In general: if a person can use their left and right hand equally well. In a business context: the ability of an organization to balance exploitation and exploration, i.e. improving and keeping alive today’s core business while simultaneously creating a portfolio of future products, services, and business models.
An organization, which demonstrably balances today’s business demands (exploitation) whilst being adaptive to changes in the external environment by innovating towards new products, services, and business models, which break with old industry logic and transcend industry boundaries (exploration).
An innovation system, as understood at a company-level, designates the infrastructures for finding, developing, evaluating, and implementing new ideas and business models within an organization. It is the organization’s ‘operating system’ for innovation.
