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This study investigates the application of collaborative inquiry within innovation management, employing platform thinking to address challenges of generalizability and relevance. The aim is to integrate Collaborative Inquiry methods, characterized by participatory, diffuse, and reflective practices, to transform research into a tool for impactful change in organizations in the field of innovation management.

A longitudinal participatory case study approach focuses on the IDeaLs case—a research platform that collaborated with multiple companies over several years. The data gathered and analyzed comes from the research project within the research platforms over the first two editions and from the research platform management and coordination activities.

The study introduces the Collaborative Research Platform Approach (CRPA), demonstrating its effectiveness in addressing typical constraints of traditional research methodologies through a real-world application within the IDeaLs case. The findings highlight the CRPA's potential in fostering a dynamic, co-creative research environment that bridges theoretical knowledge with practical applications, thus enhancing both scholarly and organizational outcomes while pursuing a future change within the organizations.

There are two main research implications. First, it proposes platform thinking as a theoretical lens to read a multi-stakeholder phenomenon in the research domain, confirming its nature of value-creation mechanisms, using it outside the business model and strategic space. Second, it offers a methodological contribution by presenting the CRPA framework.

The CRPA framework offers organizations a structured approach to managing collaborative research projects that align with both academic rigor and practical relevance. Companies engaged in the study reported enhanced ability to implement actionable insights from research, influencing real-time decision-making processes.

By fostering collaborative engagements across multiple stakeholders, the CRPA promotes a research culture that values inclusivity and practical impact, potentially leading to broader societal benefits through improved innovation management practices.

This paper contributes to the innovation management field by proposing the CRPA, which integrates principles of Platform Thinking with Collaborative Inquiry. This novel approach is designed to improve the applicability and scope of innovation research, offering a robust framework that enhances engagement and utility across academic and business domains. It uses platforms as a theoretical lens to read a multi-stakeholder environment in the research domain.

With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.

The sustainability of the construction industry is associated with the productivity, profitability and competitiveness of the firms, which are significantly affected by inefficient site supervision and labour management approaches. This study aims to use a case study with mixed methods to evaluate the site supervisory characteristics in labour management, labour performance assessment and labour productivity measurement towards developing meaningful guidelines in polishing construction supervision attributes.

Well-developed modern apprenticeship elements were applied to 62 construction supervisors who were selected using the snowball sampling method, and their relevant competency characteristics were assessed using a comprehensively developed grading mechanism connected with useful training manuals/tools. Academic reviews, experts’ consultations and other meticulous mixed approaches were applied at different stages of the research plan’s sequential layout.

The mean performance scores of supervisors indicate proficient-level grades in the competency characteristics related to applying efficient labour management procedures and developing-level grades in designing productivity measurement tools, performing assessments on efficiency and productivity and proposing enhancement practices on efficiency and productivity for site operations. The findings point to a modern generalised guideline that establishes the ranges of supervisory attributes within the scope of the study. The validity, reliability, adaptability and generalisability of the findings were assured by using pertinent statistical tests and professional assessments.

Though the study’s conclusions/findings are primarily applicable to the construction environment of a developing country comparable to the Sri Lankan context, they will considerably impact current/future industrial practices in various other countries and emerging industries.

The research has produced a conceptualised modern tool that guides determining the capacity levels of supervisory attributes for carrying out labour management, labour performance assessment and labour productivity measurement aspects in construction. The research has opened a pump that inflows new values of highly workable supervision features for strengthening the site management structures and filling the industry’s knowledge vacuum in the methodical execution of apprenticeships.

During the 1990s, Italian healthcare organisations (HOs) underwent a process of corporatisation, and the most innovative HOs introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC) to address the need for broader accountability. Currently, there is a limited understanding of the dynamics and outcomes of such a process. Therefore, this study aims to explore whether the BSC is still considered an effective performance management tool and analyse the factors driving and hindering its evolution and endurance in public and non-profit HOs.

We conducted a retrospective longitudinal analysis of two pioneering cases in the adoption of the BSC: one in a public hospital and the other in a non-profit hospital. Data collection relied on accessing institutional documents and reports from the early 2000s to the present, as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with the internal sponsors of the BSC.

We found evidence of three main categories of factors that trigger or hinder the adoption and development of the BSC: (1) the role of the internal sponsor and professionals’ commitment; (2) information technology and the controller’s technological skills; and (3) the relationship between the management and professionalism logics during the implementation process. At the same time, there is no evidence to suggest that specific technical features of the BSC influence its endurance.

The paper contributes to the debate on the key factors for implementing and sustaining multidimensional control systems in professional organisations. It emphasises the importance of knowledge-based assets and distinctive internal capabilities for the success of the business. The implications of the BSC legacy are discussed, along with future developments of multidimensional control tools aimed at supporting strategy execution.

Productivity increase is correlated with profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of the construction firms. Recent studies reveal that the primary causes of productivity decline are poor usage of scientific and technological advances, ineffective supervision strategies and poor apprenticeship facilities/opportunities. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to evaluate how well construction supervisors can utilise fundamental science and technological concepts/ideas to increase the efficiency and productivity of construction activities.

A new strategic layout was designed with the use of potential training guide tools. Based on the designed layout, a new supervisory training programme was developed, and 62 construction supervisors were selected, trained and evaluated in line with six parts of competencies and the relevant learning domains. An assessment guide with different levels of descriptions and criteria was developed through literature analysis and expert interviews. The research tools were verified using comprehensive approaches.

The overall mean values of supervisors’ performance scores indicate proficient-level grades in the competency characteristics related to taking measurements, generating drawings/designs using manual techniques and computer-aided tools, involving Bill of Quantities (BOQ) preparations and preparing training plans/materials for improving the competencies of labourers on estimation, measurements and understanding drawings. Their proficiency was notably lower in the use of information and communication technology application tools in construction tasks compared to others. The findings point to a modern generalised guideline that establishes the ranges of supervisory attributes associated with science and technology-related applications.

The study outcomes produce conceptualised projections to restructure and revalue the job functions of various working categories by adding new definitions within the specified scope. This may result in constructive benefits to upgrading the current functions associated with urbanisation, sustainability and society. The implementation of the study’s findings/conclusions will have a significant impact on present and future practices in other developing nations and developing industries, even if they are directly applicable to the Sri Lankan construction industry.

Up to certain limits/stages, the study fills not only the knowledge gap in the field of creating protocols and application techniques connected to lifelong learning and skill enhancement/upgrading but also the existing gaps in work attributes and roles of construction supervisors associated with the utilisation of fundamental science and technological concepts/ideas towards reinforcing sustainable and productive site operations.

Taking the dialogic organizational development perspective, this study aims to investigate the framing processes when engaging in dialogue for strategy implementation and how these enable the evolution of implementation opportunities.

Through a qualitative exploratory study conducted in a large multinational, the authors analyse the dialogue and interactions among 25 dyads when identifying opportunities to contribute to strategy implementation. The data analysis relies on a process-coding approach and linkography, a valuable protocol analysis for identifying recursive interaction schemas in conversations.

The authors identify four main framing processes – shaping, unveiling, scattering and shifting – and provide a framework of how these processes affect individuals’ mental models through increasing the tangibility of opportunities or elevating them to new value hierarchies.

From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the strategy implementation and organizational development literature, providing a micro-perspective of how dialogue allows early knowledge structures to emerge and shape the development of opportunities for strategy implementation.

From a managerial perspective, the authors offer insights to trigger action and change in individuals to contribute to strategy when moving from formulation to implementation.

Rather than focusing on the structural control view of strategy implementation and the role of the top management team, this study considers strategy implementation as a practice and what it takes for organizational actors who do not take part in strategy formulation to enact and shape opportunities for strategy implementation through constructive dialogue.

The primary objective of this paper is to show a systematic and methodological approach for the digitalization of critical clinical pathways (CPs) within the healthcare domain.

The methodology entails the integration of service design (SD) and action research (AR) methodologies, characterized by iterative phases that systematically alternate between action and reflective processes, fostering cycles of change and learning. Within this framework, stakeholders are engaged through semi-structured interviews, while the existing and envisioned processes are delineated and represented using BPMN 2.0. These methodological steps emphasize the development of an autonomous, patient-centric web application alongside the implementation of an adaptable and patient-oriented scheduling system. Also, business processes simulation is employed to measure key performance indicators of processes and test for potential improvements. This method is implemented in the context of the CP addressing transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), within a publicly funded hospital setting.

The methodology integrating SD and AR enables the detection of pivotal bottlenecks within diagnostic CPs and proposes optimal corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted patient care, all the while advancing the digitalization of diagnostic CP management. This study contributes to theoretical discussions by emphasizing the criticality of process optimization, the transformative potential of digitalization in healthcare and the paramount importance of user-centric design principles, and offers valuable insights into healthcare management implications.

The study’s relevance lies in its ability to enhance healthcare practices without necessitating disruptive and resource-intensive process overhauls. This pragmatic approach aligns with the imperative for healthcare organizations to improve their operations efficiently and cost-effectively, making the study’s findings relevant.

Performance framework (PF) is a well-established practice to measure innovation performance and identify improvement opportunities. However, whether PFs academic research are applicable to companies remains unclear, as well as their support in the definition of improvement actions. This study aims to present the implementation and assessment of a new and updated PF proposed in previous research in a real industrial context.

The PF was implemented through an in-depth case study carried out in a European machinery manufacturer and further assessed by practitioners.

The results indicate that the PF enabled the creation of a multidimensional view of the innovation performance and the definition of improvement projects in the company. Additionally, the findings also reveal an overall positive assessment of the PF by senior managers who work with the innovation process.

As a case study, this research is inherently limited in the extent to which results can be generalised. Thus, the analyses are reductive and rationalising. Future research is needed to assess the replicability of the PF.

The study's practical contribution is based on the combination of insights and steps that provide a straightforward and actionable approach for the company to improve performance.

This study aims to advance the importance of implementing the new and updated PF after its proposition, which is often overlooked in preceding research. Furthermore, the assessment of the PF also enables to infer its value to the company's employees.

The purpose of this empirical study was to test whether presenting organizational change in a way that enhances employee self-worth will result in increased employee support for the identified change. In doing so, we developed a new measure, which includes a novel baseline element.

Items were developed, and then categorical validation data were collected through an online cross-sectional survey in which 222 respondents (adults over 18 years of age, and at least 6 months tenure) participated.

Within the items, we framed the activation of self-worth bias as requests for employee comments regarding change efforts. Results indicate there is a difference between asking for employee comment on change efforts, compared to asking for employee comment on change efforts and also providing feedback considerate of that input.

This study explores and presents a convergence between behavioral economics, management and applied psychology research – using both self-worth bias, and organizational change management communications; no other such comparable study or analysis could be found during the preparation of this research effort. Furthermore, a novel measure and innovative method is presented for developing and measuring self-worth bias during organizational change management communications.

This study aims to investigate which configurations of organizational-level and group-level management controls support an identity fit for management accountants in the management accounting profession. It aims to complement recent qualitative management accounting research. This stream just begun to use role and identity theory to investigate role expectations, conflicts and coping strategies of management accountants when they struggle with their work identity.

Based on configuration theory, this study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to indicate all possible configurations of formal and informal management controls that improve management accountants’ sense of their identity in an organization. The analyses are based on the results of a cross-sectional survey of 277 management accountants from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

The results show that a strong group culture and high psychological safety at the group level are relevant conditions for a high identity fit. Further, the configurations differ regarding the career stages of management accountants.

This study contributes to work identity research of management accountants and to research on formal and informal control configurations as a control package. It is of particular importance for various professions that are affected by role change, as from the findings on management accountants’ identity fit, implications can also be made for other organizational functions that need to engage in identity work.