Competence to Innovate?

Jussila, Jari

Suominen, Anu

Vanharanta, Hannu

AHFEI 2008, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 July 2008 2

Outline

• Introduction

• Definitions

• Innovation competence ontology

• Decision making based on ontology

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Introduction

• FLEXI (Flexible Integration in Global Product

Development) is an ITEA2 project lasting from April 2007

to December 2009.

• It aims to improve the competitiveness of the European

software intensive industry by providing a flexible, rapid

and agile approach to product development.

• The main contribution of FLEXI approach can be

expressed as “From idea to product in 6 months” when

applied on a company level.

• FLEXI consortium includes 39 organizations in 8

countries.

Source: www.flexi-itea2.org

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Definitions: Competence

• Competence is an ability to sustain the coordinated

deployment of assets in a way that helps a firm to

achieve its goals. (Sanchez, Heene & Thomas, 1996)

• Competence consists of four elements and their relations

– technology, people, organizational structure, and

organizational culture. (Djejer & Riis, 1999, 2000)

• Competencies represent the knowledge, skills, and

abilities that exist among and across employees and

groups of employees. (Ulrich, 1997)

• Our definition: knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes in

active use.

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Definitions: Innovation (distinctions)

• Invention is the creation of something new (new ideas),

whereas innovation is the transformation of an idea or

resources into useful application. (Holt, 1992)

• Creativity leads to new knowledge, whereas innovation is

new knowledge applied in practice. (cf. de Bono, 1990)

Innovation competence ontology (Jussila 2007)

Main class Competence class Competence

Personal Competence Self-awareness Accurate self-assessment

Self-confidence

Self-regulation Flexibility

Independence

Self-control

Stress tolerance

Motivation Achievement orientation

Change orientation

Initiative

Risk orientation

Expertise Absorptive capacity

Professional and technical expertise

Seeking information

Self-development

Creativity skills Analytical thinking

Conceptual thinking

Divergent thinking

Imagination

Intuitive thinking

Social Competence Empathy Conflict management

Understanding others

Leveraging diversity

Social skills Communication

Relationship building

Teamwork and collaboration

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Innovation competence ontology

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Decision making based on ontology:

Evaluation

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Decision making based on ontology:

Current state

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Decision making based on ontology:

Target state

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Decision making based on ontology:

Creative tension

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Sum of rankings Competence Sum of rankings Competence

251 Trustworthiness 217 Absorptive capacity

219,5 Independence 212 Intuitive thinking

214,5 Seeking information 211 Prof. and technical expertise

213,5 Responsibility 195 Self-confidence

204,5 Accurate self-assessment 193 Understanding others

179 Communication 183 Communication

176,5 Change orientation 181 Analytical thinking

170 Imagination 178 Accurate self-assessment

169,5 Analytical thinking 168 Flexibility

158,5 Achievement orientation 167 Self-development

151 Self-control 164 Self-control

143,5 Divergent thinking 160,5 Stress tolerance

143 Flexibility 160 Conceptual thinking

142 Self-development 144 Relationship building

138 Self-confidence 139 Initiative

133,5 Relationship building 118 Leveraging diversity

127,5 Conceptual thinking 112 Conflict management

122 Leveraging diversity 111,5 Seeking information

106,5 Understanding others 108,5 Change orientation

96,5 Intuitive thinking 107 Imagination

94 Initiative 101,5 Responsibility

93,5 Prof. and technical expertise 90 Teamwork and cooperation

90 Teamwork and cooperation 83 Achievement orientation

86 Conflict management 81,5 Trustworthiness

63 Absorptive capacity 79 Divergent thinking

51,5 Risk orientation 70,5 Independence

42 Stress tolerance 45 Risk orientation

Rankings of current state Rankings of creative tension

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Contact details

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Suominen, Anu

Tampere University of Technology/ Pori

E-mail: anu.suominen@tut.fi, Twitter: @asuominen

Vanharanta, Hannu

Tampere University of Technology/ Pori

E-mail: hannu.vanharanta@tut.fi

Jussila, Jari

Tampere University of Technology / Pori

E-mail: jari.j.jussila@tut.fi, Twitter: @jjussila

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References

• De Bono, E. 1990. Lateral thinking. A Textbook of Creativity. London, Penguin Books.

• Djejer, A., Riis, J.O. 1999. Competencies and competence development. Technovation, November.

• Djejer, A., Riis, J.O. 2000. Competence Strategy (in Danish), Borsens Forlag.

• Holt, D. 1992. Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Millson, M.R., Wilemon, D. (Eds). The strategy of managing innovation and technology. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.

• Jussila, J. 2007. Innovation Competence. Master’s Thesis. Tampere, Tampere University of Technology.

• Sanchez, R., Heene, A., Thomas, H. 1996. Dynamics of Competence-Based Competition. Oxford, Elsevier Pergamon.

• Ulrich, D. 1997. Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, Harvard Business School Press.

Related research

• Vanharanta, H., Suominen, A., Jussila, J., Kantola, J., & Karwowski, W. (2007). Constructs and

concepts in management decision making. In The 4th International Conference on New

Exploratory Technologies, October 25-27, 2007, Seoul, Korea.

• Jussila, J., Suominen, A., Vanharanta, H., Kantola, J. (2007) Building Innovation Culture. Creative

Futures Conference Proceedings. In: Maenpaa, M., Rajanti, T. (eds.) Creative Futures Conference

Proceedings 10. –11. October 2007 in Pori, Finland, pp. 89–101.

• Porkka, P., Jussila, J., & Suominen, A. (2008). Using Friedman test for creating comparable group

results of nonparametric innovation competence data. In ICIM 2008, Proceedings of Presentation

Papers, the 5th International Conference on Innovation & Management, December 10-11, 2008,

Unu-Merit, Maastricht, the Netherlands.

• Suominen, A., Jussila, J., Porkka, P., & Vanharanta, H. (2008). Interrelations of development

needs between innovation competence and innovation culture?. In In: Cheng, K., Makatsoris, H. &

Harrison, D.(eds.) Advances in Manufacturing Technology-XXII, Proceedings of the Sixth

International Conference on Manufacturing Research (ICMR08), 9-11 September 2008, Brunel

University, UK.

• Suominen, A. H., Jussila, J., & Porkka, P. L. (2009). Discovering Correlations between Innovation

Capability Data Components: Organizational and Individual. In In: Huizingh, KRE, Conn, S.,

Torkkeli, M., Bitran, I.(eds.). Proceedings of The XX ISPIM Conference, The Future of Innovation,

21-24 June, 2009, Vienna, Austria.

• Suominen, A., & Jussila, J. (2009). Organizational Innovation Capability. In: Oza, N.,

Abrahamsson, P.,(eds). Building Blocks of Agile Innovation.

• Bikfalvi, A., Jussila, J., Suominen, A., Vanharanta, H., Kantola, J. (2010). How to Boost Innovation

Culture and Innovators?. Handbook on Business Information Systems, 359.

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