The activity‟s outputs depicted as blocks in Figure 27 are colour coded with their respective analyses from the overall refinement process shown in Figure 21. The blue blocks relate to the manual interpretation and summary of the Innovation Capability Corpus (and the author‟s collective understanding of innovation capability – see Section 5.3.2 and Appendix D), the purple blocks to the outputs of the corpus analysis using CAT (LDA-based topic modelling and other CAT outputs), and the orange block to the Innovativeness Constructs and ICMM v1 mapping. The maroon block represents an aspect not related to any previously discussed activity and is elaborated on in Section 5.4.2.
5.4.1 Content refinement and check
The first and second grey blocks in Figure 27 (from the left-hand side) represent the content-related activities of the consolidation process. The intention is to highlight (through vertical alignment) which of the analyses outputs‟ were used in the completion of this part of the process.
ICMM v1 ICMM v2 Review of Model Interpretation (Subjectivity) Analytical (Objectivity) Core “Innovation Capabilities” & potential gaps Identified “Innovation Capabilities” LDA with 5, 10 & 20 Topics
Content refinement Content check Structure refinement
Collocations Regular Expressions 5, 10 & 20 Intra-run Correlation 5, 10 & 20 Inter-run Correlation Initial Categorisation Core “Innovation Capabilities” Topics/Document vs. Identified Capabilities Organisational Construct Content & structure check
hereof was simply to work through the content of the original model having seen the outputs of the various analyses from this chapter and the added understanding created through the completed activities. The next activity constituted the inclusion of the findings of the Innovativeness Constructs and ICMM v1 mapping exercise (Section 5.3.3). The primary outputs of this analysis were the core Innovation Capability Requirements of the ICMM v1 and the potential gaps therein. Thereafter, the innovation capability themes identified during the manual summarisation (Appendix D) of the Innovation Capability Corpus discussed in Section 5.3.2 were integrated into the content of the model.
The final output to be included in the core content of the refined model was that of the topics identified from the corpus using LDA-based topic modelling. Specifically, the topic labels (described in 5.3.4.4.1) were considered as themes of innovation capability, along with the context that was created for these themes by the various other post-run activities (Sections 5.3.4.4.2 through 5.3.4.4.4).
The green block depicted in Figure 27 represents the culmination of the abovementioned integration activities, the primary output thereof being the so called core “Innovation Capabilities”. As a means of testing and verifying this content, the outputs of the Regular Expressions and Collocations analyses (discussed in Section 5.3.4.5) were compared with these core innovation capabilities. Basically, the content of the new model had to address the concepts that were being presented by the expressions and the collocations, either through specific aspects within the content or via a combination of these aspects.
5.4.2 Structure refinement
Once the content had been indentified, refined and established (although never completely – only sufficiently so as to satisfy the author given the context at that specific moment), the structuring process commenced with an initial attempt based on the ICMM v1 structure and the author‟s basic understanding of the relations between the innovation capabilities.
Once an initial categorisation of the core innovation capability content had taken place, the intra-run (within the 5, 10 and 20 topic runs – discussed in Section 5.3.4.4.3) and inter-run (between the 5, 10 and 20 topic runs – discussed in Section 5.3.4.4.4) topic correlations were used to understand the potential interrelatedness of the core innovation capabilities. This contributed to the structural refinement of the model by highlighting potential capability groupings and revealing any unnecessary overlaps.
The final structuring activity that was performed is represented in Figure 27 by the blue and purple shaded block, referred to as “Topics/Document vs. Identified Capabilities”. This activity used the integrated outputs of the CAT document-topic matrix (as discussed in Section 5.3.4.1.2) and the manual summary of the innovation capability corpus presented in Appendix D. From column 5 and on, in Table 13 (Appendix D), the integrated outputs of these two analyses are shown. Basically, for each of the documents within the corpus,
were listed for each of the 5, 10 and 20 topic CAT runs. When more than one topic within a specific CAT run (5, 10 or 20 topics) was found to be relevant to a specific document, then all possible correlations (intra-run – as described in Section 5.3.4.4.3) were shown in Appendix D. These highlight the relevant intra-run or horizontal interrelations. Similarly, all correlations between the relevant topics from different CAT runs (5, 10 and 20 topics – as described in Section 5.3.4.4.4) for a specific document are shown in Appendix D. These highlight the relevant inter-run or vertical interrelations.
This made the fundamental link between the author‟s interpretation of the corpus and the LDA-based topic modelling approach‟s perspective thereof that was essential to consolidate the results in such a manner that this development process could be made traceable (albeit with a little effort). This implies that the eventual components and structure of the model can be related back to this summary that brings together the manual summarisation of the corpus and statistical analysis thereof. This has positive implications for a methodological approach for improving innovation capability by using Appendix D as a lookup table to identify specific innovation capabilities (see Section 6.1.4.3).
5.4.3 Introduction of an organisational construct
The maroon block in Figure 27 represents the final refinement activity from this portion of the research. The reason for the different colour relates to this activity‟s independence from the various analyses within this chapter.
During the structure-related consolidation activities (the latter part of Figure 27), it became apparent that a concrete mechanism was required to ensure the comprehensiveness of model content, while minimising the overlapping therein. What eventually surfaced as the most practical and elegant solution, was to create a matrix structure that would ensure the model addresses all the fundamental aspects related to an organisation. The matrix would therefore be formed by two axes: an innovation capability construct and an organisational construct. The relation between these 2 constructs is discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 as part of the ICMM v2.
The construct was developed by combining the fundamental organisational elements of multiple studies including: Zachman (1987), McKinsey‟s 7 S‟s model (Zairi 1995), PERA (Williams and Li 1998), GERAM (IFIP- IFAC Task Force 1999), Mugge (2006) and Man (no date). The resultant construct is discussed in more detail in Section 6.1.1.2.
The introduction of this dimension to the structuring of the model was a breakthrough that would prove essential to fulfilling the objectives of this refinement exercise (see Section 5.2). The ability to categorise and refine the content within the resultant framework ensured that the core requirements for innovation capability were aligned with the fundamental aspects of the organisation – thus ensuring the elimination of
7 Relevant at twice the average mixing ratio – the mixing ratios for a document indicates the spread of the topics over
innovation capabilities would impact the organisation.
5.5 Conclusion
Due to space constraints, and in the theme of keeping the document concise, the discussions of this chapter have been kept short. There is the potentially negative consequence of omitting detail that is important to the outcome of this work. However, while these activities were fundamental to the ICMM v1 refinement process, the process itself is not the intended outcome of this research and, therefore, is appropriately covered by the presented discussions.
One of the observations that can be made from the process discussed in this chapter, as opposed to the process of developing the ICMM v1, is an improvement in traceability. Each of the analyses performed provides a clear path from the literature to the actual components that eventually make up the ICMM v2 discussed in Chapter 6. This serves the purpose of scrutinising the final model, but also serves as a reference mechanism when the time comes to utilise the model in an innovation capability improvement initiative. The methodology behind such an improvement initiative is also discussed in Chapter 6.
The purpose of these analyses and their associated outcomes has been discussed previously. However, it is worthwhile to address this point again in the context of other research. The majority of research is conducted by providing a specific hypothesis and then determining whether there is sufficient evidence to avoid rejecting that hypothesis.8 Empirical data is then collected, analysed and an evaluation made of the
results which leads to a decision on whether to reject or not reject the hypothesis. This was the approach taken by the 7 Innovativeness Construct papers discussed in Section 5.3.3 using the statistical technique Confirmatory Factors Analysis. The purpose of such research is to have an outcome that is as accurate and objective as possible.
While this research does include the findings of these studies, the approach taken was fundamentally different. A proposed model on organisational innovation capability, developed from the literature research of Chapter 3, was compared to the different content- and structure-related outcomes of other research – at least 7 of which are based on empirical studies. Thus, the process of making this comparison was intended to improve the objectivity (and certainly the comprehensiveness) of the model. Thereafter, a LDA-based topic modelling process was used to identify the core themes of innovation capability within a critical corpus of literature (used to develop the ICMM v1, but also including new literature). This too, was intended to improve the objectivity of the model. Therefore, the resultant ICMM v2 is intended to be substantially more objective than the first version thereof. The author is, however, philosophical about the existence of anything truly objective – even empirical studies. Everything is subject to influence from a previous state. Nevertheless, the activities of this chapter eliminated a certain degree of subjectivity from the ICMM v1, and therefore crucially fulfilled an intended purpose.
8 Based on strict statistical principles, no hypothesis is ever accepted. It is either rejected or not rejected due to a lack of
This chapter will describe the various components of the Innovation Capability Maturity Model in its second version. The model is similar to the first version in terms of content, with a few additions based on the gaps identified through the process described in Chapter 5. However, the model structure, i.e., the categorisation of content and the approach taken to represent innovation capability maturity, has changed substantially. This warrants a complete and thorough description of the refined model, particularly from a structuring point of view. Note that the model presented in this chapter describes the accumulated refinements of the previous chapter (Chapter 5), as well as certain minor refinements derived from the case studies discussed in the next chapter (Chapter 7). A final addition to the second version of the model is a basic Innovation Capability Improvement Methodology – also described in this chapter. Aspects such as the scope and applicability of the model, and the purpose and motivation therefore remain consistent for both the first and second versions thereof. As these aspects are discussed in Section 4.4, they will not be repeated in here.
6.1 Model components
The ICMM v2 components are divided into 3 high-level areas, the first of which being a framework to provide the model with the necessary structure. The second area of the model deals with the core requirements for innovation capability – aptly named Innovation Capability Requirements. These requirements represent the primary content of the model and are categorised therein based on the framework. The third and final area of the model deals with the organisational roles that are required for innovation.
There are 3 components of the model that do not fall into these 3 areas, but are essential to the utilisation thereof. Effectively, they combine the components of the model into more coherent and pragmatic tools that may be used in the improvement of organisational innovation capability. These components are an Innovation Capability Questionnaire, a response normalisation mechanism and a Capability Requirement Practice lookup table. These components are used in the Evaluate, Plan and Improve stages of the improvement methodology (Section 6.2).
6.1.1 Framework
As mentioned previously, the most significant change from the initial ICMM to the model discussed here relates to structuring. This refers to the categorisation of content, but also to the approach taken to depict innovation capability maturity. The refinement of the model‟s structure is based on the development of a 3 dimensional framework through the activities of Chapter 5. The 3 dimensions of the framework are: an Innovation Capability Construct, an Organisational Construct and Capability Maturity as depicted in Figure 28.