MBA 580 Module 1 Innovation and Performance Discussion example

Reviewed by Portia Lambrick, MBA Innovation and Strategy for High-Performance Organizations Southern New Hampshire University Full sample paper Free custom sample in 24 to 48h

This complete MBA 580 Module 1 discussion post opens a graduate innovation course with a tension every established company faces. A composite U.S. mass-market automaker is excellent at steady, incremental improvement, better fuel economy, quieter cabins, fewer defects, while rivals redesign vehicles around software that can be updated after sale. The post distinguishes incremental from discontinuous innovation, explains why successful companies often miss the second kind, and introduces the idea of an ambidextrous organization, then asks classmates about their own organizations. The automaker is fictional; the studies are not.

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An MBA 580 Module 1 reply of about 350 words distinguishing incremental from discontinuous innovation through an automaker facing software-defined competitors, and explaining why high-performing firms need to do both. Searches like "mba 580 module 1 assignment", "mba580 module 1 innovation and performance discussion" and "mba 580 module 1 example" land here.

The MBA 580 Module 1 example, in full

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Module One Discussion: Innovation and High Performance

Re: Getting better at the wrong thing

My example is a composite U.S. mass-market automaker that builds about 1.1 million vehicles a year. Its engineers are superb at incremental innovation. Each model year brings slightly better fuel economy, a quieter cabin and fewer warranty claims, and its quality awards are well deserved. Its planning process rewards exactly this: each program is judged on cost per vehicle, defect rates and customer ratings from the last model.

Incremental innovation improves what already exists along a familiar path; discontinuous innovation breaks from that path and can make existing strengths less valuable (Garcia & Calantone, 2002). Our automaker's rivals are moving toward vehicles designed around software, where features arrive through over-the-air updates long after the car is sold and the relationship with the driver continues for years. That is not a better cabin. It is a different idea of what the product is, and of where the profit comes from: some of the value now lies in software, data and services sold over the vehicle's life rather than only in the sale itself.

Christensen (1997) showed why successful companies often miss changes like this: they listen closely to their best customers and invest where margins are highest, which is exactly what makes them excellent at incremental improvement and slow to see a shift. A company can be getting better every year at a game that is quietly changing its rules.

The answer is not to abandon incremental work, which still pays the bills, but to do both. Tushman and O'Reilly (1996) called this ambidexterity: running the existing business efficiently while exploring new ones in separate units with their own processes, connected by senior leaders who protect the new work from being absorbed by the old. For the automaker, that might mean a small software and connected-services unit with its own budget and hiring, reporting to the chief executive rather than to vehicle engineering.

I would like to hear from classmates: where you work, which kind of innovation gets funded first, and who protects the other kind?

What this page is doingThe post defines both types with a source, uses established research to explain the incumbent's blind spot and turns the concept into a concrete organizational choice. That progression is what distinguishes analysis from description.
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References

Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator's dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business School Press.

Garcia, R., & Calantone, R. (2002). A critical look at technological innovation typology and innovativeness terminology: A literature review. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19(2), 110-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5885.1920110

Tushman, M. L., & O'Reilly, C. A., III. (1996). Ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change. California Management Review, 38(4), 8-30. https://doi.org/10.2307/41165852

How this MBA 580 Module 1 example is structured

The post starts with a company that is good at one kind of innovation and threatened by another. It defines both kinds, uses research to explain why incumbents struggle with discontinuous change and introduces ambidexterity as the response. It ends by asking classmates which kind of innovation their organization funds first.

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Pass along the MBA 580 Module 1 prompt and rubric, and a written reply on innovation and high performance comes back within 24 to 48 hours; the first is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Southern New Hampshire University document.

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MBA 580 Module 1 questions, answered

What is MBA 580 Module 1 usually about?

A graduate innovation course typically opens with what innovation is, its types, such as incremental and discontinuous or radical, and why innovation matters for organizational performance. Discussions often ask students to describe innovation in an organization they know.

What is the difference between incremental and discontinuous innovation?

Incremental innovation improves existing products or processes in small steps along a known path. Discontinuous innovation breaks from that path, introducing new technologies or business models that can make existing capabilities less valuable and change how an industry competes.

What is an ambidextrous organization?

An ambidextrous organization pursues both exploitation, improving and efficiently running its current business, and exploration, developing new and potentially disruptive businesses, often by giving exploratory units their own structures and cultures while linking them through senior leadership.