Competence to Innovate? Presented at AHFE International Conference in July 2008, Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Research was conducted in Flexi (Flexible Integration in Global Product Development) project that was an ITEA2 project (number 06022) lasting from April 2007 to December 2009. It aimed to improve the competitiveness of the European software intensive industry by providing a flexible, rapid and agile approach to product development

1. Competence to Innovate?
Jussila, Jari
Suominen, Anu
Vanharanta, Hannu

2. AHFEI 2008, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 July 2008 2
Outline
•Introduction
•Definitions
•Innovation competence ontology
•Decision making based on ontology

3. AHFEI 2008, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 July 2008 3
Introduction
•FLEXI (Flexible Integration in Global Product Development) is an ITEA2 project lasting from April 2007 to December 2009.
•It aims to improve the competitiveness of the European software intensive industry by providing a flexible, rapid and agile approach to product development.
•The main contribution of FLEXI approach can be expressed as “From idea to product in 6 months” when applied on a company level.
•FLEXI consortium includes 39 organizations in 8 countries.
Source: www.flexi-itea2.org

4. AHFEI 2008, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 July 2008 4
Definitions: Competence
•Competence is an ability to sustain the coordinated deployment of assets in a way that helps a firm to achieve its goals. (Sanchez, Heene & Thomas, 1996)
•Competence consists of four elements and their relations –technology, people, organizational structure, and organizational culture. (Djejer & Riis, 1999, 2000)
•Competencies represent the knowledge, skills, and abilities that exist among and across employees and groups of employees. (Ulrich, 1997)
•Our definition: knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes in active use.

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Definitions: Innovation (distinctions)
•Invention is the creation of something new (new ideas), whereas innovation is the transformation of an idea or resources into useful application. (Holt, 1992)
•Creativity leads to new knowledge, whereas innovation is new knowledge applied in practice. (cf. de Bono, 1990)

6. Innovation competence ontology (Jussila 2007)
Main class
Competence class
Competence
Personal Competence
Self-awareness
Accurate self-assessment
Self-confidence
Self-regulation
Flexibility
Independence
Self-control
Stress tolerance
Motivation
Achievement orientation
Change orientation
Initiative
Risk orientation
Expertise
Absorptive capacity
Professional and technical expertise
Seeking information
Self-development
Creativity skills
Analytical thinking
Conceptual thinking
Divergent thinking
Imagination
Intuitive thinking
Social Competence
Empathy
Conflict management
Understanding others
Leveraging diversity
Social skills
Communication
Relationship building
Teamwork and collaboration
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7. Innovation competence ontology
AHFEI 2008, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 July 2008 7

8. Decision making based on ontology: Evaluation
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9. Decision making based on ontology: Current state
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10. Decision making based on ontology: Target state
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11. Decision making based on ontology: Creative tension
AHFEI 2008, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 July 2008

12. Sum of rankings
Competence
Sumofrankings
Competence
251
Trustworthiness
217
Absorptivecapacity
219,5
Independence
212
Intuitivethinking
214,5
Seekinginformation
211
Prof.andtechnicalexpertise
213,5
Responsibility
195
Self-confidence
204,5
Accurateself-assessment
193
Understandingothers
179
Communication
183
Communication
176,5
Changeorientation
181
Analyticalthinking
170
Imagination
178
Accurateself-assessment
169,5
Analyticalthinking
168
Flexibility
158,5
Achievementorientation
167
Self-development
151
Self-control
164
Self-control
143,5
Divergentthinking
160,5
Stresstolerance
143
Flexibility
160
Conceptualthinking
142
Self-development
144
Relationshipbuilding
138
Self-confidence
139
Initiative
133,5
Relationshipbuilding
118
Leveragingdiversity
127,5
Conceptualthinking
112
Conflictmanagement
122
Leveragingdiversity
111,5
Seekinginformation
106,5
Understandingothers
108,5
Changeorientation
96,5
Intuitivethinking
107
Imagination
94
Initiative
101,5
Responsibility
93,5
Prof.andtechnicalexpertise
90
Teamworkandcooperation
90
Teamworkandcooperation
83
Achievementorientation
86
Conflictmanagement
81,5
Trustworthiness
63
Absorptivecapacity
79
Divergentthinking
51,5
Riskorientation
70,5
Independence
42
Stresstolerance
45
Riskorientation
Rankings of current state
Rankings of creative tension
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13. Contact details
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Suominen, Anu
Tampere University of Technology/ PoriE-mail: anu.suominen@tut.fi, Twitter: @asuominen
Vanharanta, Hannu
Tampere University of Technology/ PoriE-mail: hannu.vanharanta@tut.fi
Jussila, Jari
Tampere University of Technology / Pori
E-mail: jari.j.jussila@tut.fi, Twitter: @jjussila

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References
•De Bono, E. 1990. Lateral thinking. A Textbook of Creativity. London, Penguin Books.
•Djejer, A., Riis, J.O. 1999. Competencies and competence development. Technovation, November.
•Djejer, A., Riis, J.O. 2000. Competence Strategy (in Danish), Borsens Forlag.
•Holt, D. 1992. Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Millson, M.R., Wilemon, D. (Eds). The strategy of managing innovation and technology. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.
•Jussila, J. 2007. Innovation Competence. Master’s Thesis. Tampere, Tampere University of Technology.
•Sanchez, R., Heene, A., Thomas, H. 1996. Dynamics of Competence-Based Competition. Oxford, Elsevier Pergamon.
•Ulrich, D. 1997. Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, Harvard Business School Press.

15. Related research
•Vanharanta, H., Suominen, A., Jussila, J., Kantola, J., & Karwowski, W. (2007). Constructs and concepts in management decision making. In The 4th International Conference on New Exploratory Technologies, October 25-27, 2007, Seoul, Korea.
•Jussila, J., Suominen, A., Vanharanta, H., Kantola, J. (2007) Building Innovation Culture. Creative Futures Conference Proceedings. In: Maenpaa, M., Rajanti, T. (eds.) Creative Futures Conference Proceedings 10. –11. October 2007 in Pori, Finland, pp. 89–101.
•Porkka, P., Jussila, J., & Suominen, A. (2008). Using Friedman test for creating comparable group results of nonparametric innovation competence data. In ICIM 2008, Proceedings of Presentation Papers, the 5th International Conference on Innovation & Management, December 10-11, 2008, Unu-Merit, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
•Suominen, A., Jussila, J., Porkka, P., & Vanharanta, H. (2008). Interrelations of development needs between innovation competence and innovation culture?. In In: Cheng, K., Makatsoris, H. & Harrison, D.(eds.) Advances in Manufacturing Technology-XXII, Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Manufacturing Research (ICMR08), 9-11 September 2008, Brunel University, UK.
•Suominen, A. H., Jussila, J., & Porkka, P. L. (2009). Discovering Correlations between Innovation Capability Data Components: Organizational and Individual. In In: Huizingh, KRE, Conn, S., Torkkeli, M., Bitran, I.(eds.). Proceedings of The XX ISPIM Conference, The Future of Innovation, 21-24 June, 2009, Vienna, Austria.
•Suominen, A., & Jussila, J. (2009). Organizational Innovation Capability. In: Oza, N., Abrahamsson, P.,(eds). Building Blocks of Agile Innovation.
•Bikfalvi, A., Jussila, J., Suominen, A., Vanharanta, H., Kantola, J. (2010). How to Boost Innovation Culture and Innovators?. Handbook on Business Information Systems, 359.
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