Reference no: EM133641980

Case: You have just been employed at Robotics incorporated as the manager for Learning and Innovation. I am the CEO and you report to myself. I employed based on your MBA in Entrepreneurship and your flair for creativity

The company which has grown from a small entrepreneurial organisation established by Dr S. Chip- the managing director, who has a doctorate degree in engineering. The company which produces robotics for various manufacturing industries. The company is comfortably positioned in the global market with only one or two other major competitors based in Sweden.

The board of directors were against employing anyone as they feel that the organisation is well placed on the innovation platform. The company is making good profit and employs over 1,000 people in Australia.

The basis for the board's opinion is that the company has a Research and Development division (which you will now be responsible for) is continuing to enhance the company's product offering and as such is maintaining market share well. The Managing Director and the Board feel that the ongoing key to the company's success is to keep ensuring that they stay ahead of the major competitor Optimalprime Inc in Sweden.

You attend your first Board meeting at the invitation of the CEO. The discussion turns to that of the innovation and Entrepreneurship. You report to the Board that the management group appear not to be well trained in area of managing innovative people.

The directors are somewhat shocked and find it difficult to believe that in the organisation as large as Robotics that the senior management are not trained in innovative ideas.

You raise a second issue in relation to the management that is the ability of the management team to identify, nurture and support, creative people in the organisation. Again, the directors who have always had faith in the senior management team are dismayed by your contention. In particular one director suggests that the Research and Development department is really the only department that should be creative, remembering of course that you are in charge of that department.

You decide to call a meeting of the senior management team and investigate further.

In the meeting you ask a key question; Who are the creative people that work in your respective departments? The answers range from "I don't know" to it is not really important for my department to be creative! It becomes clear that there is little understanding of the concept of managing creative individuals.

It appears that your thoughts were correct, you now have to prove it to the Board of Directors. You decide to develop a questionnaire for the senior managers to answer to provide some evidence for your report to the board. One of the problems you identify is the understanding and awareness at the Board of directors level. You feel that this is an important issue, however in speaking to your CEO he is reluctant to raise the issue with the Board members. This is due in the main to their strong belief that the level of innovation is adequate in particular when compared to that of Robotics major competitor, Optimalprime which continually brings new features to the marketplace.

You decide to investigate further and through your discussions with staff and other senior managers you find the following facts.

There is no central knowledge base for employees to register their ideas
There is minimal reporting provided to senior managers on the success rate or otherwise of the ideas generated
Any reports that are generated are only provided to a select few managers and in particular the head of the Research and Development department
There is no feedback "loop" to the employees or managers
The reports are downloadable from the companies internal website under the heading "suggestion box"
When you asked several of the senior managers if they knew about the reports the responses from many were that they had no idea the internal website existed yet alone reports. One manager said "it really doesn't matter as the approval process is really centred around innovations in the R&D department, knowing about the number of ideas isn't really important"

You decide to write an information document to educate the board of Directors entitled Awareness and measuring innovation and Intrapreneuarship in organisations. You decide to discuss these key headings for the report with your CEO before you report for the Board. You note these before you meeting with the CEO.

a. Develop a number of headings for the report relating to the key issues for the report for the Directors to answer which you believe will identify the potential issues and give evidence to support your claims to the directors

b. You are concerned about the CE strategy and if it is understood by all concerned in the organisation(including the Directors, include in your report to the board some notes about CE strategy as advice to the Board of Directors.