The Innovation Management-Civil Society Connection

This essay examines a hitherto neglected innovation management-civil society connection. Innovation management scholarship and practitioner approaches generally focus on building capabilities relevant for promoting effective innovation in diverse organizational venues. However, civil society thinking, scholarship, and practitioner lessons are only beginning to take advantage of innovation management's insights. An absence of sufficient dialogue is unfortunate since innovation management capabilities are increasingly required for viable civil society. This is because such capabilities are well-suited for settings characterized by accelerating technology intensity, increasing emphasis on knowledge building, and the placing of greater priority on value-creation skills. Robust civil societies require appropriate innovation management capabilities because (1) innovation management capabilities are essential for competitiveness today, (2) innovation management capabilities are accessible, and (3) innovation management capabilities possess an underlying moral dimension representing bases for optimism and hope for the future. Relevant streams of thought in innovation management and their pertinence for civil society today are discussed, and contributions of innovation management perspectives and practice for today's civil society are identified. Relevant conditions in Central Eastern Europe are presented as a case in point. Finally, by interacting with greater intensity civil society issues also expand the discipline and influence of innovation management itself.