Pre-emptive radical innovation: building inter-departmental common knowledge in a short product development cycle

Abstract

In the context of radical innovation, the mutual understanding accrued through longitudinal inter-departmental interactions for continuous innovations can become obsolete. In order to maintain a high quality inter-departmental interface, firms have to rebuild interface common knowledge by acquiring and creating knowledge. It is not clear how such "time pressure" influences the firms' quest of critical knowledge for radical innovation. In this article, the authors describe radical innovation development in a long product development cycle as preventive innovation; radical product development in a compressed product development cycle is noted as pre-emptive innovation. This paper suggests that companies' choice between preventive or pre-emptive strategy may result in different approaches of common knowledge building in the context of radical innovation.