Title: Engines of growth – the importance of 'routine innovation activities'

Authors: Ursula Deplazes, Wolfgang Deplazes, Roman Boutellier

Addresses: Department for Management, Technology and Economics, ETH Zurich – The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Kreuzplatz 5, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland. ' Department for Management, Technology and Economics, ETH Zurich – The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Kreuzplatz 5, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland. ' Department for Management, Technology and Economics, ETH Zurich – The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Kreuzplatz 5, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract: This paper adopts a fresh perspective at what companies could do to achieve growth and profitability over the mid- and long-term. Various disciplines of management science have examined the determinants, processes, and consequences of innovation in organisations with mixed and often inconsistent results. While we adopt a perspective of organisational design in innovation management, we differ from conventional approaches in our selecting the free-market economy as the starting point of research. We advocate that organisational design could learn from the system of free-market economy that has been associated with extra-ordinary growth as compared with other economic systems. After analysing the drivers of growth in free-market economy, we discuss the concept of |routine innovation activities| and its implications from a perspective of organisational design. We advocate that organisations need to be designed with the aim of reaping the growth benefits associated with |routine activities| and establish a catalogue of principles guiding practitioners of organisational design. The article closes with a case study illustrating the argument.

Keywords: business design; routines; routinisation; economic growth; engines of growth; profitability; management science; determinants; processes; consequences; organisational design; free-market economy; drivers; routine activities; organisations; benefits; franking machines; global entrepreneurship; innovation management; globalisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2010.035083

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2010 Vol.12 No.3/4, pp.244 - 269

Published online: 03 Sep 2010 *

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