Sustainable and Successful Innovation :: Business, Iraqi Manufacturing System

Today, almost all organizations face a dynamic environment characterized by rapid technological change, shortening product life cycles, and globalizations. Organizations need to be more creative and innovative than before to survive, to compete, to grow, and to lead (Jung et al., 2003; Tierney et al., 1999). An issue is that, for many sectors in general and manufacturing sectors in particular innovation seems unpredictable, mysterious, and apparently unmanageable (Tidd, Bessant, & Pavitt, 2005). The general problem is that sustainable and successful innovation is so difficult to be achieved by many firms (Marane, 2011; Al-Muafaq, 2009). In the increasingly competitive environment, firms turn to innovations to increase their performance, market share, market exposure and potential for revenue earning, but the stakes are high (Scantlebury & Lawton, 2007). While success in innovation may lead to greater revenues earning, value, and market shares (Hult, Hurley, & Knight, 2003), mistakes can lead firms to the complete breakdown carefully crafted business strategy (Cozijnsen, Vrakking, & Ijzerloo, 2000). It becomes imperative for firms to develop the capability to innovate at a faster rate and in a sustainable level (Fruhling & Siau, 2007). Organizations are increasingly investing more resources on research and development, yet studies have shown that investment by itself does not guarantee the development of organizational performance and organizational innovation capability (Wol ff, 2007). The specific problem is that, Iraq manufacturing sector has a crucial role in gross domestic products of the country over the periods it placed the second rank to support the notional economic and contributes GDP more than 33% (Iraq annual report 2010). This sector is not spared by the challenges and effects of sustainable, competitive advantages and low level of innovation. In this context, they are suffering more than other organizations in terms innovation capabilities in manufacturing sectors in Iraq. Manufacturing investment commitment to innovation may not produce valuable outcomes unless leaders of firms know how internal and external factors are related to organizational innovation capability (Drake et al., 2006). The Iraqi manufacturing system has been suffering a lot of operational as well as marketing related problem. The poor innovation of the Iraqi manufacturing system was behind the call made by the former Iraqi prime minister to call for improving the manufacturing innovation throughout the restructuring processes (Marane, Asaad, and Mohamed, 2010).