Measure and Measure: Making Innovation Explicit and Valued

In the 18th century, the renowned physicist Lord Kelvin remarked, “To measure is to know” and “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and can express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, then your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind”. Although he was not speaking about the field of knowledge and innovation management when he made these statements, there may be no better field for which these statements hold true, and his words may easily be applied to that which is missing from the extant literature on knowledge management.

There is a conspicuous absence of models to evaluate such efforts. A major concern for scholars and practitioners is how to measure the status of knowledge and innovation management in an organization –– i.e., its strengths and weaknesses Managers today have to rely on anecdotal descriptions to justify investments. Without a meaningful framework for describing its trajectory, knowledge, and innovation, management is viewed by many as a mere fad.

During the I3M meeting in April, I will be presenting our model for measuring the innovation process and linking it to business value...