INNOVATION by DESIGN: What It Takes to Keep Your Company on the Cutting Edge

Chapter 9. Dimensions of Organizational Infrastructure

Resources provide the raw material, but organizational infrastructure provides the catalyst that allows innovation to occur. People individually and in groups promote innovation based on how the infrastructure responds to those new, troubling, and sometimes off-the-wall ideas. While innovators generally become passionate about pursuing a particular activity, some minimum level of infrastructure support is absolutely essential for them to move forward. The infrastructure must find a way to accommodate the innovation process, or innovation will not take place. There comes a time when the innovator must be recognized as a participant in the business of the organization. As Tom Peters once noted, ...