From enthusiasts to systematic innovation: the journey of building the innovation function in a large industrial organization

Abstract

The creation of a management system to systematically promote innovation is a great challenge for large companies. Some authors argue for the creation of a dedicated organizational function (the Innovation Function – IF) to guide this system. This paper aims to understand how a large company builds an Innovation Function from a longitudinal and retrospective case study. Some aspects regarding the emergence of the IF, its organizational structure evolution, and changes on its team’s scope of action are discussed. The main results highlight the importance of key actors for IF’s recognition by the organization, serving as connecting mediators to other functions and external agents. Besides that, specific competence accumulation, gradual legitimacy acquisition, and project intermediary results enabled the team to deal with radical innovation projects over time.