On the Design of a Seven-stage Innovation Life Cycle

This paper introduces a new industrial innovation life cycle for organizations to understand the changes of their operational environment and adjust their strategic settings. The construction of the new innovation life cycle is based on two building blocks: (1) “innovation trinity”, which means that a common denominator of innovation is constituted by product, process, and business innovation, and (2) “binding forces”, which means that different types of innovation and various activities related to innovation are tied by three sets of forces: learning mechanisms, perceived consequences and achieving requirements. By linking the innovation trinity and innovation binding forces, a new innovation tripartite life cycle (ITLC) is developed. Under the ITLC, basic statues of innovation, the linkages between those statues and a repeatable timeline among those statues are clearly labeled. By using the ITLC, organizations can have a better dynamic benchmark for continuously renewing themselves.