The muscles of a body as a methaphor of a company work process
Organizational matters ought to be at the top of the company agenda in order to get good company and innovation performance. The advantage of developing innovative and well-functioning corporate organizational solutions is that they create a strong competitive edge, since they are generally difficult to copy. An R&D organizational design that supports efficient and effective corporate innovation is thus not only a valuable immaterial corporate asset, but also essential to well-functioning organizational learning.
If we use the body as a metaphor and image of your organization, the skeleton which keeps the whole body together can be compared to your formal organizational structures (Lager, 2010). The body movements that are managed by the bundles of muscles could then be an image of your company work processes. But to keep the body moving we need the nervous system, which we could then compare to the Corporate Culture – the company behind the chart.
There is probably today still an overemphasis on the importance of the company’s formal structural organization, although its relationship to organizational performance is still poorly understood. This metaphor is to emphasize that all these three organizational elements must be considered in a holistic perspective when improved organizational solutions are sought.
In search of a product innovation work process of excellence for non-assembled products
In the early 1980s,product innovation was recognized as an innovation capability critical for companies adhering to a ‘differentiation’ strategy (Porter, 1980), while process innovation was considered an important capability for companies following a ‘cost-leadership’ strategy, such as commodity-like producers in the process industries. The follow-up Resource Based View (RBV), focused on company internal capabilities (resources and competences) that are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991 p. 116). The ensuing management philosophy of Dynamic Capabilities (DC) addresses the weaknesses by which core capabilities turn into core rigidities, offering a more dynamic perspective on company performance and growth. However, any kind of company capability is not to be regarded as a ‘dynamic capability’; rather, such capabilities are more related to the managerial processes, procedures, and structures for facilitating and developing such capabilities (Teece, 2009 p. 7). Indeed, Teece (2009 p. 48) proposed that in order to be efficient and effective in innovation, companies must implement organizational processes:
… there is much management can do to simultaneously design processes and structures to support innovation while unshackling the enterprise from dysfunctional processes and structures designed for an earlier period.
Consequently, in an overall strategic perspective on product innovation, a competitive company product portfolio does not constitute an intangible company asset of a dynamic capability per se; rather, the latter is more related to an underlying, unique, and continually renewed product innovation work process, driving innovation and delivery of new or improved products.
BARNEY, J. 1991. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17, 99-120.
PORTER, M. E. 1980. Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors, New York, Free Press.
TEECE, D. J. 2009. Dynamic Capabilities & Strategic Management Oxford University Press.