Innovation politics: how serial innovators gain organisational acceptance for breakthrough new products

More than improving today's business, breakthrough products can transform business, creating positive transitions into the future. However, these projects can have trouble gaining acceptance into the firm's development pipeline. Fortunately, some individuals in some organisations have come to appreciate how embracing a firm's politics can facilitate first a breakthrough idea's acceptance into development, and then the development of that concept into a commercial product. If innovators became more aware of the political actions that contribute to successful project acceptance and became more capable of motivating and taking such actions, perhaps more breakthrough products would be developed. The role of politics in product development practices has been identified but rarely explored deeply. This study addresses this gap by generating an understanding of the political actions that benefit New Product Development (NPD) practices. We identified and interviewed 19 serial innovators about their innovation processes across diverse, mature corporations.