Towards an ambidextrous innovation management maturity model

Digtalization is leading to wide-ranging changes for the economy and is considered as one of the main drivers of innovation. Ever-shorter innovation cycles, high volatility and increased cost pressure are just some of the effects that companies have to face as a result of digitalization. In order to remain competitive in the long term, companies not only have to continuously develop existing products and services, but also exploit the innovation potential of new technologies. This poses new challenges for innovation management, since the company must work on the development of radical or even disruptive innovations in addition to the popular development of incremental innovations. The simultaneous promotion of incremental and radical innovations is also known as ambidexterity. The development of incremental innovations has been established for years in most companies. However, many companies do not have the required know-how about the development of radical innovations and the realization of ambidexterity. One important step on the way to an ambidextrous innovation management is the analysis of the initial situation in the company. Often there is uncertainty about which areas and tasks have to be considered and should be designed in the sense of ambidexterity. Therefore, this paper develops a maturity model for an ambidextrous innovation management. For this purpose, a systematic literature analysis of existing maturity models in innovation management will be conducted and its understanding of innovation will be compared. Since most maturity models do not explicitly differentiate between radical innovations or primarily consider incremental innovations, requirements for the innovation management of radical innovations and ambidexterity were derived in the course of a further systematic literature analysis. Based on this database, a maturity model for an ambidextrous innovation management could be derived, which is subdivided into 26 tasks with 5 different levels each.