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Building a culture of innovation : a practical framework for placing innovation at the core of your business
Beswick C., Geraghty J., Bishop D., KOGAN PAGE LTD., London, UK, 2015. 232 pp. Type: Book (978-0-749474-47-8)
Date Reviewed: Jan 17 2018

Early in my career, I worked for a large manufacturing organization (LORG). One of the stories that I heard now and then went something like this: after escorting a new employee around the workplace on her first day of work, the manager would remark: “One last thing, if I want your ideas about how to be more innovative around here, I’ll give them to you.” Perhaps this is just an urban legend. Yet, as a member of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 279 developing standards on innovation management, and as current chair of the US Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO TC 279, I hear similar tales and recognition of this situation more often than not. This book provides a straightforward answer as to why: it’s the culture, stupid.

Building a culture of innovation: a practical framework for placing innovation at the core of your business consists of eight chapters and an index. Each chapter concludes with key insights and references. Case studies are sprinkled throughout.

The authors define culture as the “combination of leadership style, values, behaviors, attitudes and working practices for an organization’s people together with the formal and informal infrastructure which makes it stick” (p. 13). They define innovation as the “successful implementation of something new or different that is affordable, accessible, adds value to the customer by solving a real problem and drives growth for the creator” (p. 13). Note the emphasis on a problem. More typical approaches to innovation focus on ideas and ideation.

Chapter 1 depicts the authors’ six-stage framework for building an innovation culture: (1) kick off with why, (2) assemble a team, (3) agree on the future, (4) engage in conversation, (5) create a roadmap, and (6) make it happen. The remaining chapters elaborate on each stage, along with additional concise models and methods. There is much emphasis on leadership throughout, and rightfully so. Although there is evidence to indicate that organizational culture is dominant over human culture in terms of innovation [1], I would have liked to have seen a section or chapter discussing those factors.

Although orthogonal to the innovation management system approach outlined by Penker et al. [2] and the innovation tools approach detailed in Harrington and Voehl [3], Beswick et al. fill a gap in the literature on innovation and its management in organizations. They provide a coherent answer to the question that organizational leaders should be asking. How can we overcome the organizational barriers to innovation? The answer: build an organizational culture that places innovation at the core of your business. This book explains how.

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Reviewer:  Ernest Hughes Review #: CR145781 (1803-0134)
1) Guidice, M; Carayannis, E; Peruta, M Cross-cultural knowledge management: fostering innovation and collaboration inside the multicultural enterprise. Springer, New York, NY, 2012.
2) Penker, M.; Junermark, P.; Jacobson, S. How to assess and measure business innovation (vol. 1). Createspace, North Charleston, SC, 2017.
3) Harrington, H.; Voehl, F. The innovation tools handbook: organizational and operational tools, methods, and techniques that every innovator must know (vol. 1). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2016.
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