Organizational and Individual Innovation Practices in Industrial Research

This paper discusses organizational approaches to developing a strategy and a culture tuned to innovation. Barriers to innovation, and best practices to overcome the barriers are studied. Organizational processes to manage innovation with case studies for creating an idea-rich environment are presented. Additionally, the paper presents a model covering three aspects of individual innovation - create with freedom, nurture with passion, and transcend with detachment. Individual qualities and innovation tools applied to the three aspects are presented. The John F. Welch Technology Center, Bangalore, India, is an integrated technology development center, housing GE´s Global Research as well as the engineering divisions for GE´s Industrial, Infrastructure, and Healthcare businesses. One specific JFWTC lab is tracked on its innovation growth path to demonstrate the application of the tools and models presented in this paper