An Investigation of Contextual Influences on Innovation in Complex Projects

There is paucity of literature on supplier-enabled-innovation in complex project-contexts. Based on literature from repetitive-manufacturing-contexts, this conceptual chapter identifies innovation-fostering-practices and develops a conceptual-framework relating them to innovation-performance. The framework suggests that new knowledge is the basis of innovation and leveraging knowledge from the supply-network is a key element along with absorptive-capacity and R&D-investment in creating new knowledge. New knowledge, however, must be exploited to create innovative new products and successfully commercialized. Suppliers can play an important role in ensuring successful exploitation of new knowledge. We posit that innovation-fostering-practices mediate the exploitation of new knowledge into superior innovation-performance. Thus, the proposed conceptual-framework incorporates the exploration and exploitation-aspects of innovation. Since contextual-differences can play a major role in the efficacy of these innovation-practices, our conceptual-framework might not fit complex project-environments in its entirety. To better understand the contextual-influences in complex projects, we evaluate the applicability of theoretical arguments from repetitive-manufacturing literature and our conceptual-framework to complex project-environments. The chapter utilizes a qualitative study to carry out this assessment. The results, while pointing to the usefulness of our framework and the innovation-fostering-practices, highlight the influence of the contextual-factors in complex projects. We develop practically useful conclusions for leveraging the supply-base for enhancing innovation in complex projects.