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Chapter 8

Summary

This chapter has covered the fifth and final element of the Pentathlon – people
and organization, including cultural and team issues. It has stressed the strategic
importance of the management of human resources. Three levels of analysis
were presented: the organization level; innovation project teams; and the
employee level. Overall the chapter has:

• Explained the research on management culture and how this can be used to
  help develop a ‘culture of innovation’.
  
• Summarized best practices for creating an innovative working environment,
  while cautioning that people management practices are context dependent
  and are therefore difficult to transfer.
  
• Described the advantages and limitations of the five main types of teams
  that can be used to manage innovation projects.
  
• Explained the steps required to form and successfully run innovation teams,
  including selecting team members and managing the functional interfaces.
• Covered the main aspects of managing individual employees, from their
  recruitment, to their appraisal, and the recognition of their performance. It
  also showed the complexity facing managers in their need to encourage
  motivation.

Illustrating the above points, this chapter’s main case study is about Unilever’s
Lever Fabergé plant and the way employees’ performance and development were
directly linked to their remuneration.

This and the previous four chapters have proposed a wide range of tools and
techniques for innovation management, relating to each of the elements of the
Pentathlon. The management challenge is to boost innovation performance by
coordinating the improvements in each element of the Pentathlon and is the
subject of the next chapter.