The immaterial nature of the knowledge society shifts the focus of management processes for the management of people, from the material to the intellectual capital, from the management of resources to the management of information and knowledge about the mediators and mediated by who produce and consume information produced, in order to create value and wealth for sustainable social development. Thus, it is crucial to clarify the concept of innovation and its determination, as more than the quality of the performance systems (intrinsic value) is important to determine the human reaction of the performance of these systems (perceived value). In this chapter, the author proposes that the success of organizations depends on their ability to satisfy the people that constitute their market, physical or virtual. The author suggests that the successful project management of organizations is sustained in decisions based on the management of information and knowledge of their market demand.
A well-defined mission serves as a constant reminder of the need to look outside the organization not only for ‘customers’ but also for measures of success. The temptation to content oneself with the ‘goodness of our cause’—and to substitute good intentions for results - always exists in nonprofit organizations. Peter Drucker - Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management, p.134.
One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince, p.72.
TopIntroduction
The information society1 inaugurates a new time in the management of the organizations.
From a mass and hierarchical society, which privileges the property of the means of production and physical preservation of the assets and produced services (Marques, 2013c, p.137), has evolved to a personalized and horizontal society.
From the tangible actives2 of the agricultural and industrial societies – land, capital and work -, which constituted the privileged source of wealth, the analysis axis shifts to a new category of indicators, the intangible actives3 of the post-industrial organizations.
Although of difficult measurement, given its immaterial and subjective character, mainly from traditional metrics, the intangible actives assume as the only natural resources that are inexhaustible and unlimited, capable of leading to creativity and innovation4 and, thus, to the conquest of the competitive edge of the organizations in the new millennium – knowledge, that public asset, that can be used without being consumed.
Thus, despite the resources invested in research and development being high and the profits generated by the intangible benefits – knowledge based innovation – spend time and, sometimes, reduced, one does not know any other differentiation factor and creation of value and wealth for the sustainable development of organization in global society, which will be provided with flexible hierarchies and of a new organization culture.
In this context, see the invisible for the eye, see first that the competition constitutes the desired recipe for the success of the organizations. So, it is necessary to develop an attitude of permanent learning, based on a spirit of continuous improvement5 and on a proactive behavior for change.
It is this continuous process of learning and improvement between the several individual systems and the social macrosystem in which they are in, that allow the creativity and innovation of the organizations and of the subsystems that constitute them (Marques, 2013a, p.378).
This way, the market laws, more and more competitive, unstable, demanding and global, are determinant towards competitiveness and for the sustainability of any area or domain of activity, generating the need to study them. So that we can conquer and satisfy.
Therefore, the permanent quest of the competitive edge of the organizations goes through the creation and development to capture the loyalty strategies of the customers, more and more absorbed by a complex and diversified area.
According to Drucker (1998), innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. It is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth. So, according to the degree of competitiveness of the market where the organizations are in, whether in terms of supply and in the dimension of the market, it shall be given attention to innovation both as the engine of the new economy and factor of defrosting of the organizations.
However, one has to highlight that the bet in innovation, for its own pioneer character, involves high risk factors and a high probability of failure, namely in terms of the unpredictability and absolute impossibility of controlling the several and complex variables involved in the process. So, manage routines, processes, means, etc. is, from a tactical and operational point of view, far safer than to risk, bearing in mind a possible failure.
Still, in terms of strategic thought, this attitude, based on the fear of making mistakes and resistance to change, apart from reducing creativity and innovation and, thus, scientific and technological development, compromises, yet just at a long term, the survival of organizations and the happiness of the human being.