COMPANY INNOVATION SYSTEM: AN EXPLORATION BASED ON EXAMPLES FROM ARÇELIK AND VESTEL

Year 2017, , 93 - 104, 30.06.2017

Erik Den Hartigh Pinar Uzun Ali Auwalu Anwar

https://doi.org/10.17261/Pressacademia.2017.523

Abstract

We conceptualize the company as an innovation system. The systems
approach to innovation has received limited attention at the company level.
While it is widely accepted for nations, sectors, regions and technologies, and
while some company-level building blocks have been proposed, the dominant
approach at company level is to regard innovation as a process. A company
innovation system consists of interacting components with the purpose to
produce innovation. Those components can be actors, resources or institutional
characteristics. The components can be configured and reconfigured for
different purposes. An innovation process is therefore one of the many possible
configurations within a system. A systems approach emphasizes part-whole
interactions and evolutionary dynamics. We explore the concept of company
innovation system using case examples of two Turkish electronics manufacturers:
Arçelik, with its Telve Turkish coffee machine, and Vestel with its 3D Smart
TV. We find that using the company innovation system approach, we can map
innovation systems at the company level, we can indicate the relationships between the components of the system and we can identify
system characteristics such as open versus closed, archetypical configurations,
where new combinations come from, coordination mechanisms and exploration
versus exploitation. As such, we can address questions about the company’s
innovation management that are difficult to address by using a process
approach. We conclude that the company innovation system approach provides
additional and complementary insights to the existing company-level innovation
approaches. 

Keywords

Company innovation system, Arçelik, Vestel

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