Article: Best HR practices for today's

innovation management. (The Human Side).

(human resources management)
Article from:
Research-Technology Management
Article date:
January 1, 2002
Author:
James, William M.

In the past decade, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in the focus of industrial
R&D strategies. The 1980s and early '90s were characterized by an almost
obsessive focus on quality programs and continuous improvement, the direct result
of the successful Japanese quality and product proliferation movement. The Asian
industrial juggernaut turned out incrementally improved products at reduced cycle
times that gave pause to every industrial firm in the United States that viewed itself
as an innovation leader.

This trend gave way to the reengineering trend in the U.S., the product of the early
1990s economic downturn. Reengineering became synonymous with downsizing,
and with it came a real decline in the nation's R&D effort. This transition phase
evolved into the "irrational exuberance" of the late 1990s in which R&D
expenditures grew at a double-digit pace, and the focus shifted to radical or
breakthrough innovation.

The effect of these trends has been a dramatic transition from bottom-line financial
improvements to top-line growth, and with it the need to think more boldly about
managing more significant innovative advances. The "dot-com" revolution rose
and fell dramatically during the late '90s and with it came a rebirth of the
technology "rainmaker" or, in the new vernacular, the "knowledge athletes." These
technical specialists became revered as the backbone and spirit of new technology
enterprises whose goal was to replace older, less innovative companies or create
entirely new businesses. The maturing of commercializable technologies in
biotechnology, information technology and e-commerce has made heroes of these
new technologists.
Continuous improvement, followed by downsizing, then radical innovation and,
finally, the dot-com boom--to--bust: an almost schizophrenic series of changes in
the brief period of a decade! Consequently, at the operating level, research
managers should be asking if their human resource policies and practices are
robust enough to keep pace with these shifts in strategic emphasis. Or, are the old
shibboleths regarding the motivation of knowledge workers (e.g., the importance
of feedback) adequate for the challenge of the future?

I propose that human resources (HR) practices firmly grounded in a few basic
principles that have weathered a broad range of business environments continue to
provide the foundation for good personnel practices. But clearly, a firm
understanding of the demands of breakthrough innovation must be integrated into
an organization's policies, since every organization will be faced with the challenge
of utilizing a broader range of new technologies just to survive.

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