Customer Reviews

Fourth Generation R&D: Managing Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation

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Authors Miller and Morris have nailed the impending transformation of R&D from its historical, product-centric past to its emerging knowledge-centric future. In addition, their focus on 'discontinuous' and 'fusion' innovation promises to lead the way for industry, in general, whose R&D functions typically produce less than one new product innovation per decade and whose new products, when they are produced, tend to fail in under four years. The authors' explicit embrace of knowledge management is also welcome, as the value of most companies now tends to rest more on the weight of their intellectual assets than on so-called 'hard' assets. Finally, this book's focus on distributed, enterprise-wide innovation signals the tearing down of R&D's overly centralized and compartmentalized profile in most firms, and offers strong support for the view that innovation should be structured as a distributed, whole-firm social process, not an administrative one. I highly recommend this book to readers interested in R&D, innovation, knowledge management, intellectual capital, organizational learning, and sustainable innovation.

You might be curious about what the title of this book refers to. It¡¯s rather simpler than you might guess. In a common vocabulary in business, it refers to the ¡®radical innovation¡¯. Then, you might infer that the 3rd generation R&D should be the incremental innovation. Yep. You¡¯re right. But those conventional terms don¡¯t fit completely into what authors argues. There is sufficient reason to coin such neologisms. The argument of this book goes like this. Traditional market research tends to deal with explicit knowledge. Focus group, survey, structured interview, all tackle what is pre-definable or expressible in word. But could such approaches spot the next generation product? authors question. No. customers can¡¯t put into words their gut feeling needs. They could spot it only when it appears on the market. The real breakthrough in product development, more often than not, comes in unexpected way. Thus, authors pose the question, ¡®How we should manage the uncertainty?¡¯ Put in other way, ¡®how we should manage the innovation?¡¯ R&D or product development must include incremental innovation. But in this turbulent environment, it¡¯s not enough. To be the leader in the market, not follower, one should ride ahead the tide. Then the question of R&D should be the radical innovation. Break with the identifiable trend. Then what product should be devised? All R&D begins with the product concept. But now the concept should be based on what customer¡¯s gut feeling or their tacit needs. Don¡¯t make what customer wants today. Make what they want tomorrow. At this point, you might retort: ¡®Yep. You¡¯re right. But it¡¯s easier to be told than to be done. How I could do so?¡¯ Here comes the knowledge management. Customers¡¯ tacit needs tend to be buried in noise of day-to-day information flow. There are numerous reasons for such filtering out. But all in all, to be sensitive to that kind of info, the authors maintain, is to manage the organization innovative. Knowing is not doing. Doing needs the capability to do. Then innovation requires the capability building. But it¡¯s not that simple to build up. It must face resistance inside the firm itself. Radical innovation tends to be the capability-destroying one. so developing innovative product usually comes with organizational innovation.
Above is the problem authors pose to us. I think the better title of the book is ¡®Strategic management of innovation¡¯. This book is not about the specificity of R&D, but about how to manage the firm innovative. Overall tenet of the book is so close to Nonaka & Takeuchi¡¯s ¡®The Knowledge-Creating Company¡¯. But this book is written not for academic researcher but for managers in the field. Points are made in graphic way with various case studies by authors. Nonetheless, it lacks the depth of Nonaka & Takeuchi¡¯s book. I recommend to read this book with Nonaka & Takeuchi¡¯s.

Anyone who's ever fought the battle of bringing a new concept to market or who's managed in today's competitive R&D environment should read this thought-provoking book. It points the way beyond incremental improvement of existing product lines toward quantum leaps in user capability with new dominant designs.

Most business leaders today understand that innovation is survival. This book gets beyond the usual trivial pablum about *being more creative* to show the kinds of mechanisms and methods that give R&D traction. If you want to stop wasting your R&D dollars and get better ROI, this book offers clear, actionable, and reliable insights.

The book starts out with theoretical constucts and eventually uses examples to show their relevance. I found the authors' style of writing rather awkward. The organization of the material also makes the book somewhat difficult to follow. However, the well researched material presented is worth buying the book.

I got this book when it first came out in 1999, and then I thought it was both insightful and practical for exactly what the subtitle says: "Managing Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation". Now ten years later, and after having read lots of books on innovation, and witnessed the evolution of new terms like design thinking, etc, I still find this book to be an exceptional and stimulating source of new ways of thinking about innovation, and an inspiration.

Fourth Generation R&D makes explicit many of the concepts and processes of innovation that often seem mysterious and complex. The author's framework for innovation applies to organizations competing in accelerated and dynamic markets.