Adaptation and Organizational Connectedness in Corporate Radical Innovation Programs*
研究12家行业领先跨国公司如何设计激进创新项目，发现成功的项目在战略、结构和流程上保持灵活并与传统组织紧密连接，为管理者平衡创新与约束提供启示。
This research examines how established companies organize programs for fostering technology‐based radical innovation. It addresses conflicts revealed in the innovation literature concerning the appropriate design of the strategic, structural, and process components of these programs. In developing innovation strategies, managers must balance the desire for strategic clarity with the need to allow for creativity and exploration. They must structure programs that ensure innovations benefit from the organization's resources while minimizing the numerous constraints that can impede these unconventional activities. Additionally, though they may favor management processes that provide accountability and effective resource allocation, managers must also ensure these do not restrict the flexibility required for successful innovation. The study is a longitudinal, comparative case analysis of interviews with managers involved in innovation programs in 12 industry‐leading multinational corporations. Site visits at each company were followed by biannual interviews with key managers in each company. A total of 81 follow‐up interviews were conducted over a three‐year period. These interviews were aimed at identifying the changes and progress in the programs over time and internal and external impacts on the organization's innovation activity. The analysis reveals (1) distinct but evolving objectives that maintain a logical strategic connection, (2) adaptive structures that shift and transform but preserve relationships with the broader organization, and (3) flexible processes that are understandable beyond the innovation program and are modifiable, both for the context and in response to learning over time. This suggests that programs introducing high uncertainty and risk into mature corporate environments are highly flexible systems that maintain organizational connectedness as they evolve. For academics, this implies a need to understand the evolution of innovation programs as an adaptive learning process that, regardless of form and purpose, preserves its connection to the traditional organization. For practitioners, it highlights the importance of considering the process, strategic, and structural connections to the broader organization when designing innovation programs and suggests the need for feedback mechanisms to help adapt these elements over time.