Behavioral Innovation and Corporate Renewal

Corporations often seek renewal through internal innovations that create new sources of revenue and help them enter new markets. But research and anecdote continue to show that corporations struggle to renew through innovation. We argue that the primary impediments to corporate renewal through innovation stem from the ways in which human nature interacts with the inherently uncertain aspects of innovation. We suggest that the field needs to adopt a more integrated, behavioral innovation view to account for the behavioral forces shaping the innovation process. In this paper we propose an alternate innovation process model that exposes key behavioral bottlenecks limiting innovation. We then review key extant findings and potential research opportunities related to the model. Finally, we highlight the importance of a research focus on remedies, as well as other future opportunities for the field. We hope this essay can serve as inspiration for a new view of corporate renewal through innovation and for a behavioral innovation view more generally.