Leading Innovation - How can leaders improve companies ability to generate innovations?

Masters Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, Mid Sweden University, language: English, abstract: During the last decades the environment of most companies has become increasingly dynamic and competitive due to the globalisation and internationalisation of markets. The intense competition leads to reinforced campaigns to win customers with new, unique products or services defending or improving market positions. Consequently, based on the increased variety, customers expectations are rising while the time to market as well as the duration ot the product life cycle are decreasing. [Cum1997, p. 22] [Jon2002, p. 24, p. 31] [Yuk2002, p. 294] The increased velocity and complexity of global business competition demand innovative, flexible and responsive solutions to emerge. Companies, especially those competing on the global scale, have to consider innovations as a key goal, a powerful influence on organisational performance and a strategy which creates a sustainable competitive advantage against a growing number of new, efficient and focused competitors. [Hal2003, p. 434] [Mum2002, p. 705] "Innovation is the source of increasing value and differentiation in an evermore crowded and homogeneous marketplace [Jon2002, p. 31]." Innovation is crucial in times of economic growth, remaining the source of increasing revenues and profitability, but more than ever in times of recession representing the survival in an increasingly selective market. [Jon2002, p. 12] However, innovation can be much more than this - it is the impulse of continuous advancement of the humankind. The fact that our world is moving towards the age of total mobility, in which not only all people and organisations are part of a global network, but in which access to information shall be available independently on the place and time, is leading to the increased importance and rapid growth of wireless communications possibilities