A model for innovation leadership in South African companies

Abstract

The problem: Ideally, the underpinning principles and processes that innovation leaders practise in South African companies are well-established. In reality, however, the extent to which principles and processes are known and adapted to innovation leadership in the South African means and social context was found to be limited. Without this locally developed understanding, the processes and underpinning principles for leading innovation remains a “black box”, perpetuating innovation leaders’ struggle to advocate and execute innovation initiatives. The method: Guided by the means and social context concepts identified by previous academic studies, this research questioned how successful innovation leaders in existing South African companies use the means of technology, market requirements and external resources. How these above means were integrated through processes of learning by experimentation from within their company’s social context. How from within the company’s social context the innovation leaders organised and planned innovation activities, selected and managed innovation team members, and maintained a positive working relationship between ongoing operations and innovation activities. These concepts informed the development of a conceptual framework and questions that were used to gather primary data during semi-structured interviews with South African innovation leaders using a multiple case study method. For this purpose, successfully commercialised innovations were identified, and the innovation leaders directly involved in these projects were interviewed to gather the primary data. The findings: The research explains how South African innovation leaders were able to integrate their means and social contexts, cognitive abilities and supportive behaviour of their company to successfully develop innovation projects. The resulting model for innovation leadership in South Africa modified the existing First World model by describing and expanding the underpinning principles and internal/external learning processes that innovation leaders used to successfully commercialise innovations in the South African emerging socio-economic context. Key terms: Innovation leader, innovation leadership model, innovation execution principles, organisational structure for innovation, planning for innovation, innovation team, innovation experiments, positive relationship between ongoing operations and innovation initiatives, internal and external processes for innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, technology, market requirements and external resource networks.