Managing Innovation

(838N1)

Date: 20/08/2018

Number: 180039

Date: 20/08/2018
Q1. Explain the four characteristics of a Blue Ocean Strategy, and how
innovation can contribute to each.

The Blue Sea market is a type of market. It represents the industries that do not exist
today, which is the unknown market space. The definition of blue ocean is the
untapped market space, demand creation and opportunities for high profit
growth.(Kim & Mauborgne, 2004) Although some blue sea markets far exceed
existing industrial boundaries, most are created in the Red Sea by expanding existing
industrial boundaries. Competition is not important in the blue ocean, and companies
need to go beyond it because the rules are not set. (Kim & Mauborgne, 2004). The
term “Blue Ocean” is an analogous description of the broader market potential that is
broad, deep, and unexplored. Successful navigation through the competitors in the
Red Sea will always be very important. When supply far exceeds the demand of the
industry, the share of the contract market, if necessary, will not be sufficient to
maintain high performance, competition will become more intense and profits will
decline. At that time, the company needed to surpass the competition in the existing
industry. Therefore, in order to capture and capture new profits and increase
opportunities, they also need to create a blue sea. Capture and Create new needs, not
fight for existing customers and markets (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). The blue ocean
has nothing to do with technological innovation. Advanced technology sometimes
involves in blue seas creating, but this is not the decisive feature. Even in a
technology intensive industry. The blue ocean itself is rarely the result of
technological innovation; the underlying technology often exists. Incumbents often
create blue oceans - usually in their core business. Create a blue ocean to create a
brand. The Blue Ocean strategy is so powerful that Blue Ocean Strategic Action can
create brand equity that lasts for decades. Almost all companies listed in the
exhibition are as much in people's memory as the blue ocean they created a long time
ago. Breaking the traditional value/cost trade-off: integrating the entire corporate
activity system, pursuing differentiation and low cost(Kim & Mauborgne, 2005). The
most important characteristic of Blue Sea strategy is that it overthrows the basic
principle of traditional strategy: there is a trade-off between products’ value and their
cost. Enterprises can use higher original costs to create greater value for customers,
but also can create reasonable value by lower costs. In other words, the strategy is
essentially a distinction between high cost and low cost choices. But when it comes to
creating a blue ocean, there is evidence that successful companies pursue
differentiation, and their costs are low. By reducing costs and increasing the value of
buyers, companies can achieve a leap in their own value. The whole system approach
makes the blue ocean a sustainable strategy. The blue ocean strategy integrates the
functions and business activities of the company. Refusing to compromise between
low cost and differentiation means a fundamental change in strategic thinking - we
cannot emphasize the fundamental principles of change. The establishment of blue
ocean strategy is based on a worldview, market boundaries and industries can be
established through the actions and beliefs of industry participants.

Q2. What are the differences between organizational climate and culture, and
why are these relevant to managing innovation?

Organizational climate and cultural differences are the main points of the first part.

The first point is risk taking for organizational climate and cultural differences. Stand
for uncertainty and ambiguity is a risk. In a high-risk environment, bold new
initiatives can be chosen even if the outcome is uncharted. If the risk is too low, the
staffs have hardly come up with any new ideas or ideas, and these ideas go far beyond
safe or ordinary ideas (Tidd & Pavitt, 2005). In risk-averse organizations, people
complain about inefficient, boring day-to-day work and are troubled by a long and
tedious process. If the risk is too great, you will find people confused. Too many ideas
have been put forward, but few have agreed to reach a consensus. There are many
lonely people who do their own things in the organization without the willingness to
cooperate. These situations may occur because individuals feel that they do not need
to be supported or supported in the department or team of the organization. In view of
this situation, remedies may include the establishment and improvement of incentive
mechanisms to encourage cooperation to replace individualism or competition.
Personal characteristics and organizational climate can affect people's perception of
the risks and tendencies of avoiding, accepting or seeking risks. The second point is
the impact of freedom on organizational climate and cultural differentiation.

The second point is the impact of freedom on organizational climate and cultural
differentiation. Freedom is described as the independence of people's behaviour in the
organization (Ahmed & Shepherd, 2010). In an atmosphere full of freedom, people
can define most of their work autonomously. People often exercise discretion in
normal life. Employees are enthusiastically sharing and getting information about
their regular work, then making plans and making final decisions based on the
information. If the employee works in a less free environment, the employee will
work under strict guidance. What happens at the same time is that employees work in
the prescribed way and they do not have the time and space to define their new tasks.
At the same time, the lack of a free working environment can also have a negative
impact, such as employees do not comment on new things, because the environment
limits their thinking. At the same time, employees will focus on the power of activity
because only in this way they can do all their work through the "book". The
willingness to lead to an unfree work environment is too dictatorial and bureaucratic.
He also has other effects, such as launching leadership enhancement programs. If
employees have too much freedom, they may be on the right track to accomplish their
tasks. Thirdly is point is the impact of conflict and debate on organizational climate
and cultural differentiation. Conflicts in organizations refer to the existence of
interpersonal, personal or emotional tensions (Hamel, 2006). Corporate conflicts are
inevitable, but they are negative for companies. For employees, conflicts may occur
during the completion of a task. The survey found that work conflicts are mainly
concentrated on work content and work goals. Employees are divided on
understanding what needs to be done and why. How to deal with conflicts has become
a problem faced by the general company. People can't define emotions because they
are emotional, which can also lead to anger when employees face conflicts. Task and
process conflicts are constructive in terms of common sense, helping to avoid
collective thinking and considering more different alternative strategies and
perspectives. However, task and process conflicts only produce in an atmosphere of
open and collaborative communication. Positive impact, otherwise it may lead to
relationship conflicts or avoidance. Relationship conflicts are often energy intensive
and destructive because emotional disagreements can cause anxiety and hostility. If
the level of conflict is too high, groups and individuals will dislike or hate each other,
and the climate will be characterized by “war”. You may observe water cooler chats,
information hoarding, open aggression, and there may be too many invalid people in
an overly hierarchical structure. It may be necessary to reorganize and identify leaders
who have the skills needed for the organization. In addition, there are some other
differences between organizational climate and culture, such as: Challenge &
involvement, Trust & openness, Idea time & support and Playfulness & humour (Tidd
& Pavitt, 2005).

Q3. Explain the factors which influence the adoption and diffusion of
innovations.

Compatibility refers to the extent to which innovation is perceived to be consistent

with the current practical experience, values and needs of potential adopters.
(Frambach, 1993). Compatibility is divided into two different aspects: practices and
skills that already exist at this stage; values and norms. Innovation is a potential
adopter of current skills, programs, equipment, and performance standards, and is
relatively easy to assess. However, adapting existing norms and values may be more
important than compatibility with existing practices. Innovation and adoption of
major organizational dislocations require innovation or organizational change, or both.
In the most successful implementation cases, innovation and organization are
compatible with each other. Innovation is critical to the level of potential skills,
equipment, procedures and performance standards of potential users.
Trialability is the degree to which innovation is achieved on a limited basis (Tidd and
Pavigt, 2005). Deceptive innovation shows that potential adopters are less uncertain
and allow learning while doing. Innovation that can be tried is often much faster than
innovation that cannot be carried out. Adopters want to benefit from innovative
functional outcomes, but avoid any dysfunctional effects. However, in situations
where it is difficult or impossible to separate expectations from undesirable results,
these three capabilities may reduce adoption. Innovative developers may have two
different motivations to activate potential users in the development process. First,
acquire knowledge from users in the development process to ensure instability and
appreciation. Secondly, in order to get the user's identity, the user accepts innovation
and works for it. The second motivation has nothing to do with the first motivation,
because improving user acceptance does not necessarily improve the quality of
innovation. These groups may have problems for a variety of reasons. First of all,
because they may have very high level of technical knowledge, they are not
representative. If developers and user representatives work together for a long time,
they may no longer represent users because they are too aware of the developer's
point of view. This leads to a simple relationship between user participation and user
satisfaction.

Observability refers to the extent to which others can see the results of innovation
(Tidd & Pavitt, 2005). The easier it is for others to see the benefits of innovation, the
more likely it is to adopt it. The simple popular model of communication assumes that
innovation spreads as potential adopters come into contact with existing users of
innovation. Innovative peers will have what communications researchers call
"security credibility," because potential adopters seeking their advice will believe they
know the true meaning of implementing and leveraging innovation. This allows early
adopters to spread alternative learning well to their colleagues. Alternative learning is
just learning the experience of others, not a direct personal experiment. However, the
learning process of Agent is neither necessary nor effective, because by definition it is
a decentralized activity. Innovation requires the development of complementary
features; for example, a specific infrastructure that will benefit future adopters. This
suggests that for different environments, there will be a series of diffusion curves
instead of a single diffusion curve. However, this model has potential drawbacks.
Short-term preference doping will have a disproportionate impact on the development
of subsequent technologies and abandoning innovation, and may lead to the
establishment of alternatives. In this case, an interventionist policy may be needed to
delay the n phenomenon. In addition, there are other factors which influence the
adoption and diffusion of innovations, such as: complexity, relative advantage.
Individual characteristics include education, age, attitude to risk and social status
(Frambach, 1993).

Q4. Discuss the difference between Delphi and Scenario methods, and identify in
which circumstances you might use each.

External expert sunder fined opinions, or Delphi methods, are useful when there is a
great deal of uncertainty or long-term vision (Tidd & Pavitt, 2005). Delphi is best
suited for making long-term predictions and discovering new technologies when
experts need to agree on time, the likelihood and determinants of future technology
goals or consumer needs, and the factors that may affect their realization. How
technology and other factors detonate by contact the discontinuity of the technological
trajectory, the selection of experts and the determination of the level and field of
expertise are important, and the structure of the problem is even more important.
Experts can include suppliers, distributors, customers, consultants and academics. It
can include specialists in the field of technology to ensure economic, social and
environmental fields. The trend should not be ignored.

Scenarios are internal consistent descriptions of possible alternatives to the future

based on different assumptions and interpretations of the driving forces of change.
Input includes evaluation of quantitative data and analysis, qualitative assumptions,
social, technological, economic, environmental and political driving forces. Scenario
development is not strictly predictive. Because the future is equivocal under its
hypothesis, the current direction of development can be both traditional and
revolutionary. It is particularly good at combining potentially key events that may
lead to different roads or embranchment. (Linstone & Turoff, 1975).
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