Gearing up for innovation; How can a large organization facilitate knowledge transfer within the organization in order to learn from innovation?

Abstract

Background and Problem: The world is changing, and it’s changing faster than it has ever done before. The Schumpeterian waves of creative destruction that companies were once able to ride on for decades are increasing in both frequency and ferocity, and just like the waves erodes the shoreline, the waves of creative destruction erode the profit of companies not able to cope with the changes (The Economist, 2009). In this changing world, an organization’s ability to innovate has been suggested as crucial in order to stay successful (Hult, Hurley, & Knight, 2004). Unfortunately for organizations, not enough is known about the actual process of innovation, and innovation has for a long time been viewed as a “black box” (Kline & Rosenberg, 1986). In recent years, however, innovation has increasingly been seen as an iterative learning process, where organizations strive to acquire knowledge user throughout the whole innovation process (Blank, 2011; Christensen & Raynor, 20003; Ries, 2011; Kim & Mauborgne, 2005; Trott, 2012). Thus, innovation becomes a process of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is an interesting asset, as it can hardly ever be possessed. Knowledge at an individual level can easily be forgotten, not only because of the limitations of the human memory, but also as individuals tend to change workplace over the course of their professional career (Easterby-Smith & Lyles, 2003). Thus, it is vital for companies who wants to remain successful to nurture and retain knowledge, and transfer knowledge from the single individual to the organization. This process is called organizational learning (Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Murray & Donegan, 2003; Popova-Novak & Cseh, 2015). In fact, Geus (1988) argues that an organization’s only competitive advantage will be its ability to learn faster than its competitors. However, despite the potential upside of having a learning organization and the importance of innovation, there is little research done on how organizations actually strive to transfer knowledge within the organization in order to learn from innovation. Purpose: This research is an explorative study of CellMark AB, a company that has recently made great efforts to become more innovative, making it an interesting object to research in order to increase the understanding how a large organization facilitates knowledge transfer within the organization in order to learn from innovation. Method: This research has adopted an interpretivistic approach to conducting research. As the research pertains to a social phenomenon, a qualitative research method was used in both the empirical data collection and the data analysis. The research is designed as an explorative single case study at CellMark AB, and the level of analysis is supra-individual as it adheres to the constructivist paradigm. The empirical data has been collected through six semi-structured interviews conducted with six respondents working for CellMark AB. Results and Conclusion: The research points to the usage of teams and cultural alignment as two ways that large organizations facilitate knowledge transfer within the organization in order to learn from innovation. Teams can be perceived as engines of learning, as they provide a forum for knowledge transfer and are more easily managed than complex organizations. Team members can on their part perceived as ambassadors for innovation, and can be seen as a link between members of the organization and innovation. However, without a culture that promotes learning, the knowledge gained by teams will not trickle down (or up) in the organization. Thus, large organizations can attempt to create a learning culture through, for example, formal statements of organizational philosophy, which aligns the culture towards teams and learning. By aligning the culture of the organization towards teams and learning through formal statements of organizational philosophy, there is an over-arching force that pulls the rest of the organization towards the teams, who are working with innovation. The system at play to learn from innovation can be described as a push-pull mechanism. From the team perspective, the teams push knowledge gained from innovation to the organization through communication and interaction. The pull is created through a culture that emphasizes learning and engagement, created through formal statements of organizational philosophy, which encourages the flow of knowledge and learning. Plausibly, underlying factor of the pull mechanism, namely the cultural alignment that encourages learning and engagement, is also prevalent in the pull mechanism in the form of a culture that emphasizes communication and interaction. Consequently, by reinforcing the teams push capabilities and the organizations absorbent pull capability, large organizations can facilitate knowledge transfer in order to learn from innovation.