Racing Ahead With Innovation

Abstract

Massive societal change will result from the rate of continuous technology advancement and the pace will increase. The enterprise will face operational and technical challenges and society will increasingly expect the highest ethical conduct. What strategy will allow the organization to remain innovative and thrive in these circumstances? To develop new insight, anticipatory skills, and better decision making, a case is made for the adoption of model building and simulation. In addition to the benefits of shared conceptual artefacts for communicating in the enterprise, modelling requires a deep understanding of the ethics and reflexivity needed to deal with complex issues and using a transdisciplinary framework for inquiry may increase understanding. For innovation to emerge, participatory and co-creative approaches for sense-making are proposed to shift the responsibility for ethical decisions to more actors in the enterprise. This approach allows leaders to engage with the informal coalitions in the enterprise and shape the required strategic direction.