The Back End of Open Innovation
Henry W. Chesbrough · 2019
Abstract There is a Valley of Death inside many organizations, between the innovation managers and the business units of the company. This internal valley results from human, organizational, and structural bottlenecks that impede the flow of knowledge from the laboratory to the market. A powerful example of these bottlenecks surfaced in recent research at NASA. Four companies’ practices for managing these bottlenecks are discussed: SAP, Intel, EMC, and Royal Bank of Scotland. Companies must approach these bottlenecks with care, and examine their compensation systems, their funding processes, and talent management practices, to connect the back end of the innovation process to the front end of that process.