Resumo

Radical innovation (RI) has increasingly become an important part of the success of well-established firms. An organization’s capacity to innovate is closely related to the employees’ capabilities and motivation (Seeck & Diehl, 2017), but RI career has shown to be risky, given the high number of alienated careers and dismissals (O’Connor; McDermott, 2004).

This study analyses the career of 200 CEOs of companies listed as the most innovative in world and in Brazil, in order to verify to which extent they have a background in innovation, as well as to discuss the constraints of the career in RI management, and the need to have special human resources policies to incentivize such career.

Despite the career risk, O’Connor & McDermott (2004) claim that individuals with entrepreneur skills can prosper in large companies as they aim for the availability of enriching relationships, access to resources, and legitimacy associated with the company’s name, bringing value to the market and to the world (Leifer et al., 2000). The bibliographic research showed the importance of the managerial role for innovation (Kelley et al., 2011) and practices to incentivize RI managers in large companies.

The methodology was based in a literature review about the relation between human resources and radical innovation and an empirical investigation about the background area of 200 CEOs from worldwide and Brazilian-based innovative companies, aiming to ascertain if the innovation career was attractive for those who seek for top management positions.

The analyses presented that 65% of the CEOs have a background in areas with a focus on short term results, operations, commercial, financial, and consultancy, and 22% of the CEOs have a background in areas with focus on long term results, entrepreneurs, innovation, and strategy. There was a low representativeness of CEOs who have innovation as a career background, totaling only 8% of the CEOs. Most of the CEOs with innovation background of Forbes’ list were from Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences, Software & Services and from Valor’s list were from Chemical Industry.

The results presented a low representativeness of CEOs with an innovation career background. Once the profile of individuals who endeavor to work with RI is entrepreneurial, and that RI innovation is crucial for the success and competitiveness of large innovative companies, this indicates that innovation career is not attractive for managers who pursue a high management career. Ultimately, innovation is the key for companies’ long-term growth, and managerial career should be properly stimulated in this field.

KELLEY, et al. Building an organizational capability for radical innovation: the direct managerial role. JET-M, v.28(4), p.249-267, 2011. LEIFER, et al. Radical innovation: how mature companies can outsmart upstarts. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. O'CONNOR, G., MCDERMOTT, C. The human side of radical innovation. JET-M, v.21, p.11-30, 2004. SEECK H., DIEHL M. A literature review on HRM and innovation – taking stock and future directions. International Journal of Human Resource Management, v.28(6), p.913-944, 2017.