Developing a dominant logic of strategic innovation

Abstract

This paper aims to lay the foundations to develop a dominant logic and a common thematic framework of strategic innovation, and to encourage consensus over the field’s core foundation of main themes. We explore the intersection between the constituent fields of strategic management and innovation management through a concept mapping process. We categorize the main themes and search for common ground in order to develop the core thematic framework of strategic innovation. We look at the sub themes of strategic innovation in published research and develop a more detailed framework. The conceptual categories derived from the process are then placed in a logical sequence according to how they occur in practice or in the order of how the concepts develop from one other. The results yield seven main themes that form the main taxonomy of strategic innovation: types of strategic innovation, environmental analysis of strategic innovation, strategic innovation planning, enabling strategic innovation, collaborative networks, managing knowledge, and strategic outcomes. The new thematic framework we are proposing for strategic innovation remains preliminary in nature and would need to be tried and tested by researchers and practitioners in order to gain acceptability. Academic rigor and methodological structure are not sufficient to determine whether our conceptual framework will become widely diffused in academia and industry. It would have to pass through an emergent, evolutionary process of selection, adoption and an inevitable degree of change and adaptation, just like any other innovation. The practical implications concern the production of instructive material and the application of strategic management initiatives in industry. The proposed themes and sub themes can serve as a logical framework to develop and update publications, which have been instrumental in their own right to shape the field. The paper also provides a checklist of potential research projects in strategic innovation, which will improve and strengthen the field. The new framework provides a comprehensive checklist of strategic management initiatives that will help industry to initiate, plan and execute effective innovation strategies.