Where to find innovative ideas: interdependence-building mechanisms and boundary-spanning exploration

ABSTRACT

The primary issue in innovation is not lack of ideas. Organisations abound with them inside and out. The challenge is to understand how firms can systematically and consistently recognise and exploit new knowledge. This paper, in the context of boundary-spanning exploration, suggests a theoretical framework to describe how organisations recognise opportunities and exploit knowledge to foster innovation. Specifically, we suggest that successful internal and external boundary-spanning must overcome the intended or unintended indifference to internal or external ideas that result from the strong pull of local search. We propose that crossing organisational and technological boundaries to achieve explorative innovations requires different types of interdependence-building mechanisms. We also suggest that promoting both types of boundary-spanning can eventually lead to radical exploration.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovation
• boundary-spanning
• interdependence
• radical exploration
• knowledge governance

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2011 Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference, where we received many helpful suggestions from conference participants. We are particularly grateful to Joe Mahoney and Hart Posen for their constructive comments. We also thank Pam Barr and Douglas Miller for their useful comments on the earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is (partially) supported by BK21PLUS Research Fund for Korea University Business School.