The Innovation Transition Roadmap
Lima, Dąbrowska & Mention (2026) · Research-Technology Management 69(1), 24–41
A design science study of how incumbent firms can navigate the “last mile” of innovation — moving digital solutions from dedicated exploration units into core business operations. Below are the key aspects of transition management, the recommendations for managers, and the study's contributions to understanding digital innovation scaling.
The problem
Why exploration stalls before it reaches the core
Organizations that adopt structural separation excel at exploring new ideas inside dedicated innovation units, but struggle to integrate those solutions into the core business. This “last mile” gap limits returns on innovation investment and is a persistent blind spot in the ambidexterity literature.
The Innovation Transition Roadmap addresses this gap as a project-level planning artifact. It treats transition as an everyday managerial practice — understanding, communicating, planning, aligning capabilities, and managing risks — rather than only a governance question handled at the top of the organization.
Key aspects of transition management
Five dimensions of a transition
Drawing on the ambidexterity literature, the study identifies five dimensions every transition plan must make explicit. The roadmap operationalizes each one.
Process
Transition unfolds over time. Map progress from current state to operationalization or commercialization, with explicit milestones in between.
Actors
Transition bridges exploration and exploitation stakeholders. Map roles and ownership across organizational structures, not just within the innovation team.
Activities
Identify the strategic activities required to leverage existing assets and develop new competencies the solution depends on.
Integration
Establish integrative links between solution components, internal capabilities, and core structures so the innovation does not stall at hand-off.
Resources
Surface the enablers — budget, infrastructure, sponsorship, data — required at each stage and the gaps that block the transition.
What the tool does for managers
Four benefits validated in the field
Across workshops, expert consultations, and a real R&D application, four benefits surfaced consistently — addressing persistent challenges that existing tools (business model canvases, product roadmaps) leave unsolved.
Understand internal transition needs
Surface the gaps, dependencies, and assumptions that timelines and business cases tend to hide. Make blind spots visible before they stall the project.
Strategically plan the transition
Translate high-level intent into concrete milestones, capabilities, and integration actions — including the transfer stage that managers most often skip.
Communicate and align stakeholders
Provide a shared visual language across innovation, IT, operations, and business units. Create joint ownership of who fills which gap.
Identify and manage trade-offs and risks
Make abstract risks tangible by tying them to specific actors, activities, and timing decisions — and reason about the trade-offs they imply.
Strategic trade-offs
What, who, when, how
The roadmap structures four categories of decision. Each carries trade-offs that managers must reason about explicitly rather than defaulting to “corporate culture” as the catch-all risk.
What needs to be transitioned?
Reusing core assets risks contaminating exploration; building independently risks losing internal buy-in and capability fit.
From and to whom does it transfer?
Internal actors with the most ownership often have the fewest capabilities. Easier collaborators may produce less durable ownership.
When is the right time to integrate and transfer?
Integrating early secures legitimacy and resources but invites interference. Transferring late risks resistance and incompatibilities.
How do we make the transition happen?
Mechanisms range from informal coordination to formal governance and job rotation — each carries contamination or rigidity risks.
Recommendations for managers
How to put the research into practice
Plan the last mile early
Use the roadmap at the start of the innovation process — not at hand-off — to identify dependencies, transfer milestones, and integration owners before late-stage barriers appear.
Bridge organizational silos
Run the tool as a facilitated workshop with innovation, business, and technology stakeholders together. Use the visual format to create shared ownership of trade-offs.
Make trade-offs explicit
Force discussion of what, who, when, and how. Mark the decisions that carry real risk and revisit them as conditions change rather than treating culture as a generic blocker.
Treat the roadmap as a living plan
Embed it in everyday practice. Reassess as the innovation matures, partners shift, and capability gaps close — adapt the plan rather than archive it.
Contributions to the field
Advancing the understanding of digital innovation scaling
The study contributes to ambidexterity research, design science methodology, and managerial practice — operationalizing transition as a team-level capability in incumbent firms.
Operationalizes the exploration–exploitation transition
Reframes transition as a multidimensional, team-level capability — not just a governance question — and gives managers a structured way to act on it.
Advances ambidexterity theory
Shifts focus from structural separation and high-level integration mechanisms to the everyday planning, communication, and capability alignment that scaling actually requires.
Demonstrates design science in innovation management
Shows how iterative development with practitioners can produce theoretically grounded, practically usable artifacts — a replicable pathway for bridging research and practice.
Validates a tool for digital innovation scaling
Tested across workshops, expert consultations, and a real R&D setting. Practitioners across consulting, R&D, and manufacturing requested adoption — meeting early validation criteria.
Cite this work
Use the citation below in your research or teaching materials.
Lima, V. M. S., Dąbrowska, J., & Mention, A.-L. (2024). The Innovation Transition Roadmap: A practical tool for navigating the exploration–exploitation divide. Research-Technology Management.