“Innovation success zone” is a term used here as a collective term derived from the Rand
Corporation’s logic model approach to evaluating research outputs, outcomes and impacts that have been
successfully introduced, with evidence, to address issues in a specific situation [77].
The culmination of research and development work to yield more than the generation of new
knowledge is increasingly being viewed as what research and development stakeholders really require in
exchange for funding and supporting research and development programs [78].
While the innovation success zone emphasis in Figure 2 is relatively new in scholarly literature, the
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa has this written into their mandate,
which is governed by national legislation. The mandate of the CSIR could be summarized as that of
conducting directed and particularly multi-disciplinary research and technological innovation in support
of national and other priorities for and with principals from the private or public sectors. Both
competitiveness and socio-economic development related innovation are included [79].
For the purpose of the current study, selection criteria for successful innovation leaders further
included the following:
x Creative and research work under their leadership had proceeded further than basic or applied
research in the research and innovation value chain.
x Their research had manifested in one or more of the following:
o patent(s) were granted;
o license(s) were granted for commercial application; and/or
o research work has culminated in innovation strategies and/or government policy derived from
research.
Data collection took place through a portfolio of methods. Literature studies formed the basis of the
rationale for the study as well as the initial list of generic leadership behaviors to serve as initial input for
considering innovation competencies. A semi-structured questionnaire was used by respondents to
identify the success-related leadership behaviors of selected leaders. Subsequent processing of the data
took place under scrutiny of senior leadership and institutional governance structures within the sample
organization.
For the identification of successful leaders in the selected organization, references solicited from
colleagues and networks as well as internal organizational reports on performance excellence, were used.
The results of the above rounds of research were used to construct an innovation leadership competency
profile which may be seen as the crux of the contribution of this study towards the existing body of
knowledge.