Managing innovation when the management unit changes

In our previous article, we suggested that computing infrastructures could be one of the next areas where standards-essential patents (SEPs) might emerge. However, the topic of SEPs is less an end in itself than an indicator. It leads us to a more general question: Do transformations in technological architectures not call for us to evolve the frameworks through which we currently conceptualize innovation management? It is this question that we wish to explore here.

Artificial intelligence, computing infrastructures, the cloud, next-generation networks, and—in the future—quantum technologies can no longer be viewed as independent areas of innovation. These technologies are integrated into technological architectures where hardware components, software, standards, and intellectual property models interact, as well as industrial platforms, business models, public policies, and globalized value chains.

The challenge is no longer simply to understand each of these dimensions, but rather the interactions—which are now decisive—that connect them. This evolution is leading to a gradual shift in the relevant unit of analysis and management of innovation. Such a shift poses a challenge for organizations, as it requires them to adapt the frameworks through which they conceive, steer, and support innovation.

This initial observation is compounded by a second. The same technologies now underpin civilian, industrial, and defence applications. Computing and communications infrastructures are gradually becoming critical infrastructures. Performance challenges are now intertwined with requirements for resilience, sovereignty, security of supply, and governance. In this context, the difficulty lies not only in developing new technologies. It is also to have a framework that allows us to understand the transformations they trigger.

Innovation is not only becoming more complex; it is gradually changing in scale. As the relevant unit of management evolves, the strategic horizon on which innovation management is based must also evolve. It is this insight that forms the basis of the proposal developed in this article: an architectural approach to capabilities.

By “capabilities,” we do not mean solely technological capabilities. An organization simultaneously draws upon capabilities in research, design, industrialization, integration, standardization, regulatory compliance, intellectual property management, legal engineering, strategic foresight and cooperation. The challenge is not to consider these capabilities in isolation, but to understand how they interconnect to support a strategic ambition. It is precisely this interconnection that we refer to as “capabilities architecture”: the coherent and evolving organization of the capabilities that an organization mobilizes to pursue a strategic ambition in a changing environment.

Over the past several decades, innovation management has evolved considerably. Research on disruptive innovation, open innovation, entrepreneurship, and innovation management systems has profoundly transformed organizational practices. It has also helped shape the conceptual frameworks upon which innovation management is based today. The shift in the relevant unit of analysis and management naturally raises questions about how to conceptualize innovation.

Our thinking does not start from a blank slate either. It builds on a body of work that has profoundly shaped the field of management science. Herbert Simon demonstrated that organizations cannot be understood independently of the decision-making systems they employ. David Teece has emphasized that their sustainable advantage rests on their ability to develop, integrate, and reconfigure their capabilities as their environment changes. More recently, the ISO 56000 series of standards has proposed a systemic framework for innovation management, based on the development and continuous improvement of organizations’ innovation capabilities. Our proposal builds on this line of thinking. It seeks, however, to extend this line of reasoning by positing the hypothesis that transformations in technological architectures are now leading to a shift in the relevant unit of analysis and management of innovation. In our view, this evolution calls for considering three complementary perspectives.

The first is the view that innovation management can no longer be approached solely from the perspective of technology, nor solely from that of uses or markets. Technology naturally remains essential and forms the foundation of all technological innovation. Uses and markets remain just as critical. However, in a context where technological architectures are becoming increasingly complex, none of these entry points is sufficient on its own. Thinking about innovation thus calls for a shift in perspective: it is a matter of understanding the capabilities that enable the integration of technologies, uses, resources, and other dimensions within coherent and scalable technological architectures.

The second involves viewing resources not as an end in themselves, but as means to support the capabilities that organizations seek to develop. Their true strategic significance depends on the capabilities they enable organizations to build, coordinate, and develop. Resources, of course, remain indispensable. Capacities, on the other hand, reflect the strategic ambition that these resources are meant to help achieve. This distinction shifts the focus: it is no longer simply a matter of allocating resources, but of identifying the capacities that need to be developed to achieve long-term objectives. Resources thus become a lever for advancing a capacity-building trajectory rather than an end in themselves.

The third involves viewing innovation as a management system whose purpose is not merely to produce innovations, but to sustainably develop the capabilities needed to respond to changes in the technological, industrial, economic, regulatory, and institutional environments. This perspective aligns with the spirit of the ISO 56000 series, which views innovation management as a coherent system of interacting elements rather than as a series of independent projects.

These three perspectives are not independent. They constitute the three dimensions of a single proposition: thinking of innovation as an architecture of capabilities. By “architecture of capabilities,” we do not mean a simple juxtaposition of skills or resources. We are referring to the coherent and evolving organization of the capabilities that an organization mobilizes to pursue a strategic ambition in a changing environment.

This approach does not diminish the importance of fundamental or enabling technologies. On the contrary, it places them within the technological architectures to which they contribute and prompts us to consider the capabilities that organizations must develop to design, integrate, govern, and evolve these architectures. It is precisely this shift in perspective that sheds light on the transformations currently underway in several major technological ecosystems. Computing infrastructures provide a prime example of this.