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Contemporary organizations are facing an operating environment characterized by volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and “permanent whitewater.” To sustain high performance in this context, organizations must be able to change and develop as efficiently and effectively as possible. Within organizations, there are actors who catalyze and advance change in this manner; these actors are known as “champions.” Yet the scholar who wishes to conduct research concerning champions of change and organizational development is likely to be met by a highly fragmented literature. Varying notions of champions are scattered throughout extant research, where authors of articles cite different sources when conceptualizing champions; often superficially. Furthermore, many types of highly specific and nuanced non-generalizable champions have proliferated, making it difficult for practitioners and researchers to discover useful findings on how to go about making meaningful changes in their context. The purpose of this study was to address these problems for practitioners and researchers by engendering thoroughness, clarity, and coherence within champion scholarship. This was done by conducting the first comprehensive, critical yet insightful review of the champion literature within the organizational sciences using content analysis to re-conceptualize champions and develop a meaningful typology from which the field can be advanced. The chapter first suggests a return to Schön (1963) as the basis from which to conceptualize champions and, second, offers a typology consisting of 10 meta-champions of organizational change and development – Collaboration, Human Rights, Innovation, Product, Project, Service, Strategic, Sustainability, Technology, and Venture Champions – from which change practice and future research can benefit.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

A social identity frame through which to understand the role and creation of an “innovation champion” can provide useful results. Rather than relying on more conventional notions of what an “innovation champion” is, social identity literature can help understand the process behind the role. This in turn can hopefully allow those who see themselves as “innovation champions” to become more attuned to the function of the role, as well as helping new generations become “innovation champions” themselves.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how an “innovation champion” identity is formulated in the context of UK construction sector. A conceptual model of “innovation champion” themes is derived from the literature on social identity and then validated through empirical research.

In total, 30 semi-structured interviews have been conducted with UK construction sector practitioners. The sample was composed active participants within the Constructing Excellence – the UK construction sector’s network-type organisation for driving innovation.

Practitioners socially constructed “innovation champion” identities through narratives about “self” or others. While some practitioners saw themselves as “innovation champions”, many others recognised CEOs as such. “Innovation champions” are commonly recognised as key individuals who promote innovations across businesses.

Socially constructed identities are seen important to strategic decisions and future actions. The potential contribution to practice is to help current and new generations of practitioners to learn about how to be or become “innovation champions”.

The concept of social identity presents opportunities to enrich our understanding of the “innovation champion” label can stimulate people’s reflections on who they are and what they do.

The present paper has extended upon prior research and theory by exploring the ways practitioners perceive themselves or others as “innovation champions”. While this research has focused on the UK construction sector, the findings are potentially useful for other sectors where “innovation champion” labels are commonly used.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that a form of communities of practice (CoP), a community of innovation (CoInv), is the best support for sustainable innovation. It aims to outline a method for identifying champions of innovation in organisation.

The paper draws on extant research to argue that innovation is facilitated and supported by innovation champions, who have most influence outside traditional organisational structures when they are members of a close‐knit community – a CoInv. A potential method for identification of champions of innovation is highlighted.

Innovation champions are special people, with particular personality types and psychological profiles. In order to succeed in championing innovations in organisations they need both procedural and resource support, and social and cognitive support. The influence of innovation champions comes through social contacts, multiplied through the communities in which they participate, through the genuine esteem in which they are held. Developing CoInv around such champions makes practical sense for organisations.

Identifying champions of innovation will permit a CoInv to form that links social networks and transcends organisational internal boundaries and forming such a community will potentially trigger more successfully supported innovations.

This research aims to provide a historical example of how an innovation champion radically changed the operations of the circus industry by incorporating both the rational and actuation models in his scaling-up innovations. The innovations to the logistics and operations of the P. T. Barnum Circus, “The Greatest Show on Earth”, created by William C. Coup in response to the massive technological development of integrated railroad systems offer new insights into how management effectuation operates through the capabilities and experiences of an innovation champion.

The authors use a theoretically anchored longitudinal study that captures the mechanisms and processes of innovation by adopting an explorative, inductive research design in the form of a single in-depth case analysis.

Coup’s contributions show how the management innovation process works and adds detail with regard to how a champion of change may succeed in an effectuation process. Coup’s management innovation was in scaling-up others’ innovations. In an effectuation process similar to what entrepreneurs must do when their new ideas find a growing market acceptance, Coup repeatedly scaled-up others’ ideas in ways that changed how his industry operated.

Although there is some agreement on how management influences innovation in their organizations, research identifying the characteristics of managers that cause them to be innovation champions is still evolving and this current work adds to this endeavor. This work provides a rich illustration of an innovation champion’s use of effectuation as a process of experimentation to discover pragmatic and effective solutions to problems arising from the use of new technology or scaling business models to levels never before imagined.

Innovations lie at the heart of both entrepreneurship and marketing. While research has long focused on the idea generation phase at the beginning of the innovation process, ideas need to subsequently be realized through efforts in idea development and implementation. This paper aims to study the antecedents and practices of idea advancement behavior.

Seven product developers of an international company were interviewed in-depth based on a critical incident technique.

Idea advancement behavior was found to be distributed in time and between people, pervasive in the development process. Antecedents for efforts were identified at personal, interpersonal and work organization levels. Although personal antecedents were most numerous, interpersonal and work organization antecedents distinguished successful and unsuccessful efforts. Key idea advancement behaviors were centered on the inclusion of others and communication channel choices.

The current study offers a complementary micro-level point-of-view to championship literature, illustrating the situated and dispersed nature of everyday advancement efforts as opposed to the dominant depictions of heroic relentless championing individuals. However, as the study was conducted in a single company, the findings still need to be validated in more varied settings.

The results highlight the need for supporting idea advancement behavior across organizational levels and function, instead of focusing on identifying individual champions. Time management, supporting switches in the driving force, and communicating value are necessary for sustaining advancement efforts.

Idea advancement practices have been largely ignored in previous innovation literature, with the exception of systematic processes and championing. This paper explores idea advancement as a commonplace proactive behavior, revealing several levels of key antecedents for successfully advancing ideas into innovations.

The effects of innovation on leadership abilities have not been widely investigated. Although diffusion of innovation theory has existed for some time, there is a need for more research detailing the relationship between innovation and transformational leadership. In a survey of organizational members (N = 294), innovation was significantly related to all subscales of transformational leadership. The relationship between innovation and transactional leadership was generally not significant, and the relationship with laissez-faire leadership was inverse and significant. Implications emerging from the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation are discussed, including the distinction between the champion and “techie” styles of innovation and their basis in leadership activity.

The purpose of this study is to critically examine and review the extant research on corporate entrepreneurship champions in the broader area of corporate entrepreneurship and to uncover the avenues for advancement of the scholarship with the purpose of engaging CE champions towards the upliftment of organisations in particular, and younger workforce in general.

In this study, authors employ bibliometric analysis through a review of 274 papers fetched from Web of Science and Scopus databases.

The authors set the agenda for future research and policy by elucidating research themes and potential research questions by bringing out twelve themes classified into five basic themes, three niche themes, three motor themes, and one key theme, while also providing the methodological inputs for carrying out this agenda.

This study adopts a unique lens of investigation in contextualising the role of self-efficacy, employee engagement, and career choice for the younger workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to report on nine in‐depth case histories of manufacturing firms introducing significant new service innovations. Manufacturing firms are under increasing pressure to diversify into lines of business that offer unique contributions to long term profitability and this paper increases understanding of how incumbent firms successfully accomplish this transition.

Using analytical induction the authors sample published announcements of significant new service offerings by well‐established manufacturing firms. An example of this type of service innovation would be General Motor's offering of OnStar remote driver support systems (not included in this sample). A total of nine cases (43 percent of the companies contacted) participated in this case study approach.

The paper identifies two primary strategies pursued by these firms development and launch of significant new service innovations representing important diversification moves for the firm. Both require CEO/President sponsorship, but are founded on different corporate cultures. The engineering culture path to commercialization tends to nurture concepts new to the firm, requires multi‐functional strategy making, and does well with champions from operations that have deep knowledge of the conversion process in the respective industry context. The entrepreneurial orientation path to commercialization tends to nurture concepts new to the industry or new to the world paired with sole champions from R&D or Engineering. Either strategy works well depending upon development culture and available resources.

Generalizations here are limited to incumbent manufacturing firms. Innovative service offerings by new entrants in manufacturing and services as well as incumbent service firms like banks and hospitals have yet to be explored for their corporate culture patterns and sponsorship tendencies.

For manufacturing firms considering making the transition to significant service offerings, the findings here indicate at least two viable approaches to commercialization, but both depend significantly on the chief executive sponsorship regardless of the initial conditions and context.

The identified patterns of corporate culture alternatives and innovation roles, given initial contextual conditions, is a novel contribution in the field. It comes at a time when manufacturing firms are ripe for strategic change and leveraging of core competences to transition to important new service businesses.

The fundamental premises of three different models of diffusion of new technologies are described; the similarities and differences in prediction which are derivable from the three perspectives are highlighted. These perspectives include (1) diffusion of innovation; (2) technology transfer; and (3) critical mass theory. The article examines these predictions within the context of the unique social, cultural and political environments of developing countries. To illustrate the results of this approach, these theories are applied retrospectively to three technologies introduced into developing countries. They differentially explain diffusion and the subsequent use of these technologies. Implications for change management and technology policy are presented and future research is suggested.