Effective Innovation Leadership
Why do some people, companies, and countries keep producing breakthroughs while others, despite talent and resources, fall behind? And what can an individual leader do about it? Effective Innovation Leadership answers these questions by tracing innovation across three levels. It starts with national innovation systems and global rankings, showing how research, education, industry, government, and culture set the rules of the game. It then turns to organizations and explains how culture, strategy, and structure must work as one system if new ideas are to survive the pull of daily operations. Finally, it arrives where innovation begins: with the individual. Personality, potential, competence, roles, teams, and practices are presented as a research-based model that distinguishes stable traits from skills that can be developed. Throughout, the book examines how artificial intelligence is changing the way we innovate and why sustainability belongs at the start of the process, not the end. Each chapter combines evidence from current studies with case examples, key takeaways, and reflection questions, complemented by a website with audio summaries, videos, and practical tools. Written for leaders, researchers, founders, and practitioners, this book turns innovation from a lucky accident into a capability you can understand, lead, and build.
Dr. Sabrina Schork is a professor in the Faculty of Business and Law at Technische Hochschule Aschaffenburg. She focuses her research on the topic of "Human-Governed AI for Innovation." She is a team member at the Center of Competence for Artificial Intelligence and has served as Dean of Studies. Professor Schork earned her doctorate at the Institute for Entrepreneurship, Technology Management, and Innovation at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and worked as an innovation leader. Her research focuses on innovation in the age of AI using mixed methods designs with a quantitative core. She has taught at the International University of Monaco, the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, the KIT, and the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. She has conducted research at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Berlin and the ZBW – Leibniz Information Center for Economics in Kiel.