ABSTRACT
A project organization is a frequently used form to organize innovation trajectories. It is common practice that top management puts some people together, often specialists in their distinctive departments, and asks them to come up with the new thing. Management chooses the specialists, leaders, managers, and champions they think are necessary for the innovation process to succeed. The project organization is chosen as the organizational form to structure the processes of innovation generation and creation. It often consists of various cooperating innovation teams, especially in the larger projects. Besides an innovation target and a group of participants, the project is also made of a deadline and a budget. The deadline is the date at which the innovation objective should be achieved and the budget is the amount of money it may cost. A major advantage of the project organization is that the factors of time, money, and outcomes are defined and established. When the people in the project organization achieve the defined objectives within the stipulated time and costs, the project can be called successful. The project organization is a widely recognized and an effective way to organize innovation processes and is therefore often used in practice and studied by social scientists (Gann and Salter, 2000; Kenny, 2003; Killen et al., 2008; Newell et al., 2008). This chapter examines the management of innovation in sustainability projects. It reviews and analyzes the management principles and tools that can be used to coordinate these projects effectively. This chapter looks for answers to the following questions:
Which management principles and tools stimulate sustainable innovation projects?
When is the use of management principles and tools to coordinate a sustainable innovation project (in)effective?
