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Article: Best HR practices for today's

innovation management. (The Human

Side).(human resources management)Article from:

Research-Technology Management

Article date:

January 1, 2002

Author:

James, William M.

In the past decade, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in the focus of industrialR&D strategies. The 1980s and early '90s were characterized by an almost

obsessive focus on quality programs and continuous improvement, the direct result

of the successful Japanese quality and product proliferation movement. The Asian

industrial juggernaut turned out incrementally improved products at reduced cycle

times that gave pause to every industrial firm in the United States that viewed itself

as an innovation leader.

This trend gave way to the reengineering trend in the U.S., the product of the early

1990s economic downturn. Reengineering became synonymous with downsizing,

and with it came a real decline in the nation's R&D effort. This transition phase

evolved into the "irrational exuberance" of the late 1990s in which R&D

expenditures grew at a double-digit pace, and the focus shifted to radical or

breakthrough innovation.

The effect of these trends has been a dramatic transition from bottom-line financial

improvements to top-line growth, and with it the need to think more boldly about

managing more significant innovative advances. The "dot-com" revolution rose

and fell dramatically during the late '90s and with it came a rebirth of the

technology "rainmaker" or, in the new vernacular, the "knowledge athletes." Thesetechnical specialists became revered as the backbone and spirit of new technology

enterprises whose goal was to replace older, less innovative companies or create

entirely new businesses. The maturing of commercializable technologies in

biotechnology, information technology and e-commerce has made heroes of these

new technologists.

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Continuous improvement, followed by downsizing, then radical innovation and,

finally, the dot-com boom--to--bust: an almost schizophrenic series of changes in

the brief period of a decade! Consequently, at the operating level, research

managers should be asking if their human resource policies and practices are

robust enough to keep pace with these shifts in strategic emphasis. Or, are the old

shibboleths regarding the motivation of knowledge workers (e.g., the importance

of feedback) adequate for the challenge of the future?

I propose that human resources (HR) practices firmly grounded in a few basic

principles that have weathered a broad range of business environments continue to

provide the foundation for good personnel practices. But clearly, a firm

understanding of the demands of breakthrough innovation must be integrated into

an organization's policies, since every organization will be faced with the challenge

of utilizing a broader range of new technologies just to survive.

Defining Innovation and its Cycle

Simply getting agreement on a common definition of innovation