Catalysts for industrial innovations initially worked well (14)
I believe the answer is:
satisfactorily
'well' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'catalysts for industrial innovations initially worked' is the wordplay.
'initially' indicates taking the first letters.
'worked' is an anagram indicator.
The first letters of 'industrial innovations' is 'ii'.
'catalysts'+'for'+'ii'='catalystsforii'
'catalystsforii' is an anagram of 'SATISFACTORILY'.
(Other definitions for satisfactorily that I've seen before include "convincingly" , "to an acceptable standard" .)