Managing the technological contribution to MNC radical innovation

We identify practices in multinational firms for technology discovery and application in radical new product/process development. The results of this study indicate that the development of new businesses and product lines based on radical innovations requires management practices that differ from those required in incremental innovation. Pioneering technologies can provide the foundation for radical innovation but RI is not only a matter of elaborating breakthrough technology. Management practices that consider technological richness in terms of future markets and allow experimentation and exploration with technology appear to be important. Multinational firms with consistent investment in new technologies and sufficient patience and resources to incubate multiple innovation projects may be more likely to eventually capitalize on investments in radical innovation.

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