Understanding the potential role of membership organisations in the sustainable spread of innovation

Abstract

Innovation must be defined as "change for the better" rather than as mere 'novelty' or "change for change's sake". Membership organisations have a key role to play in the cost effective spread of innovation. The best ways to spread innovation are by individual mentoring between colleagues in the same organisation, peer support, and informal networking between practitioners. But i) innovation can only flourish if the organisational culture is right; ii) changing an organisation's culture to one that supports innovation has to be done from the inside; iii) lack of time to innovate is a key constraint