Innovation Process, Decision$-$Making, Perceived Risks and Metrics

Finally, we discuss the key issues that have developed within our findings, and we provide conclusions as well as suggesting potential for future research resulting from this study.

Current Understanding of Innovation Processes, Innovation Decision$-$Making, Risks and Metrics for Success

Dilemma presented by the current state of innovation process research

Since Schumpeter's seminal work in the $1930$s$,$ many researchers have attempted to decode the phenomenon of innovation and how it can best be managed. Generally, the applied literature tends to fall into three broad categories. Either it is very context$-$specific such as for the semiconductor photolithographic alignment equipment industry $($Henderson and Clark, $1990)$ and a university$-$affiliated technical incubator $($Rothschild and Darr, $2005)$ or it is very broad and results in macro recommendations $($e$.$g$.,$ "encourage innovation champions", Markham and Griffin, $1998$; Howella et al$.,2005,$ or "create an innovation$-$supportive culture", Kanter, $2000$; Khazanchi et al$.,2007)$ that fail to provide short$-$term$-$strategies specific to the decision facing the innovation manager.

Other scholars have used a third approach wherein they have attempted to find more generic process methods to improve innovation success. Concepts such as Stage$-$Gate $($e$.$g$.,$ Cooper, $1990),$ Theory of Inventive Problem Solving known as TRIZ $($e$.$g$.,$ Regazzoni and Russo, $2011$; Robles et al$.,2011$; Sheu and Lee, $2011)$ and parallel development $($Figueiredo et al$.,2008$; Shibata, $2012)$ have all been offered alone and sometimes in combination with other concepts as roadmaps that managers should follow to improve innovation success. As these solutions to the innovation management problem are offered as generic solutions, this type of work implies that taking a time$-$ordered series of snapshots of the innovation process is a sufficiently accurate, comprehensive generalizable approach. On the other hand some scholars have described the process as always varied "the map of the innovation journey crosses a rugged landscape that is highly ambiguous and often uncontrollable and unique to its travellers" $($Van de Ven et al$.,1999$:$21).$ Thus, the dynamics of a movie $-$ with always different beginnings, middles and endings $-$ may be a more apt metaphor to encapsulate the innovation process.

Given the widely disparate viewpoints that have developed during the maturing of innovation management scholarship, rather than taking a position as to which camp we should fall into, we have chosen to effectively start over by reverting to the fundamental decision$-$making processes during innovation in an attempt to gain a robust understanding of the innovation process. Please summary pain point

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