As part of our extended research for NESTA last year we’ve briefly looked into strategic management innovation. It was one of the horizontal categories of their Connect arm’s Corporate Open Innovation (COI) Framework. One school of thought represented by the likes of London Business School’s Management Innovation Lab has focused on strategic management innovation from the inside out, e.g. internal innovation. The counter argument is that cultural barriers and turf wars make it less likely that new innovations can ever take off unless they’re undertaken outside the organisation initially, perhaps in partnership with the organisation, and only bought into the organisation once the innovation has reached critical mass – with the the likes of Nespresso being cited as an example.

The ‘Outside In’ versus ‘Inside Out’ debate may be one of those horses for courses decisionmaking scenarios, largely dependent on cultural attitudes towards incubating new ideas. We hope to explore this theme, particularly as far as those more collaborative examples.