Innovating R&D innovation: Maintaining innovation process flow requires a paradigm shift to overcome actual and imaginary hurdles and barriers

Innovation has become recognized by organizations' executive management as a mean of creating and sustaining a competitive landscape for coping with the requirements of the new millennium. Most companies have a formal in-house process to manage both the downstream and upstream parts of the business. However in most firms, innovation management is still lacking. This reflects management's fear of stifling what is still often perceived as a soft and intangible factor combining creativity, knowledge, learning, and culture (Ahmed and Abdalla, 1999).