General Electric's lessons in product innovation: Tracking the milestones in a century of strategic commitment

Of the 12 firms that constituted the original Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896, General Electric Company (GE) is the only one still on the list. For more than a century, it has been one of the most successful companies in the world, admired for its products, culture, and series of strong chief executives.

This paper focuses on one of the key reasons for that success: GE’s commitment to product innovation. The authors reviewed all of the company’s annual reports—from 1892, the year GE was founded, to 2011—to tally direct and indirect references to its innovation strategies. (They note that it wasn’t until the 1949 report that the first formal reference to innovation appeared, a reflection of the pioneering work performed during the previous decade by economist Joseph Schumpeter, who defined the concept.) Though the only specific company they focused on was GE, the researchers also studied the general body of literature on innovation that has accumulated over the years.