Enabling radical and potentially disruptive innovations through interdisciplinarity: challenges and practices in industrial companies

Abstract

The motivation behind this paper and the underlying research is to shed light on how companies deal with interdisciplinary innovation activities, especially looking at the development of radical and potentially disruptive innovations. This includes the analysis of methods, processes, and organizational structures applied to support interdisciplinary innovation activities as well as challenges faced. Whereas this thematic field has been widely investigated for academic institutions and, in companies on a team level, there is only a little information on industrial companies’ current state. This understanding is especially important as shortening development cycles, and technological convergence combined with intersectoral innovations might lead to increases in radical and potentially disruptive innovations and thereby create the need for improved methods and structures throughout the innovation process. To gain insights into challenges and current practices of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, semi-structured exploratory interviews were carried out with representatives from seven industrial companies. Among others, the results of the study revealed that whereas many methodologies are said to support interdisciplinary innovation activities, a wide majority of these methodologies are applied for other reasons which make supporting interdisciplinarity seem like a kind of byproduct.

Introduction

The awareness of the need to develop radical and potentially disruptive innovations in the industry has continuously grown over the last decades. A key reason for this awareness is, that radical innovations contributed to major societal advances in history (Bers et al., 2009, pp. 165–166). Furthermore, due to increased technological convergence, new protagonists in innovation activities, and the orientation towards integrated solutions, interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities are among the daily challenges of industrial companies and the trends shaping the future of innovation (Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research, 2018, 2021). Bringing both developments together, it was shown that an increasing level of interdisciplinarity in innovation activities has a positive effect on the level of performance increase of innovations in comparison with previously existing reference solutions. This positive effect is principally based on the involvement of new answers and new questions on the way from ideas to innovations (Blackwell et al., 2009, p. 13). Through this effect, a high level of interdisciplinarity is especially suited to the development of radical innovations, understood as innovations with a high level of performance increase (Leifer et al., 2000, p. 5). The high level of performance increase of radical innovations, in turn, is positively linked to the potential of innovations being disruptive, whereas radical innovations can—but do not necessarily have to be disruptive. Disruptive innovation is understood in this paper as an innovation differentiated from other innovations based on the logic developed by Clayton M. Christensen (Christensen, 1997) and based on that by its characteristic of making investments from incumbent companies obsolete and thereby changing or even destroying previously existing market structure (Danneels, 2004, p. 248). Interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities is therefore assumed to be an important enabler for radical and potentially disruptive innovations.

Among the most relevant publications in the context of this research is the technical report published by Alan F. Blackwell and his colleagues (Blackwell et al., 2009). Using methodological and organizational support, the key focus area covered so far is principally on a team or project level. Here it can be confirmed that interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation projects requires specific framework conditions to be successful whereas the level of interdisciplinarity can produce a positive effect on the overall performance and the level of performance increase of innovations. Among others, success factors mentioned for interdisciplinary innovation teams and projects include elements, enablers, and team behaviors such as the establishment of goals, empowerment, commitment, or ownership (Blindenbach-Driessen, 2015, p. 30; McDonough, 2000, pp. 223–227; Holland et al., 2000). This is also well researched for collaboration as a general thematic area beyond innovation activities, as summarized for example by Francesca Gino and others (Bronstein, 2003; Gino, 2019; Sánchez & Štěpánek, 2020).

Whereas projects and teams can be considered to be an integral part of innovation activities, there is only little information available on interdisciplinary innovation activities from a broader perspective.

Within this paper, we would like to discuss the results of our research question of how companies deal with interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities based on the results of an exploratory study with seven industrial companies from Germany that was carried out in 2021. This study was structured as follows: the first section covered general information as well as functions and disciplines involved as well as challenges faced in interdisciplinary innovation activities were collected to create a general understanding of the contextual framework. In a second section, methodologies, processes, and organizational structures that are applied to support interdisciplinary innovation activities were investigated, ending with a prioritization according to the appreciated success by asking for practices that can be recommended as good or best practices. To gain insights into anticipated trends, the interviews were finalized with questions on future developments and challenges in the context of interdisciplinary innovation activities.

Terminology and literature review

Interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities is understood in the context of this paper as a sub-group of collaborative innovation activities, specifically focused on the involvement of different functions and educational disciplines (Madni, 2018, pp. 41–42). Overlapping terminologies are transdisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary collaborations often addressed on a team or project level (see for example Blackwell et al., 2009; Bernstein, 2015). At a higher level and with a link to product development, patents are often applied to identify correlations between the level of interdisciplinarity and other factors (Gerybadze & Reger, 1999; Hsu et al., 2015; Su & Moaniba, 2017). The formation of disciplines facilitates our discourses by their indexicality and provides “an extraordinarily powerful element for both offense and defense in academic discourse” (Abbott, 2001, p. 49). Based on an analysis of existing literature, Alan F. Blackwell, Lee Wilson, Alice Street, Charles Boulton, and John Knell differentiate types of disciplinary classification between (1) different disciplines within academic institutions; (2) firm subdivisions or different firms; (3) academia and business; (4) across sectors; and (5) across national borders of interdisciplinary collaboration (Blackwell et al., 2009, p. 103).

Due to the focus of this paper on interdisciplinary collaboration within companies the classification schemes (1) of the academic, or more precisely the educational backgrounds and (2), the firm’s division perspective are considered as a baseline for this analysis. The multitude of educational backgrounds and functional assignments of employees collaborating in innovation projects are thus referred to as educational and functional disciplines. As the educational background is of key relevance for the analysis of the level of interdisciplinarity, the taxonomy for fields of education and training ISCED-F 2013 is used for the classification of educational disciplines (UNESCO, 2015). Functional disciplines are categorized according to the functional organization of participating companies, clustering overlapping terminologies. Other disciplinary differentiations will not be explicitly considered for the structure of the analysis.

Interdisciplinary collaboration includes a range of possibilities to bridge disciplines and confront different, discipline-specific approaches with each other (Huutoniemi et al., 2010, p. 80). A broad overview of existing approaches and studies on creative interdisciplinary collaboration has been provided recently by Marisa Analía Sánchez, and Libor Štěpánek (Sánchez & Štěpánek, 2020).

Underlying the focus on interdisciplinary innovation activities of this study is the positive effect of the level of interdisciplinarity in innovation activities on radical and potentially disruptive innovation. This topic area was derived from the apparent lack of consideration of the aspect of interdisciplinarity in companies when dealing with potentially disruptive technologies that became visible in a study where representatives of 86 companies were interrogated on how they deal with potentially disruptive technologies, being considered as a key enabler for potentially disruptive innovations (Schimpf, 2020). Following the definitions of radical innovations as innovations with high performance increase or a complete set of performance features compared to a reference solution (Leifer et al., 2000, p. 5), and potentially disruptive innovations are defined by their characteristic of making investments from incumbent companies obsolete and thereby changing or even destroying previously existing market structure (Danneels, 2004, p. 248), we are especially interested in innovations combining the characteristics of both, radical and potentially disruptive innovations as shown in Table 1. In the understanding of disruptive innovations, we follow the elaboration of the theory of Clayton M. Christensen (Christensen, 1992, 1997, 2013; Christensen et al., 2004, 2015). Radical innovations are not only understood as technological innovations (Henderson, 1993, p. 248) but like all different kinds of innovations for example products, processes, services, or integrated solutions based on the differentiation from incremental improvements through their development dynamics and potential impact (Dosi, 1982; Tushman, 1986). We thereby consider the differentiation factors of innovations as complementary and not necessarily depending on each other. Thus, radical innovation my means of performance increase can have a sustaining or disruptive impact on the structures in the implementation field and a disruptive innovation can be an innovation of incremental or radical nature. We follow the differentiation between demand-side and supply-side sources of disruption as described by Joshua Gans in the book the disruption dilemma (Gans, 2016). The high impact on society might be an effect of radical innovation and is not considered as a pre-requisite for the characterization of innovation as such in the context of this paper.

Table 1 Differentiation of innovation types considered according to performance enhancement into incremental vs. radical and impact in the implementation field into sustaining vs. disruptive (see also Schimpf, 2020, p. 7)

The literature gap exists in the analysis of industry requirements beyond the team or project level considering innovation activities and their linkage to existing or the development of new methods, organizational structures, or processes to support industrial companies and more especially collaborating employees in interdisciplinary innovation activities.

The basic challenges in interdisciplinary collaboration seem to be clear and well addressed in the existing literature: an increasing degree of interdisciplinary collaboration, due to the necessity of interdisciplinary creativity, problem-solving, and commercialization is linked to a negative influence on the cohesiveness of teams going hand in hand with an increasing demand for communication and collaboration support (Keller, 2001, pp. 551–552). Appreciation of the status of interdisciplinarity research is twofold: on the one hand, it is stated that reasons for and practices of interdisciplinary collaboration are available (see for example Huutoniemi et al., 2010, p. 81) on the other hand, it is observed that there is a gap existing, e.g., in the availability of (IT)-tools for interdisciplinary orchestration and synchronization of innovation activities (Eigner et al., 2012, p. 7). Looking into industrial practice a recent survey of R&D Managers from the industry showed that interdisciplinary collaboration is one of today's most important challenges in industrial R&D and innovation (Wagner et al., 2020, pp. 11–20).

Research methodology

Based on the current gap existing in literature, the objective of the research carried out, is to explore, how companies deal with interdisciplinary innovation activities. This includes an understanding of the level of interdisciplinarity in innovation, including challenges faced by those. Furthermore, it includes the exploration of support tools and structures in the context of interdisciplinary innovation activities. Finally, the exploration includes insights into the perception of supporting tools and structures related to their support of interdisciplinary innovation activities and the perception of contextual future developments and challenges.

To explore these fields, exploratory and semi-structured personal interviews were chosen as the most appropriate methodology for data collection, as there is only little information available on how companies deal with interdisciplinary innovation activities (Aityan, 2022, p. 13; Sreejesh et al. 2014, p. 14). Whereas the preference would have been to do the interviews on-site at the companies, the pandemic situation led to the use of video-based web conferences to execute the interviews. An overall of seven interviews with representatives from industrial companies' research, development, and innovation departments was carried out in the timeline from March to Mai 2021. The literature analysis is complementing the qualitative analysis. Beyond the Information on the company and interview participant, namely the sector, size, research, and development quota, and role of the interviewee, the following key topic areas and guiding questions were covered in the exploratory interviews:

• (1) Functions and disciplines. Which are the key functions and disciplines, involved in innovation activities?

• (2) Challenges. What are the key challenges in the organization at the interfaces between functions and disciplines in innovation activities?

• (3) Methodological approaches. What are methodological approaches to support interdisciplinary collaboration that are applied?

• (4) Organization and processes. What organizational and process aspects support interdisciplinary collaboration?

• (5) Good and best practices. Are there any methodological approaches or organizational structures that the interviewee would recommend to other companies as good or best practices?

• (6) Future developments and challenges. How will, interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities change in the future, and what will be the key challenges to be anticipated?

The results of the interviews were typologized with the help of keywords and sequentially analyzed in a qualitative cluster analysis. Thus, characteristics, as well as their combinations could be identified (Liebold & Trinczek, 2009, pp. 41–45; Schurz, 2011, pp. 73–76). With the help of system analysis tools gephi open graph viz platform (Bastian et al., 2009; Khokhar, 2015), the combinatorial frequency of occurrence and associations of methods and tools as well as challenges in the participating companies were analyzed across the interviews. Within the results presented, the general rule is that the order of clusters presented, reflects the number of mentions without implying that this order equals a prioritization in participating or any other companies. The results of this exploratory study are meant to be used as the basis for a more extensive, empirical study to gain further understanding of the current state and the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities in industrial companies.

The participants were selected representing different types of companies and different company sizes to gain a broad variety of insights into challenges and practices of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities. Profiles of participating companies and functions of interviewees are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Profiles of participating companies (size and share of innovation activities represented by the number of R&D employees and R&D rate) and interviewee functions in participating companies

The key focus of the exploratory interviews was on the manufacturing industry, assuming that this industry is among the most affected by current trends towards interdisciplinarity in innovation activities related to products, services, and production. This includes for example increasing product and process complexity, increasing complexity of supplier networks, and changing customer expectations (see for example Fries et al., 2021, p. 143).

Results of the exploratory study

The results of the study are analyzed following the key topic areas presented in the research methodology, namely (1) functions and disciplines involved in innovation activities; (2) challenges faced in the context of interdisciplinary innovation activities; (3) methodological approaches; and (4) organizational structures or processes supporting interdisciplinary innovation activities; (5) good and best practices; and (6) future developments and challenges of interdisciplinary innovation activities.

Functions and disciplines involved in innovation activities

Among the participating companies, there is a large variety of different functions and disciplines involved in innovation activities. Interview participants were asked about both, the educational backgrounds and functional assignments of employees involved in innovation activities. It was stated, that, compared to educational discipline, functional interdisciplinarity is the key challenge in participating companies. However, looking at the interrelation between functional and educational disciplines, it seems that there is a strong consistency existing between both, indicating that within participating companies, most employees working in a functional department have a related educational background (see Table 3).

Table 3 Key functional and educational disciplines involved in innovation activities in participating companies. Educational disciplines are classified according to the ISCED-F2030 taxonomy for fields of education and training

Looking at the amount of different functional and educational disciplines involved in innovation activities among participating companies, it seems confirmed that interdisciplinary collaboration is an integral part of daily business in innovation activities of participating companies.

Key challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities

Following the specification of functional and educational disciplines involved in innovation activities, interview participants were asked about key challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, their companies are faced. This question revealed a relatively large variety of different insights, clustered in five categories:

• (1) Common understanding. The challenge most often mentioned was the creation of a common understanding between different disciplines. Aspects mentioned that led to this challenge were, for example, differences in terminologies, language, expectations, rules of collaboration, and methods applied along the innovation process.

• (2) Conflicting goals. Almost similarly mentioned as a common understanding, was the challenge of dealing with conflicting goals. Among the examples of poles leading to conflicting goals were the orientation toward organizational functions vs. users, conflicts between functions, technology push vs. market pull, or more precisely techno-centric perfectionism vs. user orientation. Avoiding recrimination and creating consensus were mentioned to be part of that challenge, whereas it was stated, that the complexity of interdisciplinary collaboration increases with the maturity of an idea.

• (3) Building trust. Following the previously described challenges, was the building of trust among disciplines and participants of different innovation phases. This includes for example early phases with a high level of flexibility and later phases with a clear focus on time and cost-efficiency. Also bringing together different disciplinary cultures from perspectives such as technology, market, users, finance, or esthetics was mentioned among the challenges. Furthermore, the aspects mentioned in this category include framework conditions of avoiding political games, give and take, and a maximum level of transparency.

• (4) Allocation of people and resources. This challenge brings together more pragmatic challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, such as the allocation of resources and the commitment from functional departments, as well as the not “forgetting” disciplines, that have only a minor role in the innovation process. Additional challenges mentioned in this context were the identification of the right persons to be involved and the right moment for their involvement in the process.

• (5) Enabling radical innovations. The last cluster mentioned was the challenge of enabling radical innovations by questioning existing solutions and paradigms from different perspectives and by “looking beyond one’s nose”. It was mentioned that this includes the availability of space and time for creativity and taking care that radical innovations do not “lose” in the war for resources against daily business. Furthermore, systemic thinking and a clear specification of requirements and value add were among the points mentioned in this category.

Whereas we did not ask for interdependencies, the combinational frequency across the interview results lead to the assumption that challenges (1) to (4) are positively correlated with the level of interdisciplinarity of innovation activities. Challenge (5), namely enabling radical innovations, seems to be a more overarching issue within participating companies.

Methodological approaches to support interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities

Methodological approaches in the context of this study are understood similarly to the common language definition of the term “methods”, as procedures that are based on a system of rules, aimed to obtain knowledge or practical results.¹ Following this definition, interviewees were asked, if systematic procedures exist within their organizations to support interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities. The following clusters of methodological approaches were mentioned:

• (1) Methods for strategic innovation management. Methods mentioned in the thematic area of strategic management were (1) the technology radar, aimed at enabling technology push beyond disciplines through the explicit specification of search fields and the continuous monitoring and evaluation of relevant technology fields and (2) roadmapping, aimed at visualizing and communicating innovation planning and interdependencies. Another method mentioned, which might be seen at the boundary of a methodological approach, was that (3) regular strategic initiatives are launched on an interdisciplinary basis.

• (2) Creativity and development methods. Most generic method mentioned in this thematic area was the execution of (1) idea workshops with interdisciplinary teams. More specifically, several of the participating companies, use (2) design thinking as a method to enable radical innovations, others integrate (3) user stories for a better and more explicit understanding and communication of user requirements. Also mentioned to develop radical innovations were (4) agile methods and SCRUM explicitly pointing out the necessity of the involvement of different disciplines.

• (3) Project management and coordination methods. Among methods for project management and coordination mentioned were (1) regular planning updates transparent to all disciplines involved; (2) ticket systems to support interdisciplinary collaboration; and (3) internal wiki systems for knowledge transfer.

While numerous methodological approaches are identified as facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, an analysis of these approaches suggests that the support of interdisciplinary collaboration can be largely considered a secondary outcome of each methodology.

Organizational structures or processes to support interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities

Organizational structures and processes can cause disciplinary separation, by strengthening organizational boundaries or enabling interdisciplinary collaboration, by bringing together different disciplines in a structured manner. The following clusters of processes and organizational structures supporting interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities were mentioned by the interviewees, highlighting the structures and processes in each cluster that were mentioned most across the participating companies:

• (1) Processes. In the first place, common process structures, adapted to interdisciplinary collaboration requirements, were mentioned by many of the interviewees. This included, for example, stage-gate structures, with defined process phases and roles, as well as fixed points in the process for the coordination of activities between disciplines. Additionally, regular status meetings, with the presence of all relevant disciplines were mentioned. It was pointed out, that these must be focused on the most important challenges and shall also involve disciplines that come into the process only in later phases. Another aspect mentioned for supporting interdisciplinary collaboration was the merging of stage-gate processes with agile principles and methods.

• (2) Organizational structures. Among the organizational aspects mentioned to support interdisciplinary collaboration in participating companies, was the specification of transparent responsibilities for the management of interdisciplinary collaboration on an individual level. Also, it was mentioned that business-oriented organizational structures should be preferred over functional organizational structures. A supporting example mentioned, was an interdisciplinary technology council from top management, established to discuss future innovations. Furthermore, the empowerment of employees and the possibility to create interdisciplinary teams bottom-up at any time were mentioned. Among the very pragmatic organizational approaches able to reduce barriers between disciplines, were shuttle services linking locations where different functional areas are situated and regular accompaniment of other disciplines such as developers being obliged to accompany for example sales and service.

• (3) Room and space. Rooms and physical space were mentioned by several interviewees as factors supporting interdisciplinary innovation activities. This included the mentioning of general common spaces, as well as project rooms and rooms to randomly meet representatives from other disciplines, for example during lunch in a common cafeteria or restaurant. Also, more abstract examples that enhance communication between disciplines were mentioned, such as common business travel or social events.

• (4) Events. Among the events mentioned, that support interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, were so-called technology days where different disciplines get involved to present and discuss recent technological development as well as their impact on innovation. Also, interdisciplinary creativity events with inspiring presentations and contributions were mentioned.

• (5) Culture. Interlinking many different organizational and process aspects, an interdisciplinary organizational culture was mentioned as a key supporting factor for interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities.

To summarize, a high variety of organizational and process aspects are applied to support interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, whereas seemingly no overarching guiding principles could be revealed across participating companies in the exploratory study.

Good or best practices of how participating companies support interdisciplinary innovation activities

The list of methodological approaches, processes, and organizational aspects in previous questions aimed at providing a general overview of how companies support interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities. By asking interviewees, what they would personally recommend as a good or best practice, we wanted to gain further insights on the most relevant support. Whereas support clusters are derived from previous questions, consistency of the answers among questions was not explicitly mandatory or cross-checked. Good or best practices mentioned, as well as their allocation to support clusters, are shown in Fig. 1. Support clusters are those resulting from the cluster analysis of answers to the question of what methodological support, organizational structures, or processes are established in participating companies to support interdisciplinary innovation activities. Methodological approaches, organizational structures, and processes vary due to the fact that the results shown for previous questions are prioritized and filtered based on the number of mentions across the interviews, whereas good or best practices are prioritized based on the appreciation of the interview partners.

Fig. 1

Good or best practices mentioned by interviewees linked to the support clusters for methodological approaches, organizational structures, and processes from questions (3) and (4)

The list of good or best practices provides first guidance for levers to improve support for interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities. However, as the list of good or best practices was created based on the personal view of each interviewee, any adoption of methodological approaches, organization, and processes should be reflected in detail, related to the sector, culture, and maturity of interdisciplinary collaboration of a company.

Future developments and challenges

The final and closing question was on how interviewees see the future of interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities within a time horizon of five to ten years. The consensus among many of the interviewees was, that the importance of interdisciplinarity will grow in the context of innovation activities. Among the reasons for this growing importance was the growing level of complexity, for example, a growing number of areas that must be considered for innovation, such as sustainability, digitalization, and a growing level of specialization. It was mentioned that this will not only be a concern of singular teams but moreover a trend toward a closer collaboration between different teams. Several interviewees additionally mentioned the growing importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between software and hardware developers, which will significantly increase in the next years. Another aspect mentioned was the increasing importance of international platforms and global supply networks that will complement interdisciplinarity challenges with other challenges, through an increasing national and cultural diversity in innovation activities.

Discussion

The results of the exploratory analysis based on interviews with practitioners provide insights into how companies deal with interdisciplinary collaboration in innovation activities, especially aiming at the development of radical and potentially disruptive innovations. Within participating companies, a wide variety of methods, organizational structures and processes are applied, to support interdisciplinary innovation activities. This included long term-oriented methods for strategic innovation management, mainly aimed at transparency as well as organizational structures and processes such as dedicated meetings and meeting places to directly support interdisciplinary innovation activities. Interestingly, good or best practices were mentioned across all different support clusters starting with methodological support up to room and spaces available for interdisciplinary innovation activities. Overall, consensus exists on the raising importance of the thematic area driven by growing importance of areas such as sustainability or digitalization and thereby a growing number of disciplines involved in innovation activities.

From a theoretical perspective, these insights are not generalizable due to the small sample size and the exploratory nature of research but rather create the baseline for further investigation. From a practical perspective, it seems that the thematic field is of very high relevance. This assumption is based on the high number of different disciplines involved in innovation activities within participating companies, combined with their perception of the increasing importance and intensity of interdisciplinarity in innovation activities within the coming five to ten years. The collection of methodologies approaches, organizational structures, and processes throughout the interviews provide an overview of the range of possibilities to support interdisciplinary innovation activities. With some exceptions, mentions from participants seem to address innovation in general and do only indirectly correspond to findings referred to in the literature on how to support interdisciplinary collaboration in general (Bronstein, 2003; Gino, 2019; Sánchez & Štěpánek, 2020). The same appears to be true when comparing methodological approaches, organizational structures, and processes with the challenges mentioned by participating companies. Moreover, while exploring both, functional and educational interdisciplinarity in innovation activities, participating companies considered rather functional than educational interdisciplinarity as a key challenge in innovation activities. The challenge of adapting the level of interdisciplinarity in innovation activities for the development of radical and potentially disruptive innovations was highlighted by participating companies.

All this said, it must be taken into consideration, that the results presented are not meant to be generalized due to the small sample size and the exploratory nature of the study. The results of the interviews are meant to provide insights to be further analyzed. Following these insights, there seems to be a gap existing between the literature on collaboration in general and more specifically on team collaboration and the current state of the industry. Based on this, the requirement of a more in-depth study of the industrial state of interdisciplinary innovation activities can be derived. Furthermore, it would be interesting to analyze the transferability of learnings from interlinked research areas.