企业创新战略外文翻译文献(文档含中英文对照即英文原文和中文翻译)翻译之一：Choosing an innovation strategy: theory and practiceAuthor：Joseph T. GilbertNationality：AmericaDerivation：Business Horizons, Nov-Dec, 1994Innovations come as both inventions and adoptions. They come in many types and vary greatly in complexity and scope. Companies attempting tomake a profit cannot continue for long periods without innovating. If they try, their customers will leave them for firms with more up-to-date products or services. It is an observed fact that different companies take different approaches to the use of innovation in attempting to improve their performance.Both academic and practitioner publications in recent years have contained a great deal of writing about innovation, the subjects of which have ranged from comparisons of national patterns of innovation to studies of individual innovations. However, little has been published regarding one issue of both theoretical and practical importance: the innovation policy or strategy of individual firms.Business strategy as a field of study is concerned with how a company competes in its chosen business. It deals with the analysis of a firm's strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats presented by the firm's environment. Strategy looks toward consistent execution of broad plans to achieve certain levels of performance. Innovation strategy determines to what degree and in what way a firm attempts to use innovation to execute its business strategy and improve its performance.To choose an innovation strategy, managers might logically start by thinking about various kinds of innovations and their requirements. We shall discuss three major features of innovation, and analyze each in terms of distinct opposites, even though innovations found in the real world more often appear at various points between these opposites.Innovation is sometimes used in a limited sense to refer only to inventions (products, services, or administrative procedures that no other firm has introduced). More often, however, it applies in a more general sense that includes both invention as described above and imitation (adoption by a firm of a product, service, or administrative procedure that is not an invention but is new to that firm). We use the term in this second sense.Innovations can be characterized in a variety of ways. In the followingsections we will review three ways of describing innovations: incremental/radical; first mover/late mover; and imitative/inventive. The three categories are not mutually exclusive. However, each points to a different feature of innovation and reveals insights not found as readily in the other two. DEGREE OF INNOVATION--FROM RADICAL TO INCREMENTALHow new or different does something have to be before it can be called an innovation at all? If a paint company that currently offers 12 shades of white adds a thirteenth, is this an innovation? If a store that is presently open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. adopts a policy of staying open around the clock, this would seem to be an innovation. But what if it changes its opening time from 8 a.m. to 7:45--is this an innovation? If an airline that now offers ten flights a day from New York to Chicago adds an eleventh flight, is this innovative?At the other extreme, if a flower shop owner decides there is no hope for her business, and so closes up her shop and reopens it a month later as a used book store, is this an innovation? How about when U.S. Steel decided to branch out into oil and natural gas and change its name to USX? Was that an innovation? These issues may appear to be so trivial as to involve only word games, but in all the writings on innovation we have found no clear definition of the concept. To think clearly about an issue, it is helpful to define its limits. There are some innovations that are so minor they are barely perceived as changes. Clearly they have no impact on a firm's basic strategies. At the other extreme, some innovations are so great that they result in a fundamental change in the very nature of a business, leaving behind nothing of the old business. Both these extremes are beyond the scope of our discussion; instead, we are concerned with the vast middle ground.Some innovations are dramatic in their scope and impact and clearly fall into the category of radical. For example, the introduction of automatic teller machines made a fundamental change in the availability of some retail banking services. The personal computer, though still a computer, is a radically different way of providing computing power to many people who previouslyhad access to it only through the medium of mainframes or minicomputers and the intervention of information systems professionals. The use of high-yield bonds to finance takeovers brought fundamental changes to corporate ownership in the 1980s.Several studies, such as Mitchell (1989) and Tushman and Anderson (1986), have indicated that radical innovations tend to be introduced by companies outside an industry or by newcomers rather than by industry incumbents. These authors demonstrate that radical innovations that enhance skills possessed within an industry tend to be introduced by incumbents, whereas those that destroy existing skills tend to be introduced by new firms or industry outsiders. They also have shown that the timing of the introduction of radical innovations presents different problems for the two groups (industry incumbents and outsiders).Innovations that are radical when first introduced appear less so after they have become popular and their adoption is widespread. Apple's introduction of the personal computer was a radical innovation. When IBM introduced its first PC several years later, the innovation was less radical. When Dell and Gateway 2000 began retailing personal computers, the product was commonplace, but the method of distribution (direct mail) was seen by some as a radical departure from previous sales methods.The slightest of incremental innovations begins at whatever point we decide there is an innovation at all. Because they build on existing products, services, or routines and modify them to some degree, incremental innovations are generally easier to plan and implement, and involve less change than radical innovations. This is not to say that they do not have strategic value, or that the total result of a series of incremental innovations cannot be quite impressive when compared to the starting point.The single lens reflex 35mm camera has been on the market for a number of years. Many small improvements have been made since its first introduction. And although each would qualify as an incremental innovation, today's 35mmSLR camera is nonetheless quite different from the first one introduced. STIMULUS FOR INNOVATION--FROM FIRST MOVERS TO LATE MOVERS Inventions are, by definition, only introduced by one firm, or at most by a small handful of firms that bring a new product or service to market simultaneously. Companies that attempt to introduce an invention should logically stand to gain some substantial advantage, because there is a real risk of coming late to the finish line and gaining no prize. Companies that succeed in commercializing an invention are sometimes known as first movers. There are three basic types of advantages that can go to first movers.If an invention involves proprietary technology (prescription drugs, computer software) then the first firm to obtain the patent or copyright wins the exclusive right to market the product. The lack of competition can be a definite strategic advantage. For instance, Xerox was the first to introduce plain paper copier technology. The company was so successful in patenting this technology that it was able to build up a huge competitive lead before its first competitor entered the market.Preemption of scarce assets can sometimes provide an advantage to one or a few first movers that will not be available to those that adopt the innovation later. Examples of this include scarce landing slots at a major airport and oceanfront property for real estate development.The creation of buyer switching costs can also provide an advantage to one or a few first movers that is denied to followers. Once people learn how to use a word-processing program, they will usually stay with that program even in the face of a new one with more features. Travelers who have accumulated frequent flier miles on one airline will not readily switch to another.选择创新战略：理论与实践作者：詹斯夫·吉尔伯特国籍：美国出处：商业视野，1994年11—12月期创新既是发明也是吸收采纳。