B ARRIERS TO INNOVATION

IN THE PROCESS OF INNOVATION

To be presented at The DRUID Academy's Winter Conference on Innovation, Growth and Industrial Dynamics Aalborg, Denmark January 22- 24, 2004

Andreas W.O. Bhringer* Dr. Indre Maurer University of Augsburg Department of Business Administration Management and Organisation (Prof. Dr. Mark Ebers) Universittsstrae 16 D 86159 Augsburg Germany

*corresponding and presenting author: Tel.: ++49 (0)821 598 4166 Fax: ++49 (0)821 598 4228 e-mail: andreas.boehringer@wiwi.uni-augsburg.de

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 2

1. Introduction
In many industries, competitive advantage depends on a firms ability to foster innovation and turn first ideas into innovative processes or marketable products. 1 Following recent calls for a more detailed analysis of factors fostering and hindering innovation, 2 the aim of our study is to identify barriers to innovation along the innovation process as it evolves from an organization members ideas to innovative outcome. The great importance of innovation has lead to a broad range of literature dealing with the wide field of innovation. 3 In the research on creativity, the individual is identified as the source of innovation, sometimes within a group of individuals.4 The literature on intrapreneurship follows the individual through the process of innovation. 5 The identification of the stages in the process of innovation has been the aim of many studies in the literature on innovation. 6 There have also been many attempts to identify and structure the success factors and barriers of individual and organization innovations. 7 Apart from a few exceptions, 8 most studies on the factors fostering and hindering innovation use static concepts. 9 Studies which take a closer look on the location of barriers in the process of innovation are limited to just a small part of this process10 or offer only a very broad concept11 of barriers in the innovation process. Since it is widely accepted that innovation should be understood as a process, it is crucial for both practitioners and researchers to bring together the concepts of innovation-barriers and the dynamic view on innovation. Only this way research and management can address barriers directly and according to specific requirements of the stages in the innovation process. Thus, the two research questions of our study are: 1) Which are the barriers to innovation? 2) Are specific barriers typical for specific stages in the process of innovation? To answer these questions the paper firstly defines the term innovation and identifies innovations stages as well as barriers to innovation. After that, we describe our research design and setting. Finally, we locate the barriers to innovation within specific phases of the innovation process.
1

Salaman,G.; Storey, J. (2002) Scott, S.; Bruce, R. (1994); Salaman, G.; Storeys, J. (2002) 3 For overviews see Damanpour, F. (1991); Wolfe, R. (1994) 4 E.g. Amabile, T. M. (1988); Rickards, T. (1985) 5 E.g. Pinchot, G. (1985); Kolchin, M.; Hyclak, T. (1987); Cornwall, J. R., Perlman, B. (1990); Hornsby, J. et.al. (1993) 6 E.g. Zaltman, G. et al. (1973); Schroeder, R. et.al. (1989); King, N. (1992); Wolfe, R. (1994) 7 E.g. Burns, T. J.; Stalker, G. (1994); Dougherty, D.; Hardy, C. (1996); Oldham, G. R.; Cummings, A. (1996) 8 E.g. Zaltman, G. et al. (1973) 9 Kuratko, D. F.; Montagno, R. V. (1989); Amabile, T. M. (1988) 10 E.g. the literature on individual creativity, see above 11 Zaltman, G. et.al. (1973)
2

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The main contribution of our paper is the assignment of barriers to innovation to distinct stages of the innovation process. Our research shows the importance of studying barriers to innovation in more detail than this is done by most other studies. For the practitioner our results suggest that barriers to innovation can and have to be addressed according to the stage of innovation in which they occur.

2. Theoretical Background
2.1 Levels of innovation and the need for a dynamic view on innovation

We define innovation as a process that implies a change of the status quo. This process covers the emergence of that change until its implementation and use. It aims at a direct or indirect economic success for the relevant organisation and results in products, services, objects and processes that are new to the organisation and its relevant environment. 12 The research models used in the existing literature are as divers as the definitions for innovation. In their meta-theoretical studies, Damanpour 13 and Wolfe 14 present overviews on the research on innovation. McAdam and McClelland have reviewed several creativity processes and show the importance of individual creativity for the generation of innovation. 15 Damanpour examines the different types of innovation and between an initiation- and an implementation phase. Wolfe differentiates between research on implementation, sources of organisational innovation and process approaches on innovation. In our study, we differentiate between the research model to be used, the type of innovation to be studied and the level of analysis. We use a dynamic research model because we assume that different factors have an influence on the different stages of the process of innovation. Some authors have postulated a difference between different types of innovation, an incremental innovation being just a small adaptation of products or processes, while radical innovations are a totally new combination of resources.16 Others have called this evolutionary vs. revolutionary innovations on the level of technology life cycles.17 There

12

For definitions of the term innovation see Hauschildt, J. (1993), p. 3f.; for a similar comprehensive discussion see also Kimberly, J. (1981) p. 85f.; Kieser, A., Kubicek, H. (1992) p. 378; Knight, K. (1967), p. 478; Zaltman G. et al. (1973) p. 10; Slappendel, C. (1996) p. 107; King, N. (1992) p. 90 13 Damapour, F. (1991) 14 Wolfe, R. (1994) 15 McAdam, R.; McClelland, J. (2002) 16 Damanpour, F. (1991) p.561 17 Tushman, M; OReilly, Ch. (1996)

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can also be found a categorization into process-, social- and product-innovations. 18 Quite similar is the differentiation between administrative and technical innovations. 19 In her Meta-theoretical study of determinants and moderators of organisational innovation, Damanpour finds ...that types of innovation are not highly effective moderators of the determinant-innovation relation 20. Cardinal does not find much differences between incremental and radical innovation with regard to uncertainty, an important variable.21 Van de Ven also rejects a differentiation between types of innovation, since an innovation always includes aspects of different types.22 We follow this opinion and will not differentiate between different types of innovation. Concerning the level of innovation four levels of innovation can be identified. 1. Macro level 2. Organisation level 3. Group level 4. Individual level
Macro level Organisation

Group Individual

Individual

Figure 1: Levels of innovation

These different levels are not independent of each other. They rather depend and build on each other. A group of people can not innovate actively if not at least one of the group is an innovative individual, on the other hand an innovative group might foster innovative behaviour in the individual. Most studies focus on one of the identified levels of

18

19

e.g. Thom, N. (1992) p. 8 Daft, R, (1978) p. 205f.; West, M., Farr, J. (1989) p. 16; Damanpour, F. (1991) p. 560 20 Damanpour, F. (1991) p. 578 21 Cardinal, L. (2001) p. 29 22 Van de Ven, A. (1986) p. 592

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innovation. 23 On the Macro level diffusion of innovations, groups of organisations, innovative regions and nations are studied.24 Most studies on innovation have been written focusing on the level of the organisation. Their focus is on the management of the innovative corporation, through the design of supporting structures and processes25 or on the integration and management of the R&D function26. Galende and de la Fuente have lately presented a broad overview on studies about internal factors of the corporation determining company innovation. 27 The group level is often discussed as part of the organisations structure of innovation, but there is also a stream of literature specifically focusing on the group level, especially in the fields of teamwork, quality management and creativity. 28 The individual has been subject to innovation research in two ways. On the one hand there is a broad range of publications on the individual innovator within the Macro-environment, the entrepreneur. On the other hand the individual has been studied as the source of innovation within the corporation. One example is the literature on individual creativity, but not only during the last years in the search for the understanding of the motives and actions of the innovators within the corporation, creativity is looked at as being just one of the influencing factors. More and more companies are asked to support their intrapreneurs.29 We will call the innovation and its process of emergence and implementation by an individual within the corporation individual innovation. A successful innovation is expected to pass through different levels of innovation, 30 e.g. an innovative product idea becomes an team project and later on a product, managed by the company. The focus of this paper is on the process of individual innovation, without neglecting the transitions and connections with the other levels discussed, but our point of view shall be from the eyes of the individual innovator.

2.2

The innovation process in the literature on innovation management

After defining the main terms and the focus of the paper we will take a look at the literature existing on the topic of barriers to individual innovation. Towards this end, we will firstly

Examples for studies discussing the organisational, group and individual level are: Oldham, G.; Cummings, A. (1996) p. 609, Gussmann, B. (1987), Glynn, M. (1996), Woodman, R.; Sawyer, J.; Griffin, R. (1993); Scott,S.; Bruce, R. (1994) p. 583 24 e.g. Porter, M. (1990) p. 578f.; for a recent overview see Nieto, M. (2003) p. 138 25 Mintzberg, H. (1991) p. 205ff.; a good overview is given by Slappendel, C. (1996) p. 113ff. 26 e.g. Brown, p.; Eisenhardt, K. (1995); Zirger, B.; Maidique, M. (1990); Tuschman, M. (1977); Maurer, I.; Sessing, G. (1998); Van de Ven, A. (1986); King, N; Anderson, N. (1995) p. 95ff., Rothwell, R. (1994); Nieto, M. (2003) p. 139 for a recent overview 27 Galende, J.; de la Fuente, J.M. (2003) 28 West, M.; Farr, J. (1989) p. 20; Deppe, J. (1992) p. 196ff.; Strombach, M. (1984) p. 10ff.; Krause, R. (1996) p. 125ff. 29 Neugebauer, L. (1997) p. 4, Sssmuth-Dyckerhoff, C. (1995) p. 44 30 Nystrm, H. (1979) p. 38ff. describes the way of the innovative idea from individual to organisational creativity and the demarcation of the different levels

23

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discuss the process of innovation. Secondly, we will analyse the current body of literature on barriers to individual innovation. The concepts of different authors describing the process of innovation do not differ fundamentally. Wolfe has analysed different models of the stages of the innovation process and summarised these into a ten-stage process of innovation. 31 1. Idea conception 2. Awareness (decision making unit becomes aware of innovations existence) 3. Matching (problem or opportunity is matched to the innovation) 4. Appraisal (costs and benefits are appraised) 5. Persuasion (sources of support and/or opposition attempt to influence the process) 6. Adoption decision (decision is made to adopt or to reject the innovation) 7. Implementation (innovation is implemented...) 8. Confirmation (..., reviewed and confirmed or reversed) 9. Routinization (innovation becomes organizational routine) 10. Infusion (innovation is applied to its fullest potential) Figure 3 shows processes of innovation as they have been identified by different authors. All of these approaches (and with them the overwhelming majority of the concepts used in literature) are quite similar. A quite different approach in describing the process of innovation has been proposed by the authors of the so called Minnesota Studies, who have fiercely criticised the kind of models described in figure 3. A clear course of an innovation with one stage mandatory following the other could not be found in reality, they argue. Also a differentiation between specific stages of the process was found to be impossible. They rather found feedback processes and overlaps of single stages of the innovation process.32 The stages of their innovation process are also shown in figure 3. The differing results of their study stem from the time frame and the extent of innovations studied in the different studies. While the other authors have analysed the development of single innovation projects, the researchers from the Minnesota Studies have concentrated on the development of larger innovations, including the diffusion of these innovations in the macro environment. The most important insight from their study is that stages might overlap and that feedback loops might occur.

31 32

Wolfe, R. (1994) p. 410 Schroeder, R. et al. (1989) p. 132

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In the presentation of models of the process of innovation from the literature on innovation management, we will also include models of creativity, to give an overview of different views on that process.33 Figure 2 shows a model from Amabile which describes the way an individual is handling a problem.

External or internal stimulus

Building up and/or reactivating store of relevant information and response algorithms Stage 2: Preparation

Search memory and immediate environment to generate response possibility Stage 3: Response Generation

Test response posibility against factual knowledge and other criteria Stage 4: Response Validation

Success Failure Progress

End End Return to 1

Stage 1: Problem or Task Presentation

Stage 5: Outcome

Figure 2: Model of individual creativity 34 Nystrm, in an earlier work on the process of creativity differentiates between Preparation (search for information), Incubation of the idea, Illumination (solution) und Verification (verifying the solution against objective criteria).35

33

There can be no innovation without creativity: Innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization (Amabile, T. (1996) p. 1, also: Glynn, M. (1996) p. 1083; Amabile, T. (1988) p. 126, 152ff.; Amabile, T. (1988) p. 150: In considering how innovation happens in an organization, it is essential to understand how creativity happens in the individualRickards, T. (1985) p. 58 34 Amabile, T. (1983) p. 78 (simplified) 35 Nystrm, H. (1979) p. 39ff.

Summary

Readiness for perception

Preparation Awareness and stimuliacceptance Awareness

Idea generation Internal and Idea Evaluation external search development and decision for information Matching Appraisal

Implementation Routine Persuasion and ImplemConfirmation Routinization adaptation (if entation necessary) Persuasion Adoption decision Organisational level: Top Management, Relationship with others and infrastructure development Decision Implementation Confirmation Routinization Infusion

Wolfe (1994)36

Idea conception37

Angle/Van de Ven (1989)38

Gestation

Shock

Plans

Proliferation Fluid participation and people transition

Setback, criteria shift

Linking old and new adoption or termination

Attribution

Zaltman et al. (1973) 39

Knowledge awareness

Formation of attitudes toward the innovation Act of insight: Essential solution is found Critical revision: New relations become understood and worked into context

Initial implementation

Continuedsustained implementation

Usher (1954)40

Perception of the problem: Recognition of partial or incomplete need satisfaction

Setting stage: Elements necessary for solution are brought together

a composite of different process models by Wolfe, R. (1994) p. 410 Explanation see Daft, R. (1978) p. 195 38 Angle, H.; Van de Ven, A. (1989) p. 666 39 Zaltman, G. (1973) p. 85-94 40 see Schroeder, R. et al. (1989) p. 112
37

36

Amabile41

Task presentation: external or internal source

Preperation: gather information and resources

Idea generation

Idea validation

Sucess, failure or progress

Nystrm42

Rogers (1983)43

Incubation of the idea Preparation: search for information DevelopNeed Research ment idea recognition: application of into useful Problem or need knowledge to form problem

Illumination (solution) Commercialis ation

Verification against objective criteria Diffusion and adoption of Consequences of innovation innovation

Figure 3: Comparison and combination of different descriptions of the process of innovation in the literature on innovation management and creativity

41 42

Amabile, T. (1988) p. 152 Nystrm, H. (1979) p. 39ff. 43 see Schroeder, R. et al. (1989) p. 112

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2.3

Intrapreneurship and the process of innovation

One of the first to describe the importance of the entrepreneur to the innovation capability of an economy was Schumpeter. 44 For Drucker the entrepreneur is the innovator par excellence: Innovation is the specific instrument of the entrepreneur. 45 Today larger companies try to use this capacity of the entrepreneur to foster innovation within the borders of the company, often with specific internal programmes 46. A combination of the resources existent in the organisation and the entrepreneurial spirit and power of an entrepreneur the corporation is expected to lead to innovation success.47 Pinchot found a term for this internal entrepreneur: The intrapreneur. 48 The intrapreneur is an individual member of an organisation which implements an innovative idea in the organisation49: The people who do entrepreneurial work within large organizations are called intrapreneurs, and the process by which they effect change, intrapreneurship. 50 While the models of the innovation process described above either develop a broad overview or focus on the generation of an innovation, the intrapreneurship models (which almost always are dynamic process approaches) in addition focus on the stages of implementation of an innovation developed by an individual member of the organisation. One example of a quite simple model of the intrapreneurial process is proposed by Cornwall/Perlman: 51 1. Defining a Problem, 2. Coalition Building, 3. Mobilizing and Completion, 4. Successor/Dismantling. A more sophisticated model has been developed by Neugebauer:
Transformation by entrepreneurial acitivity

Entrepreneurial vision
Impulse Idea or suggestion Goal development Coalitionbuilding Teambuilding Goal reached Selling Acceptance no yes Sucess Innovation on markts or within organisation

feedback

Figure 4: Modell of entrepreneurial activity

52

We have seen, that the function of the entrepreneur is to reform or revolutionize the structures of production... Schumpeter (1950) p. 214 (translated) 45 Drucker, P. (1985) p. 27 46 Thuresson, J. (1994) p. 36, Pryor, A.; Shays, E. (1993) p. 48ff.; Haskins, G.; Williams, R. (1987) p. 11ff. Bharadwaj, p.; Menon (2000) have shown the positive effect of organisational creativity mechanisms to support innovation in addition to the just the creative individual 47 e.g. Kiechl, R. (1990) p. 27, Trasolini, S. (1989) p. 2f. 48 Pinchot, G. (1985), p. XV 49 Trasolini, S. (1989) p. 15 50 Cornwall, J; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 174 51 Cornwall, J.; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 175ff. 52 following Neugebauer, L. (1997) p. 145 (translation by the author)

44

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From the often cited intrapreneur story of the developme nt of the post-it-Note several stages of the project can be extracted: 53 1. Problem identification (in this case in a non-job related environment as a member of a church choir, having problems with finding the chorals in the songbook fast enough) 2. Idea about a solution (Combination of the problem with the problems of an unsuccessful project at work, where a colleague had invented a glue which wouldnt glue) 3. Testing 4. Teambuilding and coalition seeking (Collecting resources with support from the production unit) 5. Development of a prototype 6. Business Plan development 7. Selling to the decision makers (Official allowance to build a product-team, Support by product sponsors)

In the concept of intrapreneurship the process of individual innovation does not stop at the point of selling the innovative idea to the organization. Usually the development of prototypes or managing the test phase of the new idea is part of the intrapreneurial activity and often the intrapreneur even participates in responsible position in the implementation of her project. 54 There exist a number of alternatives for the implementation of an intrapreneurial project.55 The project can either be realised internal or external to the organisation. The direct integration of the project within the existing structure, the founding of a new department, the integration into a specific New Venture division, which integrates innovative projects, and the establishment of a new business unit are forms of an internal realisation. If the innovative idea does not fit into the core fields of operation there are also forms of external realisation of the project: The project is brought to the market with the intrapreneurial team as entrepreneurs, but supported by the parent organisation (venture nurturing). If the parent company decides not to support the new project any longer, the intrapreneur can become a real entrepreneur. After discussing important publication on intrapreneurship, the process of intrapreneurship can be summarized as shown in figure 5.
53

54

Fry, A. (1987) p. 6ff. Nijhof, A. et al (2002) p. 681 call for a temporary exemption of the innovator, who should, after mangement is convinced of the usefullness of the innovation be given the chance to implement her innovation 55 see Bitzer, M. (1991) p. 33f., Sssmuth-Dyckerhoff, C. (1995) p. 74ff., Block, Z.; MacMillan, I. (1993) p. 148ff.

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Direct Integration

Organisational level

Department founding

Integration into inovation division

New Business Unit

VentureNurturing Persuasion of decision makers Entrepreneur

Problem recongnition

Ideas for solutions

Coalition- and team-building

Tests and prototype

Business plan

Individual level

Figure 5: Ideal process of intrapreneurship 56

In the following we will summarise the discussion of different innovation processes in presenting a process of individual innovation to be used as the basis of our empirical research. Since so many studies have been undertaken to understand this process we will in this study assume that we should use the current body of literature for identifying the barriers to innovation. If our research does not find extreme divergence from the current research on the innovation process there is no need to develop a new one, also our attempt to assign barriers to specific stages of the process will much more easily fit into the existing literature, if we build up on the existing research. The processes described above do not differ much. The advantage of using different streams of research lays in the different focus each stream takes. While the literature on organisational innovation management gives a general overview, the literature on creativity offers a deeper understanding of the very first stages of innovation. The research on intrapreneurship adds the transition from an individual innovation to the organisational level in the integration of the stage of selling the innovation to the parent organisation and in adding different alternatives of realising the innovative project. But also the

56

Description without the alternatives of termination in one stage

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importance of establishing coalitions and networks to support the realisation if ones innovative ideas is stressed in the literature on intrapreneurship. 57 As the summary of this first part of the paper we propose an (ideal) innovation process based on an individuals innovative attempt. This process is shown in figure 6. We will not discuss the stages of the process shown, this has been done above. On the vertical axis the stages of the process of innovation is shown, the horizontal axis shows the different alternatives of the implementation of the innovation, usually on the organisational level.

Direkt Integration Direct integration

Organisational level

Integration into Innovationdivision

Business Unit

VentureNurturing Need/ Problem recognition Internal and external search for information Idea generation (identification of alternatives) Business-Plan and persuasion of decision makers

Coalitionand team building

Tests and evaluation

Decision

Individual level

Entrepreneur

Figure 6: The stages of the process of individual innovation

57

see Cornwall, J.; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 179, Thuresson, J. (1994) p. 38, Starr, J.; MacMillan, I. (1990) p. 83f.; Haskins, G.; Williams, R. (1987) p. 92ff.

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2.4

Barriers to individual innovation in the literature on innovation management

Many authors have discussed factors which are believed to support individual innovation and organised ways of supporting individual innovations are applied in many companies. Given the immense body of literature on individual innovation it is surprising that successful individual innovation is so seldom found in the corporation. Thus we will follow another way and not just ask for supporting factors58, but for the very factors which are critical in the process of innovation; the barriers hindering that process. In the following we will identify existing concepts of barriers to individual innovation from the literature on innovation management and intrapreneurship. One way of differentiating between different kinds of barriers is the place of occurrence: intrapersonal, interpersonal and extrapersonal barriers. Rttger identifies five basic barriers (without describing them in detail):59 Personal barriers (skills, attributes and behavior of the individual) Problem identification barriers Barriers of social interaction (communication problems, conflict and power) Organisational barriers (coordination problems and responsibility questions) Resource barriers

Witte finds two barriers to innovation60: the power of persistence of the status quo fears the change which leads to barriers of will, while missing knowledge of alternatives and goals are defined as barriers of ability. On the same, individual level, Williams discusses three barriers which hinder innovation61: Emotional barriers (fear and prejudice) Cultural barriers (restrictions to interpretation of the world) Perception barriers (the need for change is not accepted)

In his concept of barriers to successful product innovations in small firms Freel claims four principal resource constraints, most of which belong to the organisational level:62 Finance (especially for smaller firms it is difficult to obtain capital for projects with uncertain outcome)

some important studies identifying success factors are e.g. Gussmann, B. (1987), Amabile, T. (1988), West, M.; Farr, J. (1989), Mintzberg, H. (1991), Damanpour, F. (1991), Woodman, R.; Sawyer, J.; Griffin, R. (1993), Burns, T.; Stalker G. (1994), Scott,S.; Bruce, R. (1994), Oldham, G.; Cummings, A. (1996), Glynn, M. (1996), Dougherty, D.; Hardy, C. (1996), Amabile, T. (1996) 59 Rttger, J. (1992) p. 59 60 Witte, E. (1973) p. 5ff. 61 Williams, E. (1969) p. 54ff. 62 Freel, M. (2000), p. 61f.

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Management and Marketing (poor planning and financial evaluation, inadequate delegation, lack of functional expertise, discontinuity of management staff, insufficient marketing endeavour) Skilled Labour (small firms have problems matching the wages rates, job security and career development opportunities available in larger organisations) External Information (absence of networks)

In exploring the interaction between core capabilities with the development of new products and processes, Leonard-Barton also discusses the flip side of core capabilities: Core rigidities. These core rigidities are deeply embedded in the organization and therefore are critical in hindering innovation: 63 Skills and Knowledge: Less strength in non-dominant disciplines (here the organisation might not possess the people with excellent expertise) Technical systems: Skills and processes captured in software and hardware become easily outdated64 Management systems: similar to the effects of technical systems Values: empowerment wakes demands of rewards, recognition and freedom to act. If restrictions occur innovating individuals are likely to become unmotivated. Also nondominant disciplines are likely to have a lower status within the organisation which prevents new innovations to gain importance.

In comparison to these studies, other researchers have focused on just one barrier which they assumed to be the one most important. Perel, for example, stresses one empediment to successful innovation: the managements lack of courage to take a long term view.65 Another example is the lack of power support to gather and combine resources in the large corporation as a main barrier as discussed by Dougherty and Hardy. 66 All these concepts are static models, a change in the occurrence or importance of barriers during the process of innovation is not recognised. One exception is the work of Zaltman et al.. In their stage model of innovation they have explicitly allocated the impact of barriers to particular stages of the process of innovation, as is shown in table 1. 67

Leonard-Barton, D. (1997) p. 262 Leonard-Barton, D. (1997) p. 263 65 Perel, M. (2002) p. 11 66 Dougherty, D. ; Hardy, C. (1996) p. 1147 67 Zaltman, G. et al.(1973) p. 85-94
64

63

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Stage in the innovation process

Initiation stage 1. Knowledge-awareness substage

Stage specific barrier

Need for stability Coding scheme barrier Possible impact on existing social relationships and personal threat Local pride Highly stratified power structure Division of labor Role expectations Hierarchie and status differentials Physical separation Reward patterns Conflict for resources Passive resistance Feeling of beeing manipulated or sold Personnel changes Loss of control and power because of innovation

2.+3. Formation of attitudes toward the innovation substage and Decision substage

Implementation stage 1. Initial implementation substage

2. Continued-sustained implementation substage

Table 1: Barriers in the stages of the process of innovation 68

Given the importance of innovation management in the management literature it is surprising and unsatisfying that there are very few studies dealing with locating barriers to innovation in the process of innovation. Of these few only a minor part is based on empirical research.

2.5

Barriers to individual innovation in the literature on intrapreneurship

To identify barriers to innovation we will also look for existing research results in the literature on intrapreneurship. Some authors even assume that the existence of barriers (especially organisational barriers) incite the real intrapreneur to even harder try to realise her innovative ideas.69 Nevertheless, it is to question whether it is useful for the organisation to set up barriers to innovation in order to foster intrapreneurship. The analysis of the literature on intrapreneurship does not reveal explicit concepts of innovation-barriers. We will thus follow the, quite crude, differentiation between the organisational and individual level in identifying possible barriers to innovation.

68 69

Zaltman, G. et al.(1973) p. 85-94 Kolchin, M.; Hyclak, T. (1987) p.16

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2.5.1

Organisational factors

Since the individual intrapreneur is usually not provided with the resources needed to implement her idea, a high level of formalisation to obtain resources (e.g. time, money, expertise) hinders the innovation process.70 A highly specialised and centralised organisational structure might inhibit coalition building. 71 Antoncic and Hisrich discuss the inhibiting effect of the excessive use of formal controls, but conclude, that formal controls are needed for project selection. 72 They also discuss, from a broad literature review several success factors, like organisational support through the availability of resources, but do not state these as crucial barriers to intrapreneurship. If the corporations planning time frame is short term oriented internal innovation projects might suffer73, one reason being the missing support from superiors which focus on short term goals.74 The orientation towards innovation is often shown in incentive systems. If the intrapreneur has to fear demotion or even suspension, employees will not innovate. 75 With regard to organisational culture Kuratko/Montagno mention Old thinking patterns as being an organisational barrier to intrapreneurship.76 Ross lists some factors which describe this term: 77 Focus on internal power games and micropolitics Focus on short term success Focus on production efficiency instead of product quality and innovation Sticking to the status quo Individual factors

2.5.2

The literature on intrapreneuship in detail deals with the characteristics and personality of the intrapreneur. As in the field of entrepreneuship this literature is full of lists of positive characteristics of the innovating individual, almost creating an organisational superman. Little is therefore to be found about barriers within the individual. Since the intrapreneur is the manager of her own innovation project a lack of social and communication skills to build a network of support can be assumed to inhibit the intrapreneurial success.78 Hornsby et al. point out that without a proper business plan an

Cornwall, J.; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 100, Chambeau, F. de; Mackenzie, F. (1986) p. 40 Cornwall, J.; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 100 72 Antoncic, B., Hisrich, R.D. (2001), p. 502 73 Schollhammer, H. (1982) p. 219 74 Kanter, R. (1985) p. 56, Geneen, H. (1984) p. 46 75 Kuratko, D.; Montagno, R. (1989) p. 84 76 Kuratko, D.; Montagno, R. (1989) p. 84 77 Ross, J. (1987) p. 23 78 Sssmuth-Dyckerhoff, C. (1995) p. 59f. , Sauser, W. (1987) p. 34
71

70

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intrapreneur might not be able to find support in implementing her innovative project and in selling it to upper management. 79 A very interesting aspect in examining barriers to innovation is added by the literature on intrapreneurship: Whereas the literature on innovation management and creativity solely discusses the negative aspects of barriers to innovation, authors on intrapreneurship do also find positive barriers. Given the scarcity of resources in the organisation, not every innovative idea can and should be supported and implemented. Cornwall/Perlman therefore recommend the setting of priorities for the support of intrapreneurial projects in the organisation. 80 The most important criterion to judge the usefulness of an innovation is said to be the strategic fit of the project: Strategic fit is the degree of similarity and synergy between new ventures an organization is considering entering into and its existing business. 81 The strategic fit is to be tested in the categories of 1. product fit, 2. market fit and 3. technological fit. Given the problem of predicting an innovations outcome in early stages of the innovation project and of future market development it seems difficult to judge whether a barrier to innovation is to be perceived as positive or negative. Corporations try to deal with this problem in setting up forms of project controlling with fixed milestones where the progress of an innovative projects is to be judged by several experts. Most employee suggestion systems have set up such, very specific, review processes.82

3. Research method
The discussion above shows that the barriers to innovation are still to be fully understood. This study tries to fill that gap in analysing barriers to individual innovation within a large international company in the communication industry. Firstly this is to identify barriers to individual innovation and to deepen the understanding of this barriers. Secondly, and most importantly, this study aims to find out whether the barriers to innovation identified can be allocated to the stages of the innovation process. Due to the newness of our research question the study takes an exploratory grounded approach.83 While Glaser does not allow the researcher to bring in any theoretical presumptions (in order to influence the research results as little as possible by own interpretation schemes),84 we follow the approach of Strauss/Corbin, who have argued in favour of a empirical grounded research process where the existing knowledge should be applied in order to better compare the research results to existing knowledge and to better
79 80

Hornsby, J.; Naffziger, D.; Kuratko, D., Montagno, R. (1993) p. 34 Cornwall, J.; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 55 ff. 81 Cornwall, J.; Perlman, B. (1990) p. 55 82 Yasuda, Y. (1994) p. 37; Wildemann, H. (1996) p. 25 83 Glaser, B. G.; Strauss, A. L. (1967); see also Mintzberg, H. (1979) p. 584 84 Glaser, B.G. (1992)

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 19

deepen this existing knowledge. 85 This approach on the one side is open enough to get new insights into the barriers to individual innovation and on the other side allows for the application of the existing knowledge on the process of innovation without the need to reinvent the wheel but with the possibility to review the results of earlier studies. Data were collected at a German and a US-site of a large telecommunication company. Telecommunication companies operate in hypercompetitive environments. As a consequence, they depend on their members innovative ideas and the successful implementation and commercialisation of these ideas. Our research site, therefore, seemed suitable to capture a variety of innovation processes as well as factors hindering these processes. The main source of data were 21 semi-structured interviews with engineers and members of the middle management. Following theoretical sampling 86 interview partners were not only selected prior to the interviews. Some were added to the sample when identified by other interview partners during the research process. Most interview partners were selected because they had handed in several ideas into the companies employee suggestion program or had taken part in an intrapreneurship program set up by the company. All interviews were between 1.5 and 2 hours in length and followed the same procedure. During data analysis 87, the cases were analysed by using three foci: The first step was to reconstruct the process of innovation for each case, secondly barriers within that process were identified and in a third step these barriers were applied to the stages of the innovation process identified. This was done for each case and interview. Then the results of all three steps were compared across all cases and interviews to identify similarities and, if there were differences, how these differences might have to be interpreted. From these comparisons hypotheses were derived and, as a feedback loop, for each case tested.

4. Results
The first step in the interpretation of the data was to review the stages of the process of innovation as it is understood by existing literature. Our study includes fourteen processes of individual innovation, of which some have already been terminated in early phases. Only a few have made it to implementation. Both product and process innovations are included. Most of the projects represent quite small innovations. In the cases where e.g. a new business unit or an own venture would have been necessary to implement the innovation project, it was terminated before implementation. All individual innovations studied do fit
Strauss, A.L.; Corbin, J. (1994) Glaser, B.; Strauss, A. (1967) p. 47; on the selection see also Patton, M. (1990) p. 169ff. 87 for the specifics of qualitative data analysis see e.g. Miles, M.; Huberman, A. M. (1994); Yin, R. (1984)
86 85

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 20

into the stage model developed above. The cases also show that stages of that process can be overlapping and at least in part run parallel. They also proof that stages might be repeated, in our case we found that information search and partner identification were sometimes performed several times during the innovation process. Reasons for the final termination of the processes studies were mostly Absence of a power promoter in order to use time-, human- and financial resources Termination by upper management by order Absence of market knowledge and expertise and of a network of expertise to supplement for own weaknesses. Reasons for initiating the innovation process were either to find solutions for an existing problem or the attempt to apply an idea to a new field or question which was not identified as a problem before. Usually the innovative solution was a combination of known ideas an processes from different fields. Especially external impulses, like visiting another production unit, knowledge and skills from a private hobby, discussions with colleagues from other departments, customers and competitors and international visits and contacts fostered the development of innovative ideas and solutions.

4.1

Barriers to individual innovation

The company studied communicates the importance of innovation internally and externally and tries to support individual innovation generation by different innovation programmes. The company runs a modern employee suggestion program and, although not on a permanent basis, intrapreneurship programmes. Although the company seems to be willing to support the generation and implementation of innovative ideas, the interviews revealed several barriers that hindered the development and implementation of new ideas in that company. In categorising the barriers to individual innovation found in the interviews there was evidence that the three categories already described above were reasonable to be applied here. These categories are: organisational barriers, barriers within the individual and positive barriers. The study does not allow for a differentiation of the positive barriers on an individual and organisational level. In analysing the interviews several subcategories occurred and will in the following help to structure the presentation of the results. 4.1.1 Organisational barriers

Formalisation Planned as positive barriers formal regulations like functional specifications and extensive obligations to report can hinder the development and implementation of new products. If the programs to support individual innovation are characterised by

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 21

intransparent formalism the same problem is likely to occur. An interesting point in all the systems analysed was that the programs were very formalised, but on the interface from the innovation program to the implementation of the innovative idea in the organisation there were no formal procedures. So at this interface the innovation was in danger of dying out. Organisational configuration Many of the innovation processes studied here have been detained by inflexible department borders. These were difficult to cross for individuals to find the partners with the right expertise needed to further develop an innovative idea. These inflexible borders within the organisation made it difficult to overview and understand the whole process of product development and implementation, so that it was difficult for the individual to consider in her idea all aspects that would affect and be affected by her innovation. The often named not invented here syndrome would prevent the necessary support from other departments. Also the strong centralisation (nearly all important decisions would be made in the headquarters in Germany) made it difficult to obtain the financial and personnel resources to further develop an new project on the level of the individual business unit. Nearly all innovations studied did never cross the national border. Said one interview partner in the USA when asked whether process improvements would be reported e.g. to Germany, where the same products were produced and the same processes were used: Before you asked, I never thought about that. If there is no possibility for employees to get insights into other departments or to travel to other sites chances that the combination of different insights leads to a innovation are low. Individual innovation will only be concerned with ones own workplace and often be prevented in the very first stages of the innovation process or left to chance. Leadership The interviews show the responsibility of direct supervisors and their style of management for the development of change and innovation. Many innovative ideas fail in early stages of the innovation process because of the lack of support from supervisors. Motivation: Management is measured against the fulfilment of the daily tasks, the number and quality of innovations is not part of the managers evaluation. So there are no incentives to support innovation. Some supervisors would explicitly advise their subordinates not to hand in suggestions for improvement, because this was believed to interfere with daily business and could be understood as a critique against management. Personality: The fear of extra work and envy at the success of subordinates were factors named by interview partners and even supervisors. Some innovation processes have been stopped by short term oriented supervisors (and were later implemented by competitors). Reasons for this could be missing entrepreneurial or strategic spirit, but also the daily operative workload or firefighting.

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 22

Leadership style and communication: A very effective barrier to stop employees motivation to innovation is directly communicating the disapproval of individual innovation: Suggestions only cost money. The lack of support of innovation programmes and the missing communication even of their existence were identified as innovation barriers by interview partners. Corporate strategy An interesting difference between the cases from Germany and those from the US was the impact of different strategies. While in the Germany the company was by far the largest player and followed a differentiation strategy, the US-American subsidiary tried to gain market share by a price leader strategy. For the US this meant that rationalising and cost saving were important. Said one interview partner: We are a follower, not a first mover and another one: We are taking a lot of risk by not making decisions, but we are not willing to take risk by making a decision and moving forward with it. This policy clearly affected the willingness of all members of the organisation to work on long term oriented product innovations. Process innovations would find more acceptance but only if there was proof that there would be immediate cost savings. Incentive systems The question whether innovators can be motivated extrinsically or just are intrinsically motivated has been discussed in many studies. 88 We found that in the beginning external incentives are not important at all. But, a differentiation needs to be made here. Lack of financial incentives never was a barrier, it even never was the reason to become innovative. But if there is no encouragement and approval for the innovator, in the long run the willingness to innovate for the good of the company is likely to disappear. For some individuals extrinsic motivation played a role in later stages in the process of innovation. The reasons for this are to be discussed further down. For our study we found that financial extrinsic motivation does not play an important role and its non-existence is not a barrier to individual innovation. Products and product technology The company studied mainly produces very complex telecommunication products. This makes it difficult for the individual employee to oversee the functionality, development and production of the product. Experiences from private life are also difficult to apply since the product is not used by individual households. This makes it difficult to develop new ideas for the product. Resource needs, the time frame for product development and the expertise needed to develop a new product would exceed the capabilities of an individual in the organisation. At least such products and complex product and production technologies would be perceived by the individual as being barriers to innovation.
88

Baer, M. et al. (2003) p. 570 f. show differing research results about the usefulness of extrinsic rewards

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 23

Corporate culture All the organisational factors discussed here affect the organisational culture. Group think within departments deepens the ditches between departments and complicates networking by the individual innovators. Micro-political power games and personal jealousy were also found to hinder partner networking. Also, once a partner is found, quite often these partners fear to take part in a project which is not approved as being an official company project. All in all, the corporation studied does support innovation through highly formalised programmes but the corporate culture does not reflect a orientation towards innovation. This impedes individual motivation, support from superiors and networking.

4.1.2

Individual barriers

Expertise Seldom a single member of the organisation holds all the expertise necessary to work out and implement an innovative idea. Barriers concerning expertise are: lacking extensive knowledge about the product, missing business administration expertise to develop a persuading business plan and missing knowledge of market needs and customers demands. Intelligence and creativity Although literature often avoids this factor and none of our interview partners mentioned this barrier in her own innovation process, the majority of the interviewees had the opinion that not every member of the organisation was capable of finding new combinations and solutions and to become an innovator. Motivation Frustration: The most important barrier in our study stems from negative experiences with the formal innovation programs. The opposition from superiors towards employee innovation, long feedback cycles once an idea or concept was handed into the review process and turned down without sound reasoning. Intrapreneurial spirit: Some individuals have little interest in putting forward their ideas in building coalitions and implementing the ideas themselves. These, often very creative, employees see the main challenge in inventing innovative solutions or radical new ideas, but loose interest as soon as the innovation needs implementation management and creative work is less important. These inventors believe that their job was done in having the idea and that it should be the task of the organisation to see its potential and implement it. This belief often leads to the termination of the idea, since it was difficult for the organisation to implement the idea, because there was no prototype or business plan and no one who would then take the ownership of the project.

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 24

Job commitment and personality: For some members of the organisation their daily job is just a way to earn money for their real interest which they may live in their spare time. These individuals might start a innovation process but end it already in then first stage. Reasons for this lack of motivation can be the job itself and organisational factors, but also characteristics of the individual. Some interviewees reported that their ideas never made it to implementation, because they didnt have enough staying power in trying to get partners and other resources or just didnt want to further push their idea as the first barriers occurred. Social Skills Inventors are typically creative in generating ideas, but quite often lack of communication skills stops some of them when it comes to coalition building to obtain necessary resources and to selling the project to management. Once the stage of coalition building and team work is reached, even more skills are needed. Since the innovation is often developed in addition to the daily tasks and the risk to fail is quite high, the innovator needs leadershipand motivation skills.

4.1.3

Positive barriers

After summarising the barriers to individual innovation which were to be found in the innovation processes studied and which were all found to be capable of terminating useful innovations, this paragraph is to present the barriers which were believed to be useful barriers within the organisation to focus on promising innovations rather than to support any idea. One example from an employee suggestion system in the company studied was the proposal of one employee to put more holes into the saltcellars in the cafeteria, which would save time at the lunch table. The time savings, as she calculated, would be in correspondence of some million Euro. This innovation was believed not be really useful and was stopped by a positive barrier. One positive barrier identified can be the demand, that the innovator has to hand in a detailed suggestion in case of process innovations or a business plan which shows the fulfilment of profit-, sales- and strategic fit criteria in case of product innovations. Also, the need to first discuss the idea with the direct superior, is planned as a positive barrier in many modern employee suggestion systems. These barriers were described by many interviewees as useful. But on the other side for very innovative ideas positive barriers might well by hindering. Thus positive barriers should not be planned in earlier stages of the process of individual innovation.

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 25

The analysis of the barriers identified gave important insights into the critical factors which hinder the successful course of the innovation process. It has been shown that most of the barriers discussed have also been content of earlier studies on the success factors of innovation. We have beyond that deepened the understanding which of these success factors have to be understood as especially critical because handling these factors does not only support individual innovation, but to ignore these factors will likely prevent individual innovation. The description of the barriers found gives a first idea where in the process of innovation these barriers are most likely to occur. The following paragraph will deal with the assignment of the barriers to innovation to the innovation process developed and verified above.

4.2

Stage assignments of the barriers to individual innovation

Table 2 gives an overview on where the barriers to individual innovation were identified within the process of innovation. It is to be noticed that it was not possible to assign all barriers. Table 2 just shows the ones where the interviews allow for a clear assignment.

4.2.1

Meta structure of the process of individual innovation

The analysis of the barriers shown in table 2 does not allow the conclusion that these barriers can exclusively assigned to specific and single stages of the innovation process. But if the stages identified are summarised into three main stages, a pattern can be shown. In including the different levels of innovation the three stages shall be called individual invention, partner involvement and organisational implementation. In the stages of problem recognition, search for information and idea generation the innovator usually works on the innovation on his own. In the next main stage the support of others is needed, coalition- and team building and tests and evaluation are tasks that fall into this main stage. Somewhere in the stages of selling the innovation to decision makers and decision and organisational implementation the innovation is usually taken over by the organisation and thus moves to the organisational level. Later stages, e.g. further diffusion on the macro level are not part of this studies and have been neglected in this paper.

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 26

Need/ Problem recognition

Internal and external search for information

Idea generation

Coalition- and team building

Test and evaluation

Positive barriers Organisational barriers

Formalisation and configuration

Superior as filter

Business-Plan and persuasion of decision makers Profit- and strat. fit, quality guidelines

Decision and organisational implementation Rules about company secrets

High submission Functional and regional borders, criteria communication channels

formalism, no Functional resource power barriers, communication channels, no resource power

formalism, no contact between innovator and decision maker, no possibility to hand in suggestions

Functional and regional borders, strong centralisation, formalism, inventor not involved in implementation, nor resource power Risk adversity, short term orientation

Strategy Leadership aspects Communicating disapproval of innovation

Short term orientation Communicating disapproval of innovation, refusal of resource allocation Disqualifikation criteria Department thinking, importance of ones own initiative Complexity Complexity Communicating disapproval of innovation, refusal of resource allocation

Delaying the lack of entrepreneurial spirit, forwarding of refusal of resource allocation suggestions, lack of entrepreneurial spirit

Incentive systems Corporate culture

Disqualifikation criteria

Intrinsic reinforcement Resistance from other departments

Product and technology

Complexity

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 27

Individual barriers
Need/ Problem recognition Knowledge of other areas, professional knowledge Awarness Internal and external search for information Knowledge of other areas, professional knowledge Idea generation Coalition- and team building Knowledge of other areas Test and evaluation professional knowledge Business-Plan and persuasion of decision makers Business plan Decision and organisational implementation

Expertise

professional knowledge

Intelligence and creativity Motivation

Commitment towards job

Frustration

Frustration

Staying power, missing interest in implementation Communicationand social skills Indolence Communication skills

Social skills

Table 2: Assignment of the barriers to individual innovation to the stages of the process of individual innovation

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 28

Main stage I: Individual invention On the part of organisational barriers above all there are two relevant factors in this stage of the innovation: Firstly, the communication that individual innovation is unwelcome, which often is revealed in the extensive use of criteria for the submission of suggestions, denial of resources by very formalised ruling and leadership style by superiors. The second organisational barrier is the existence of strict borders between departments, business units and national subsidiaries and the lack of vertical communication channels to bridge those borders. On the individuals side firstly a lack of creativity and expertise, the latter also being influenced by the complexity of products and product- and production technology and secondly frustration about how the organisation handles individual innovation are main barriers.

Main stage II: Partner involvement Whereas non existent communication channels between departments make it difficult to get insight into other professional areas in the beginning of the innovation process, in the stage of partner involvement these department borders make difficult the identification and accessibility of the right professional-, power- and resource partners to further develop the innovative idea. After the need for creativity in the first main stage of the innovation, here the innovator needs to become the manager of her idea. Here, the most important barriers to individual innovation are the lack of communication- and social skills.

Main stage III: Organisational implementation Without communication skills or partners equipped with these skills convincing decision makers to allow the innovation to be implemented is impossible. Also, on the side of the organisation, if there are no forms of coordinating the transition of an innovation from the individual or group level to the official, organisational level, the innovation is likely never to be implemented. In this main stage submission criteria, the guideline to develop a sound business plan and the test for a strategic fit are positive barriers, because they force the innovator to thoroughly develop the idea to a project and not just hand in a crude idea to the organisation. Across all stages we find that work overload and daily firefighting and the leadership behaviour of superiors are important barriers to individual innovation.

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 29

The analysis shows that at the beginning of the innovation process organisational barriers only play a minor role. In the early stages individual factors are by far more important. Then, the more advanced the process is, the more important organisational factors are.

5. Discussion
The goal of this paper was to gain a better understanding of the barriers to individual innovation and to find where in the process of innovation these barriers are most likely to occur. The analysis of the barriers within the process of innovation has been based on the review of the literature from innovation management, creativity and intrapreneurship and has been extended by an empirical examination of 14 individual innovation processes in a large MNC. The results show the relevance of the barriers to individual innovation. Only if the existence and likeliness of specific barriers is known, the corporation is able to handle these barriers in the innovation process. The results of our study show that there is no need to develop another stage process of individual innovation, but the combination of existing research gives a good insight into this process. Also, our study does not contradict the results of earlier publications on barriers within the process of individual innovation89, but calls for a more differentiated and thorough analysis of these barriers. We have found similar barriers like the authors discussed above, but have included both the individual and the organisational level and have added a dynamic view to the existing literature. We have shown that an allocation of barriers to specific stages in the process is difficult, but can be shown rather clearly if the innovation process is described in more general, main stages. We found that organisational barriers are more likely to occur in later stages of the process of individual innovation while they do not play a very important role in the beginning of the process.90 This does not mean that organisational support should be neglected to foster idea generation in the corporation, but it surely shows that excessive support will not necessarily help to generate more useful innovations. We have also discussed to question of positive barriers in the innovation process and found them to be helpful only in later stages of the process. The paper shows the importance of the management of the innovation process at the interfaces between the individual, the group and the organisation. This is consistent with many authors proposal who include individual variables and organisational variables in studying the process of innovation (see above).

89

e.g. Zaltman et al. and others (see above) This is consistent with the findings of Clegg, Ch. et al. (2002) and Axtell C.M. et al. (2000) that individual variables predict idea suggestion while organisational variables predict idea implementation.
90

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 30

The empirical instrument used in this study, the guided, semi-structured interview, does not allow for a valid analysis of the interdependence between the different factors and barriers found. Although we can assume that organisational factors have an influence on individual barriers and that some barriers are not independent on each other, we can neither propose a model of these interdependencies nor propose a order or priority of the importance of the barriers identified. Based on the results of this study, this should be done in a quantitative study. Another limitation of the study might be the transferability of its results. We have only studied innovation projects in one large corporation. We found no differences between two countries which could be interpreted as if culture has no or only little influence on the barriers to individual innovation. But there remains the possibility that corporate culture in our case is stronger than national culture and differences might occur in studying more than one organisation. Since the cooperation between the different national subsidiaries is not that strong in the organisation studied and since the two departments have set up quite different programmes to foster individual innovation we would rather assume that intercultural influence on the process and barriers discussed is low. The differences between the innovation management in the two subsidiaries also let us suggest that the results of the study can also be applied to other large corporations. Since we have foremost interviewed employees who have attempted to innovate in some way, there is the possibility that our results might somewhat be biased, especially in the very first stages of the innovation. We have therefore interviewed two employees who have never handed in a suggestion or another innovative idea. These interviews have not brought any new and additional insights into the understanding of the barriers to innovation, but there is still a possibility that interviewing more non-innovating people would have provided us with more barriers, maybe like the more personal ones Williams described (see 2.4). Our study shows that even in large organization individual innovation is possible. It also shows that there are several barriers the innovating individual has to expect. Not all of these barriers are negative for the organisations innovative power, but it is the corporations task to understand that each individual in the company can be a source of innovation and that barriers to individual innovation have to removed to use this innovative potential hidden in the organisation.

Barriers to innovation in the process of innovation, p. 31

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