Tag Archives: Culture of Innovation

Innovation: for and against

Posted on April 28, 2018 by Eugene Ivanov

I like Jeff Bezos’ line: “Good intentions don’t work, mechanisms do.” To me, it sounds like a full support of my conviction that endless talks about establishing a “culture of innovation” is a distraction, rather than an enabler, in fostering … Continue reading →

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Are you innovating? We won’t be paying you today!

Posted on February 12, 2018 by Eugene Ivanov

A solid body of evidence, from both controlled laboratory experiments and field studies, shows that compensation based on the pay-for-performance (P-f-P) principle—when individuals receive a fixed percentage of the profits resulted from their activities–is effective in inducing higher levels of … Continue reading →

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Innovation and VC investors

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Eugene Ivanov

Academic research provides abundant empirical evidence suggesting that corporate and socio-economic policies tolerating failure, both at individual and firm levels, foster innovation. For example, labor laws limiting firms’ ability to discharge employees at will were shown to stimulate corporate innovation. … Continue reading →

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Innovation and bankruptcy

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

Recently, I described academic studies suggesting that corporate innovation is fostered by labor laws that limit firms’ ability to discharge employees at will. These studies provide support to the idea that the best way to encourage risk-taking and experimentation is … Continue reading →

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The dose is everything: how much labor protection is good for innovation

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

A theoretical concept proposed by Gustavo Manso in 2011 (I wrote about it here) postulates that the optimal combination of incentives that motivate employees to innovate must include tolerance for failure in the short term and reward for success in the long … Continue reading →

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The “labor law” of innovation

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

One might assume that pro-worker labor laws, due to their association with lower levels of investment, productivity and output, would have a negative effect on innovation. In fact, academic studies indicate that more stringent employment laws help firms and their … Continue reading →

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Innovation and failure: from words to deeds

Posted on November 26, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

The idea that innovation involves experimentation—and experimentation often results in failures–has gradually crawled to the forefront of our thinking about the innovation process. It became fashionable to quote Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as saying that high tolerance for risk and failure accounts … Continue reading →

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How to Cultivate Innovation in the Workplace

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

Innovation is what most businesses aim for no matter what industry. In fact, a lot of today’s most successful businesses were founded on innovation. Look at Apple and Microsoft; both companies started from ideas that seemed impossible at the time … Continue reading →

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One more time about “culture of innovation”

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

My previous post, “The “culture of innovation:” misnomer, oxymoron, myth or chimera?”, has caused a lively discussion in a number of LinkedIn groups. Approximately half of the commenters were sympathetic to my claim that the very term “culture of innovation” … Continue reading →

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The “culture of innovation”: misnomer, oxymoron, myth or chimera?

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

In the opening piece of the Summer 2017 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, Paul Michelman writes about diminishing importance of corporate culture in the age of networked enterprises. Obviously, not everyone agrees with Mr. Michelman, and the whole discussion … Continue reading →

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