Personal and business improvements and innovations : methodology and mechanisms for successes

This paper presents insights into the creation and achievement of more and higher-scaled improvements and innovations of value to agricultural businesses. It also highlights how action research enhanced the capacity of business managers to improve and innovate. The researchers interacted closely with agricultural business managers presenting and implementing a new improvement and innovation process over 15 months. The analysis and synthesis presented contributes to the methodology of continuous improvement and innovation in three respects. First, it exemplifies how a continuous improvement and innovation process can be designed and applied to achieve outcomes from the outset. Second, it demonstrates how the creation of social infrastructure fosters innovativeness and creativity within a business. Lastly, it provides evidence of the success of sequenced, levelled mechanisms, which enabled R&D partners to develop innovation abilities.