Innovation Governance: How Top Management Organizes and Mobilizes for Innovation

CHAPTER 1

What is Innovation Governance?

When business leaders hear the word “governance,” they may naturally think of corporate governance, “the system by which companies are directed and controlled.”¹ “It involves regulatory and market mechanisms, and the roles and relationships between a company's management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders, and the goals for which the corporation is governed.”²

But what does the concept of innovation governance conjure up? Does it belong to the broader governance mission of the board of directors? Is innovation a sufficiently important challenge to be “governed,” i.e. directed and controlled at a high level? In many companies immersed in today's global product and service competition, ...