Innovation Management along the Life-Cycle Stages of a Company

Innovation management looks different in a start-up company than it does in a large, multi-national enterprise. This book analyzes the evolution of innovation management throughout the life-cycle of companies. Five life-cycle stages ¿ existence, survival, success, renewal and decline ¿ are studied for their implications to the elements of the innovation value chain: idea generation, conversion and diffusion. While some features are of importance in any stage, such as a corporate culture that supports creativity, risktaking and entrepreneurial behavior, as well as the need for absorptive capacity to takein external knowledge, some features are specific to certain stages. A start-up needs innovations that help commercialize the initial product for market-entry and has to shelf other ideas for later, creating the need for an idea repository. Growing companies have to develop innovation strategies and foresight policies, as well as processes to govern new product development (NPD), e.g. by introducing Stage-Gate processes.