An Integrated Is Framework for Managing Innovation

While the management of innovation is the most knowledge-intensive organizational process, its information technology support has received only fragmented attention. Addressing the collaborative nature of the innovation process, in this paper we present Knowledge Breeder and its associated problemsolving methodology (Group Model Building by Selection and Argumentation) as a framework for supporting the innovation process in its entirety by enabling the “breeding” of the innovation concept. The core of the framework is a systemic modelling formalism that allows data in different forms to be attached to and retrieved in all the phases of the innovation process. Collaboration is by means of a structured dialogue and is centred on the models and their information artefacts proposed by different participants. This increases the efficiency of decision-making while at the same time enhances knowledge elicitation and integration. In the paper, we present the structure and the characteristics of our framework and we demonstrate its use through an example.