Interconnection of Product, Process and Organizational Innovations within Corporation Development Program

Innovations are critical for organizations to adapt to turbulent environments and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This is especially true for nowadays universities who struggle for international recognition on university rankings. Despite university rankings’ worldwide recognition, there are notable concerns from academics on poor performance of their countries’ universities, including Russian Federation. In response to this, Russian Educational agency granted its 15 leading universities a total amount of £178 million to break into list of top 100 universities by 2020. Higher School of Economics (HSE) is one of them. Through participation in this corporation development program named “5-100” HSE strives to be recognized as a leading research university not only on local market but on international one. Successful fulfillment of targets set within such program requires systematic introduction of product, process and organizational innovations. Thus, innovative activities can either improve universities' progress on rankings or impede it. In this case, despite sufficient research in area of product process and organizational innovations in companies there is an evident lack of up to date literature on such topic related to university. The main aim of the paper is to analyze the agility of HSE as a reaction to “5-100 program” (corporation development program), asses degree of its effectiveness and propose recommendations. The first part of paper provides conceptual framework regarding innovative practices in companies. Second part reviews innovations in higher education and strategic agility in university. Third part analyses product, process and organizational innovations implementation by HSE. Based on the analysis the author found that such innovations are performed successfully by HSE with minor lapses. As a result conceptual model for improvement was being developed and proposed by author.