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Creativity and innovation have been buzzwords of managerial discourse over the last few decades as they contribute to the long-term survival and competitiveness of firms. Given the non-linear, causally ambiguous, and intangible nature of all innovation-related phenomena, management scholars have been trying to uncover factors that contribute to creativity and innovation from multiple lenses ranging from organizational behavior at the micro-level to strategic management at the macro-level. Along with important and insightful developments in these research streams that evolved independently from one another, human resource management (HRM) research – especially from a strategic perspective – has only recently started to contribute to a better understanding of both creativity and innovation. The goal of this chapter is to review the contributions of strategic HRM research to an improved understanding of creativity at the individual-level and innovation at the firm-level. In organizing this review, the authors rely on the open innovation funnel as a metaphor to review research on both HRM practices and HRM systems that contribute to creativity and innovation. In the last section, the authors focus on more recent developments in HRM research that focus on ambidexterity – as a way for HRM to simultaneously facilitate exploration and exploitation. This chapter concludes with a discussion of future research directions.

We develop a new look on leadership for innovation and propose that effective leaders alternate between a broad range of behaviors and tune their approach to the changing demands of innovation. This is referred to as ambidextrous leadership. As the importance of different leader behaviors varies not only across time but also across contexts, ambidextrous leadership takes different shapes depending on contextual conditions. We discuss culture as an important contextual condition that holds implications for effective ambidextrous leadership. Cultures have different strengths and weaknesses for innovation that can be leveraged or compensated. We use the cultural characteristics identified by the GLOBE project to discuss how leaders can take culture into account when leading for innovation.

This article brings a new, broad conceptual framework to the quest for understanding dynamic capability in organizations (i.e., “managing on the edge of chaos”). This approach rests on two major ideas: (i) a duality–paradox perspective and (ii) new typologies of organizational learning (OL) and individual action/thinking. A case of radical innovation at Microsoft provides a multilevel stimulus. Understanding it requires a focus on two dualistic challenges. For use in future ODC research and practical assessment, this broad new conceptual framework includes: (i) collaboration as a central concept; (ii) duality–paradox as a key source of conflicts that can threaten collaboration; (iii) five types of OL, (iv) four types of individual action/thinking, including paradoxical thinking, and (v) the proposition that “golden dualities” can be created from once-troubling duality situations (where critical collaboration was in danger) which have been transformed from the metaphorical “odd (contentious) couple” into a “productive (collaborative) partnership.”

For decades, the construction industry has not significantly changed the way it operates, despite its economic and ecological importance worldwide. Hilti’s ambition is to change that and create a better future for its customers. This chapter highlights which trade-offs Hilti faces in their innovation journey towards solutions, while transforming the organisation: speed versus involvement, agility versus perfection and relationship versus competencies. Visible leadership and the preservation of the unique Hilti culture has been critical to deal with those dualities. To create tangible results, it has proven essential to evolve structures and processes for the ‘new solution’ businesses, while changing the way of hiring people and the types of people required for those new units. Innovating the ‘Hilti way’ summarises key learnings for other organisations.

Through collective management at Cisco Systems in the United States, practitioners at all levels of management, rather than just a select few, overcame various contradictions through “strategic collaborations” across divisions within the company to respond to the challenge of new business innovation. Moreover, through skillful management of leadership at the formal organization layer, the informal organization layer, and the psychological boundary layer (the boundary layer between the two aforementioned layers), all practitioners of the company demonstrated holistic leadership, which enabled creative dialogue, cooperation, and understanding as well as rapid decision-making and action. Strategic collaboration based on holistic leadership enables outstanding ideas to be readily incorporated into the organization and to be examined and acted on by a single team. This chapter discusses processes whereby collective management based on Cisco System’s holistic leadership changed staff behavior and the corporate culture to achieve business innovation.

This exploratory study identifies key pillars on which innovative business models rely in the Latin American retail landscape. First, using qualitative research methods, we delve into the minds of Latin America's emerging consumers to uncover their needs and paradigms. In a region where retail innovation has traditionally been targeted at high-income consumers, we find a new breed of retailers that cater to the large mass of emerging consumers. Second, we explore the avenues of innovation retailers have followed to serve this impoverished segment and find that retailers' efforts to innovate have resulted in at least three original retail formats: one centered on providing access to durable goods, another centered on offering a wide assortment of goods and a convenient location, and the last one centered on incorporating design and quality. Based on the wheel of retailing theory, we show how these new formats are changing the structure of the retail industry in the region.

The highly unpredictable, complex, and dynamic business environment forces companies to innovate constantly. One organizational response to coping with environmental pressures is organizational ambidexterity, that is, the ability to pursue simultaneously the exploitation of existing capabilities and the exploration of new opportunities. It has an impact on the way of working, and consequently, organizations need to reevaluate their talent strategies. With this conceptual contribution, we first provide a fresh view on talent and talent management (TM) by suggesting an ambidextrous TM approach, including novel TM practices that have been rather neglected in the so far dominant traditional TM approach. It centers on the system-controlling element of an ambidextrous mindset. Second, in a theory-based framework, we explain how dynamic TM capabilities (hybrid, dual, and ambidextrous TM), which represent processes for deploying, developing, and shaping talent, can contribute to gaining competitive advantages in various ambidextrous structures reflecting the complexity and dynamism of and within human resource (HR) ecosystems. The authors advance the under-researched process perspective on TM by using the lenses of the HR ecosystems discussion, insights from a dynamic view on the person–environment fit, and dynamic capabilities. The authors conclude with a broad agenda for future research in TM in dynamic environments.

Purpose of This Chapter: This study examines the relationship of ambidextrous leadership with employee voice behaviour, underscoring the intervening role of employee thriving.

Design / Methodology / Approach: This study proposes a conceptual framework based on an extensive literature review using the conservation of resource theory, social exchange theory, and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Findings: This study demonstrates that employee thriving act as an underlying mechanism explaining the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employee voice behaviour.

Research Limitations: Being a conceptual study, the proposed framework lacks empirical validation.

Practical Implications: Organizations should focus on leaders with flexible behaviours who understand situational necessities to adopt diverse leadership styles and contribute to employee thriving.

Originality: This is one of the first studies to propose the role of ambidextrous leadership in impacting and enhancing change in employee voice through employee thriving at work. By introducing a framework that delves into the unexplored territory of ambidextrous leadership, acting as a catalyst for enhancing employee voice via the lens of employee thriving. This study provides a fresh perspective and adds value to the evolving conversations around employee voice behaviour.