ABSTRACT
Radical innovations are those that are new both to the firm and to the market. They provide the foundation on which future generations of products or services are built, and are thus acknow ledged as critical to the long term survival of many firms (McDermott & O’Connor, 2002). Devel oping and marketing these innovations are very demanding tasks, and many of the developmental challenges are related to technological uncertainty. However, overcoming the technological chal lenges is not enough to turn an invention into an innovation, in other words to make it succeed commercially. Commercializing a radical invention also requires coping with considerable market uncertainty (McDermott & O’Connor, 2002; Veryzer, 1998). The terminology related to radical innovations is rather confusing (for a review of the concepts, see Sandberg, 2008). The definition adopted here reflects both customer and technological per spectives, thereby taking into account the unique challenges involved in both development and commercialization (cf. Ali, 1994). Hence, a radical innovation is defined as a new product or
service that requires considerable change in customer behavior, is perceived to offer substantially enhanced benefits, and is also technologically new (cf. Veryzer, 1998). Consequently, radical innovators are defined as individuals, teams, or firms capable of creating radical innovations. Even though the paramount role of individuals, often referred to as innovation champions, is acknowledged in the literature (e.g., Howell, Shea, & Higgins, 2005), radical inno vation tends to require the combining of knowledge from various fields (Schmickl & Kieser, 2008; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). In fact, the complexity of radical innovations often leads to the adoption of an interdisciplinary developmental approach, and to close co operation with individu als from different backgrounds (Johansson, 2004). Flexibility, in other words the ability of managers to experiment and move quickly from one project to another, seems to be a prerequisite for the creation of radical innovations (Koberg, Detienne, & Heppard, 2003). Furthermore, rapidly evolving technologies stimulate the need for individuals who are motivated and have the ability to engage in life long learning (Herrmann, Tomczak, & Befurt, 2006). It is acknowledged that the educational background of certain indi viduals plays an important role in the innovation activities of an organization in that it reflects their knowledge, skills, and cognitive base: Hambrick and Mason (1984) argue, for example, that man agers with a high level of formal education tend to be more innovation prone. Even if it is hard to find ways of systematically boosting the creation of radical innovations on account of their com plexity, this is no reason to neglect trying. Rather, as O’Connor and Ayers (2005, p. 23) state, “it is in companies’ and society’s best interest to figure out how”. In fact, a review of the existing lit erature indicates that education could foster many of the skills required for the creation of radical innovations, including those related to the coordination of diverse knowledge streams (Schmickl & Kieser, 2008), the evaluation, elaboration, and development of raw ideas into bigger concepts, conceptualization, opportunity discovery, market learning, market creation, coping with uncer tainties and risks, managing teams and high growth business (O’Connor & Ayers, 2005), network ing, and information sharing (Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). These skills are hard to teach, however, and it is argued here that, given the assumed influence of emotions on the judgments people make, the material recalled from the memory, creativeness, and inductive and deductive reasoning (George, 2000), they may well have a place in the challenging task of educating radical innovators. Emotions are an inherent component of social behavior (Forgas & George, 2001; Tran, 1998), and it would therefore be worthwhile finding out how they can be utilized in the development of radical innovators. Moreover, despite their central role in cognitive processes and behavior, they have been largely ignored in scientific research on organizations (Muchinsky, 2000; Tran, 1998). Organizations traditionally attempt to control emotional expressions, given that emotions are gen erally regarded as irrational and therefore undesirable (Pescosolido, 2002), and as inhibiting effec tive decision making (Albrow, 1992). It is only in recent decades, when interest in concepts such as “emotional intelligence” has been growing (e.g., Goleman, 1995), that researchers have started to call for more studies on the role of emotions in organizations. Emotions are particularly likely to influence judgments when decision makers are faced with a complex task requiring extensive and constructive information processing. Their role is further accentuated in situations involving ambiguity and uncertainty, when new information needs to be assimilated, and when decision makers have to make accurate judgments and good decisions (Forgas & George, 2001). This could describe the situation of radical innovators. They are often faced with abundant information characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity, from which they need to make decisions that chart the course of their organizations (Sandberg, 2008). In other words, they are dealing with complex information characterized by high uncertainty and the need to be accurate. The implication is that the role of emotions in their behavior is considerable.
