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Enabling radical and potentially disruptive innovations through interdisciplinarity: challenges and practices in industrial companies.

Authors :
Schimpf, Sven
Weber, Hanno
Gerlach, Thomas
Source :
Journal of Innovation & Entrepreneurship; 7/24/2024, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p1-15, 15p
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

The motivation behind this paper and the underlying research is to shed light on how companies deal with interdisciplinary innovation activities, especially looking at the development of radical and potentially disruptive innovations. This includes the analysis of methods, processes, and organizational structures applied to support interdisciplinary innovation activities as well as challenges faced. Whereas this thematic field has been widely investigated for academic institutions and, in companies on a team level, there is only a little information on industrial companies' current state. This understanding is especially important as shortening development cycles, and technological convergence combined with intersectoral innovations might lead to increases in radical and potentially disruptive innovations and thereby create the need for improved methods and structures throughout the innovation process. To gain insights into challenges and current practices of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, semi-structured exploratory interviews were carried out with representatives from seven industrial companies. Among others, the results of the study revealed that whereas many methodologies are said to support interdisciplinary innovation activities, a wide majority of these methodologies are applied for other reasons which make supporting interdisciplinarity seem like a kind of byproduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
21925372
Volume :
13
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Journal of Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
178622870
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13731-024-00402-7