This Major Research Paper (MRP) describes a framework for creating more innovative, lower-cost enterprise innovation systems (EISs).

Through a literature review, I have identified and described ten driving forces behind the performance of EISs: innovation ecosystems, innovation strategy, enterprise architecture, innovation inputs, the innovation process, portfolio management, innovation working practices, innovation accounting, innovation culture, and innovation tools.

Drawing from the literature, I have gathered and analyzed 250 innovation approaches, such as horizon scanning or value proposition design, to describe the five overarching areas involved in creating EISs: ecosystem, strategy, architecture, people, and infrastructure. Through eleven practitioner interviews and system mapping, I have shaped the five areas into a prototype framework, which I call the Innovation Cascade. The Innovation Cascade provides EIS builders with a process for creating or improving an EIS by framing missing areas or highlighting tensions between the five areas of an EIS.

To test the Innovation Cascade, I conducted a case study with the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS). In the case study, I mapped OMERS’s EIS to the Innovation Cascade, designed an EIS research function for OMERS, and offered ten recommendations for improving OMERS’s EIS. Through the case study, I determined the Innovation Cascade is effective for building or enhancing EISs and propose next steps for further refining it.

Finally, I have suggested three other models to augment the Innovation Cascade. First, five modes that EISs can exhibit: informal, linear, distributed, embedded and emergent. Second, patterns or predictable configurations each area can exhibit. Third, five steps that match each area of the Innovation Cascade with appropriate tools and actions. Together, the three models and the Innovation Cascade offer a framework for EIS builders to design, improve, maintain and understand EISs, as well as communicate EISs to stakeholders.