Why Established Organisations Struggle to Innovate, and How to Break Through
On Tuesday 3 March Mette Storvestre will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend her thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.
In an era of relentless and radical change, innovation is no longer optional. It is a critical lever for adaptability, a matter of survival. Yet despite ambitions and significant investments, many struggle to innovate successfully.
This thesis presents frontier research that explains why this happens and, crucially, how firms can overcome these challenges by adopting open innovation, a strategy that involves collaborating internally as well as with startups and external partners to extend knowledge networks, pool resources, and share risk. While open innovation is widely adopted by agile pioneers, far less is known about how large, mature traditional firms, such as asset-intensive firms, utilities, hospitals, defence, and public-sector institutions, can make it work. They face a unique and underestimated challenge. They operate within rigid, efficiency-driven operational frameworks and regulations designed for stability rather than innovation. As a result, open innovation requires more than new tools or initiatives, it demands deep internal transformation. Drawing on extensive empirical research, this work provides new insights into how these firms can become ready for open innovation.
This work offers three complementary insights making open innovation work. The first study follows an eight-year transformation process in a utility. It identifies six critical conditions that determine whether open innovation succeeds and introduces the Double Loop model showing firms how to build a capability base that strengthens adaptability by enabling both incremental improvements for efficiency and more radical innovation for long-term renewal. The second study explains why open innovation is difficult, revealing how a deep-rooted focus on efficiency crowds out innovation efforts. It identifies the mechanisms behind this imbalance and proposes context-sensitive strategies to overcome it without undermining operational performance.
The third study highlights the power of collective engagement demonstrating that when firms foster a shared, corporate-wide commitment to innovation, they can unlock a latent potential already present within the firm. This research provides timely and practical guidance for leaders seeking to move from ambition to innovation capability. It shows that successful innovation is not about copying startups, but about orchestrating internal transformation enabling meaningful and engaged collaboration.
Prescribed topic for the trial lecture:
«The Human Side of Innovation: How Human Actors Engage in And Make Sense of Innovative Activities in Organizations»
Trial lecture:
Aud. B, 10:15
Title of the thesis:
«Adapting to Change: Embracing Corporate Open Innovation to Enhance Organisational Adaptability»
Defense:
Aud. B, 12:15
Members of the evaluation committee:
Associate Professor Karen Osmundsen (chair of the committee), Department Strategy and Management, NHH
Professor Karin Berglund-Lindner, Ørebro University of Business
Professor Hans Solli-Sæther, NTNU
Supervisors:
Professor emeritus Paul Gooderham (main supervisor), Department Strategy and Management, NHH
Professor emeritus Wim Vanhaverbeke,Universtity of Antwerp
Professor Sven Haugland, Department Strategy and Management, NHH
The trial lecture and thesis defense will be open to the public.