Management Innovation Lab

Julian Birkinshaw, Co-founder of the Management Innovation Lab discusses why management innovation is a largely unexplored source of competitive advantage

In a new podcast, Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategic and International Management at London Business School and Co-founder of the Management Innovation Lab (MLab) talks about the potential for management innovation to drive long term success for companies.

The MLab was founded by Julian Birkinshaw and Gary Hamel following research into sources of competitive advantage. Julian comments, "The most sustainable advantages we found in companies were due to innovations in work practices, rather than innovation in products."

The MLab, Julian goes on to explain, works with companies to "experiment and innovate with them around their management practices."

Julian also discusses the importance of management innovation: "To get to the root your company's challenges you need to get to the root of how you work, only by understanding this can you work out how to change in the long term". For companies who are already performing well, management innovation can help them "move from best practice, to next practice."