High Involvement Innovation : Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage through Continuous Change

At a time when the turbulent and uncertain environment demands more innovation than ever, most businesses only engage a small proportion of their staff in innovative activities.  Whilst they may have groups and individuals who are 'licensed to innovate' by virtue of their particular departmental badges (eg R&D, business development etc) they often ignore the contribution which the rest of the staff could make.  Innovation involves a lot of small incremental steps, as well as the occasional dramatic leap, and whilst experts are needed for the latter, many people contribute to incremental innovation.  High involvement innovation is concerned with the creation of an environment in which the workforce as a whole can contribute their creativity and experience to help build a culture of continuous innovation.