This paper investigates what actions can be taken in order to support the development
of radical innovations. The contribution adds to our understanding of how radical
innovation projects develops over time and what and how managerial actions can be
taken in order to support this development. Six radical innovation projects from two
different empirical settings have been investigated though semi-structured interviews
and the use of a project journey mapping technique allowing for a combination of both
narrative and critical incident data collection. The data was analyzed in Nvivo. The
results revealed three different flows of activities for radical innovation projects that
iteratively and interactively took place over time from the emergence of the idea to
commercialization, namely: (1) the configuration of the product system, (2) the
understanding of customer value and (3) the experimentation of understanding of how
to monetizing value form radical innovation projects. Three mechanisms in order to
manage these flows are presented: (1) making the radical innovation and its potential
more tangible, (2) creating a tolerance for the uncertainties and ambiguities related to
the innovation during its development in the organization and (3) handling the
management control tightness of the project in order for it to make it to the
commercialization. Two main practical implications of the results are discussed. First
of all, organizations that aim to develop radical innovations need to understand and
support the three different flows of activities early on and what it implies in terms of
competences needed and resources allocated. Second, the presented mechanisms
provide distinct examples of actions that can be taken in order to support the
development flows of radical innovations.
2018.