The role of process innovation and adaptation in attaining strategic technological capability

This paper seeks to contribute to theory and practice by suggesting the importance of the adaptation process and by presenting some of the structural influences on that process. The argument forwarded in the paper is: competititve pressures require reciprocal innovation in both the organisations of today and in the technical systems that they develop and use. The greater the benefits to be realised from the introduction of a new technical system, the greater the amount of organisational change that should be anticipated. Successful process innovation requires management of the mutual adaptation of technology to organisation and organisation to technology during design and development.

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