MANAGEMENT INNOVATION: A JOURNEY INTO THE CORE OF RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT

Abstract

As innovation is considered central to firms’ competitive advantage, innovation research has become a cornerstone of strategic management inquiry. However, the vast majority of research attention is dedicated to understanding how firms can stimulate technological innovation. An emerging (or rather resurrecting) research trend espouses the benefits of management innovation. Management innovation refers to the introduction of management practices, processes and structures that are intended to further organizational goals (Birkinshaw, Hamel and Mol, 2008). The emergent dialogue consists of conceptual work (e.g., Birkinshaw et al., 2008), historical outlines of various management innovations (e.g., Mol and Birkinshaw, 2007) and empirical studies (e.g., Damanpour, Walker and Avellaneda, 2009; Vaccaro, Jansen, Van Den Bosch, and Volberda, 2010).