Managing Invention and Innovation

Abstract

OVERVIEW:2007 is Research-Technology Management's 50th year of publication. To mark the occasion, each issue will reprint one of RTM's six most frequently referenced articles. The articles were identified by N. Thongpapanl and Jonathan D. Linton in their 2004 study of technology innovation management journals, a citation-based study in which RTM ranked third out of 25 specialty journals in that field (see RTM May–June 2004, pp. 5–6). The article reprinted here was Number 1 on their list. Published in 1988 and updated now with its author's "reflections," the article surveyed what had been learned about the management of invention and innovation during the previous 50 years since the Industrial Research Institute's founding in 1938. Following a discussion of definitions of the invention and innovation process, it focused on three major dimensions of the process: staffing, structure and strategy. Taken together, their improved management was found to contribute critically to achieving successful institutionalized innovation.KEY CONCEPTS:: management of R&Dinventioninnovationstaffingstrategystructure