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8 - Innovation, Technology and Knowledge Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Danny Samson  and
Prakash J. Singh
By
Paul Hyland  and
Claudine Soosay
Danny Samson
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Prakash J. Singh
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Paul Hyland
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Claudine Soosay
Affiliation:
University of South Australia
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Summary

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter you should be able to:

  • explain the meaning of innovation, in all the forms, states and rates that it takes place

  • explain why innovation is important to an organisation's performance

  • explain how innovation can be effectively managed

  • understand the issues involved in managing technology in organisations

  • understand how knowledge can be formally managed in organisations

  • explain how concepts of innovation, technology and knowledge are related.

Box 8.1: Management challenge: hybrid energy drive technology

Consider the example of Toyota and General Motors and the development of the hybrid energy drive technology for powering automobiles and improving fuel efficiency. In the mid to late 1990s, Toyota and General Motors were both investigating such technology and were about at the same early stage of development. Toyota redoubled its efforts into this radical innovation, while General Motors abandoned it for a number of reasons. The rest is history. Toyota invested over $1 billion in the technology. It used it first in the Prius and has now migrated this successful fuel efficient system into many of its other vehicles, from Lexus models to larger passenger vans. It is commercially producing this technology in Japan and more recently has been migrating it into the USA factories, in other words, scaling up the new technology and having it ‘main-streamed’. In contrast, General Motors has no equivalent technology and is lumbering towards a different technology, and it has certainly lost any potential for many years to come to be a technological leader in this field. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Operations Management
An Integrated Approach
 , pp. 225 - 250
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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References

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