111/caim.12524

Our first recommendation is the use of a balanced scorecard (BSC) which is a strategy performance management tool, used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by the staff and to monitor the consequences arising of these actions. Organizations use BSC to communicate what they are trying to achieve but also to measure and monitor progress following the company’s strategy. It includes four different perspectives of the company’s strategy: Customers, Internal Business Processes, Learn & Growth and Financial performance. One way to visualize the BSC is to use the strategy map. This map helps the company to show the cause-and-effect relationship between strategic objectives.

To manage the R&D pipeline, managers can use the Stage-gate approach, which is our second recommendation. Invented in 1993, this approach is a way to define a product in different stages and gates. The principle of this approach is to evaluate (gates) the product at each new step forward (stages). You start at stage 1, I order to arrive at stage 2 you must go through gate 1, where you evaluate what you have done at stage 1 and decide if you should continue or not. The evaluation criteria at the gates are defined before starting the product definition.

The first limitation concerns the stage gate. When a company develop a standard Stage Gate process, it is wrong to assume that every project should go through it. Often, the process in innovation is not linear: it has loopbacks, you have to rework on some earlier steps and not all information is available at each step, which is normal because we’re exploring something new. This means that some projects could find themselves stuck because we don’t have the information needed.

Secondly, in the paper, the main focus was a lot about value creation which is basically how to create profit. But in today’s society we strive towards creating shared value. Creating shared value is the practice of creating value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. In addition, excluding stakeholders might damage the firms in the long term.

We believe that the following two articles are relevant to the analysis of the article:
– Cooper, R. G. (2021). Accelerating innovation : Some lessons from the pandemic. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 38(2), 221‑232. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12565
– Malagueño, R., Lopez-Valeiras, E., & Gomez-Conde, J. (2017). Balanced scorecard in SMEs : effects on innovation and financial performance. Small Business Economics, 51(1), 221‑244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-017-9921-3 .

We recommend managers to focus on organizational learning in a general way. Its effect might be different depending on the size of the company but even for big companies it is a plus to see models that are working efficiently. Another advice we would like to give to managers is to focus particularly on the environmental turbulence of the company. It was seen in the study that high turbulence environment is bad for companies but in some cases, it fosters its innovation processes and performances. The last advice we would like to give is some advice for managers of especially young companies. As we have seen in the key points, organized routines have more effect on innovation and performance for young enterprises than older ones. Older companies have by definition routines that are in place for a long time and young enterprises should take example on those routines to build their own. Our advice for managers of young companies is then to tackle the problem that would prevent them from the development of their innovation program and then to focus on the creation of efficient routines suiting every employee.

Here are some limitations of this article. First, managers must be aware that they will have to invest money; to pay for fairs, training to employees but they will also lose money because when the employee is in training he will not be working. Secondly, it is a good idea to help employees acquire new knowledge, but it is also necessary to succeed in stimulating employees to learn, to make them want to learn. Another limitation is that we cannot predict all environmental disturbances, some may be predictable and others not. Finally, it is not necessarily easy for start-ups to establish routines, it takes a lot of time to find what is suitable for them.

On the basis of the article, we think that some items could be added to have a more representative result.

1) Joan Freixanet, Alex Rialp & Iya Churakova (2020) How do innovation, internationalization, and organizational learning interact and co-evolve in small firms? a complex systems approach, Journal of Small Business Management, 58:5, 1030–1063
2) Liu, Y., Lv, D., Ying, Y., Arndt, F., & Wei, J. (2018). Improvisation for innovation: The contingent role of resource and structural factors in explaining innovation capability. Technovation, 74–75, 32–41.

Further readings:
(Video) R. Yapp – Double-loop learning: a case study from the front-line – TEDxWandsworth (2016)
(Article) Boal, K.B. and Schultz, P.L., 2007. Storytelling, time, and evolution: The role of strategic leadership in complex adaptive systems. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(4), pp.411-428.
(Article) Dong, J., Liu, R., Qiu, Y. and Crossan, M., 2020. Should knowledge be distorted? Managers’ knowledge distortion strategies and organizational learning in different environments. The Leadership Quarterly, p.101477.
(Article) F. Gino, 2019. Cracking the Code of Sustained Collaboration. Harvard Business Review.

Managerial implications
First of all, it is important to find the persons capable of defining and recognizing the opportunities. Indeed, the capacity to recognize opportunities depends on inner characteristics possessed by the individual. Moreover, while not everyone is capable of opportunity recognition, the recognition process can actually be learned and improved. Therefore, it is important to invest in the learning process of the entrepreneurs so they may learn to search in the best places and in the best ways to identify changes and how those are interconnected. However, the training must vary and not be too focused on restricted factors because at a certain degree, we can note the reverse effect with a decreasing performance. Finally, it is important for managers to realize that the pattern recognition process is a never ending and constantly evolving process wherein not all aspects of an opportunity are directly identified. The concrete vision of a business is not entirely built at once and it is crucial to proceed step by step. Thus, managers must take into account new information, changes and experiences but they should also be prepared that the business project may change and evolve in unforeseen ways.

Limitations
We have identified 3 situations in which the pattern recognition process and theses managerial implications would be difficult to apply. Firstly, an opportunity may arise without the company having to carry out all the steps described in the article. Indeed, in a competitive sector, when one of the players finds a new market opportunity, the other players present on the market will discover this new opportunity through their competitors. In this type of situation, the other companies in the sector will use and convert in their own way the opportunity freshly found by their competitor without having to use the pattern recognition process. Secondly, in some situations, young people with almost no experience can recognize opportunities that more experienced people would not have found. For example, Boyan Slat, an inexperienced minor, has the idea of doing a more in-depth investigation into plastic pollution of the oceans. Today, he is the CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. Indeed, young people have a tendency to think that everything is possible while experienced people tend to think in a single-loop way. That is why managers should not only base their hopes on experienced people, but also give everyone the opportunity to express their ideas. Not only experienced people can see opportunities but also the people who use the double-loop learning process. Finally, the last limitation regards the definition of an opportunity: “opportunity can be created from a change”. However, not every change should be seen as an opportunity. People are resistant to change, routines are valuable and changing them can be risky.

Further references
Adomako, S., Danso, A., Boso, N., & Bedman, N. (2018). Entrepreneurial alertness and new venture performance : Facilitating roles of networking capability. International Small Business Journal, 36(5), 453 472. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266242617747667
This article aims to deepen the concept of vigilance and mentions the link between increased levels of Entrepreneurial alertness and increased performance of new businesses.

Chang, Y.Y., & Chen, M.H. (2020). Creative entrepreneurs’ creativity, opportunity recognition, and career success: Is resource availability a double-edged sword? European Management Journal, 38(5), 750-762.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2020.03.004
This article explains what to do after finding an opportunity to achieve success.

Liao, Y.c., & Phan, P.H. (2016). Internal capabilities, external structural holes network positions, and knowledge creation. Journal of Technology Transfer, 41(5),1148-1167.
This article gives information about the importance of external network and of the trust and reciprocity between partners.

Key insights:
As key points within the article we highlight the idea that the employee suggestion system is more efficient when employees’ ideas are aligned with their organizations’ priorities. Further, rewards for employees who submit their recommendations will only motivate behaviour if the rewards are valued, fundamentally, if they are associated with successful performance of the recommendation submitted.

Managerial implications:
We have here listed 3 concretes axes on which managers should focus on and should enhance: the expectancy, the perceived instrumentality of good suggestions and the attractiveness. First, the main key of success of an ESS is that the people feel involve in the process. We don’t have to be a brilliant psychologist to understand that employee will be motivated to engage in activities for which they believe they are competent (Fairbank, William, 2001) or “think they are”. Managers should consequently ensure that their employee feel involved in the process by enhancing employees’ expectancy.

Secondly, the paper shows that motivation is highest when individuals believe that their performance, if successful, will be instrumental in obtaining positive personal outcomes. The stronger the perceived association between performing a certain task and the outcomes, the stronger the motivation. Therefore, ESS that maximize the perceived linkage between submitting a good suggestion and getting a desired response will tend to motivate the highest levels of participation.

Then, the rewards will only motivate behaviour if the rewards are valued, specially, if they are linked to successful performance. Managers should care about the attractiveness of the reward for participating.

Limitations:
Firstly, this article supposes that employees have already ideas to suggest some innovations for the company. But not how to really improve the creativity of the employees. While, the capacity to propose new ideas is also important because without it, the system will be useless. Furthermore, the expectancy theory supposes that employee’s motivation is linked with the reward. But employees are not all the time in search of concrete reward. We don’t know if it’s just an oral recognition or a real gift. Sometimes, it’s just a challenge for the employees to give new ideas and help in its own way the company. Finally, we do not know how to motivate employees’ when they don’t get on with their managers. How to motivate them to propose ideas if their relationship stops their will to propose them, even if those ideas are very good.

Further references:

Amundsen, Oscar; Aasen, Tone Merethe; Gressgård, Leif Jarle; Hansen, Kåre. (2014) Preparing organisations for employee-driven open innovation. International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management. vol. 9 (1).

Jarle Gressgård, L., Amundsen, O., Merethe Aasen, T. and Hansen, K. (2014), “Use of information and communication technology to support employee-driven innovation in organizations: a knowledge management perspective”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 633-650. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-01-2014-0013

Kesting, P. & Ulhøi, J. P. (2010). Employee-driven innovation: extending the license to foster innovation. Management Decision, 48 (1) 65-84