Proceedings of Task Force Meeting "Human Factors in Innovation Management". Helsinki, 9-14 October, 1983

Vasko, T. & Goncharov, V. (1984). Proceedings of Task Force Meeting "Human Factors in Innovation Management". Helsinki, 9-14 October, 1983. IIASA Collaborative Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: CP-84-046

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Abstract

These proceedings from the IIASA Task Force Meeting held in Helsinki from 9-14 October, 1983 reflect the wide spectrum of interests and experiences of the participants. The main topic -- Human Factors in Innovation Management -- was singled out as a potential focus early in the life of the Innovation Management Project. Preliminary meetings had already indicated how internally structured this topic could be. Intentionally, no attempts were made to limit the scope of the meeting, as the objective was to realistically reflect the interests, experiences and research results of our collaborators and constituency in this field.

The papers and studies generated for the meeting have to serve as a basis for further work in this activity. There are few, if any publications in the field which, on a working level, reflect the results of East and West research and industrial organizations. This also brings the necessity for certain caution when reading the proceedings because in spite of certain editing, we did not want to produce a "monolithic" publication eliminating some interesting particularities. This may be valid for vocabulary and semantics of a few terms. Participants from socialist countries guided by translation from Slavic languages are inclined to describe engineering and technology by "technics" and understand under "technology" the production process.

Several authors treating the subject have hinted at the vagueness of related terms such as strategic planning (Wolf, Patz), innovation and its ingredients (Benjamin, Langrish, Prakke, Riegel) , or creativity (Kivikko, Langrish, Patz). In the paper by Bachvarov et al., examples are given how incentive and participative behavior are enhanced. The human factor is related to the wider problem of social impacts of new technologies, as pointed out by Langrish and Patz and hinted at by several other authors.

The interesting ideas, experiences and research results on the problems of team building and work are reported by several authors (Andersin, Bachvarov et al., Hanes, Moss, Rysina et al., Wolf). One tends to express the impression that in many companies in different countries the problems seem to be structured following similar patterns. At the first IIASA meeting on the problems of innovation the following question was posed: "To what extent is management of innovation the innovation of management?" Several authors stressed the need to educate managers to think and act creatively and in an innovative way and reported on the programs their own companies have instituted (Cervenka, Hempel, Smrcka, Virkkala) . This only proves the relevance of the question posed above.

From several papers one can also feel the "in-house" practices that companies use when contemplating innovations (for example, Karttunen and Wolf).

These proceedings with selected papers, present examples of the most important problems managers face when managing innovation in the contemporary world.

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