Innovation Communication and Inter-Functional Collaboration: A View from the Competing Values Framework for Corporate Communication

Firms in intensive-technology industries need to constantly innovate and rapidly commercialize innovations to capture consumer needs and preferences, create value for shareholders, and sustain competitive advantage. Consistent with disruptive innovation theory, which places a great emphasis on the power of organizational processes and enabling technology to deliver products and services at lower costs than incumbent firms, innovative firms transform their markets by pulling in new customers (Christensen and Raynor 2003). Key organizational functions with important synergistic effects for successful innovation include marketing, R&D, and operations/production. However, it has long been recognized that without open communication and joint accountability, the tension among these functions that often is also triggered by conflicting communications with external stakeholders, might lead to lower levels of organizational performance. Indeed, resources and capabilities that are not translated into well-synchronized activities, best practices, or business processes cannot have a positive impact on a firm’s performance (Ray et al. 2004). Using the Competing Values Framework for Corporate Communication to examine communication relationships within and outside organizations (Belasen 2008), this chapter will focus on identifying characteristics of adaptive culture and innovation communication that contribute to effective inter-functional collaboration.