Total innovation management: reinventing and revitalizing the corporation for the 21st century

Thriving in an age of mass innovation change is more and more difficult. It requires perpetual and pervasive innovation at all the levels of the organization. Therefore, managing innovation is increasingly challenging, especially for Chinese companies after joining in WTO. A theoretical framework of competence-based total innovation management is put forward in this paper. This framework mainly draws on three distinct areas of recent research: the innovation theory of the firm, the resource-based view (RBV) and competence theory of the firm, and the complexity theory. Total innovation management is the set of reinvention and management of innovation value network that dynamically integrates conception, strategy, technology, structure, process, culture and people at all the levels of organization in order to enhance innovation competence of company, create value for stakeholders and sustain competitive advantage. It is journey heightening competence of company, not a destination of company. It is concluded that it is only through total innovation management that Chinese companies can hope to create sustainable business through successive rainstorm of creative destruction in a turbulent and changing world.