Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the generation of innovations by employees and the creation of initiative paths, and to discover which factors contribute to the implementation of an initiative.

Based on longitudinal qualitative research, the study explores the profiles of initiative paths and the types of innovations and relationships among the generated innovations.

It was found that, to become an innovation, an initiative followed different paths along which the processing and outcomes varied, as did the time needed for experimentation. The creation of initiative paths required the transformative agency of the actors involved. Power relations had an impact on the generation of initiatives and implementation of innovations.

Innovations research has concentrated on the generation of ideas and the implementation of innovations. This study focuses on the process path along which ideas become innovations and on the role of power relations in the innovations process.

Previous work on employee-driven innovation (EDI) has demonstrated the benefits of employees’ proactive behavior in achieving success with innovations. The purpose of this paper is to employ the concept of personal initiative to investigate the underestimated role of employees’ agency in complex processes of innovation, showing the impact of personal initiative on employees’ innovation success.

Based on two embedded cases of environmental bottom-up innovation at a large manufacturing company, this study examines employees’ behavior in generating, championing and realizing such initiatives.

This paper provides insights into how employees succeeded, through taking initiative in generating, championing and realizing environmental initiatives despite facing high complexity, and resource constraints. Without being prompted from the top down, employees started these initiatives themselves and showed phase-specific behavior in overcoming the various challenges. Thus, self-starting behavior was found dominant in generating ideas, whereas proactive and persistent forms of behavior were found to be prevalent in championing and rolling out the initiatives.

Current understandings of EDI highlight the importance of developing employees’ potential capabilities and organizational-level guidance. Using an active performance perspective, this study emphasizes the importance of employees’ agency in ensuring EDI success, even when conditions are not conducive to their doing so.

The purpose of this paper is to provide both theorists and practitioners with a conceptual framework that links sustainability strategies more closely with Porter’s generic strategies. The intent of this approach is to establish sustainability, fundamentally, as a strategic process. The proposed models set a strategic context to tie sustainability, to mediating variables, such as innovation and technology, while also linking them to generic strategies (low cost leader, differentiation, and focus) and firm financial performance in a causal chain. The proposed model gives rise to conclusions about the effectiveness of sustainability strategies that are consistent with emerging research about the role of radical innovation in sustainability.

The paper proposes two conceptual frameworks designed to link sustainability with business strategy. These models are rooted in evolving understandings of business strategy arising from Porter’s original explanations of generic strategies and sources of competitive advantage. The first model is a causal model that links drivers, such as type of competitive strategy and mode of innovation, to competitive outcomes and firm financial performance. The second model describes how different modes of technology development, in sustainability initiatives, cause changes in firm competitive and financial outcomes.

The conclusions arising from the model-based insights suggest that conventional continuous and incremental improvement sustainability practices hold the potential to pose strategic risks to some firms – depending on their core business strategy. By contrast, the model provides a logical, yet, less known, rationale that suggests radical innovation in sustainability practices may pose fewer strategic risks. It may also offer relatively more competitive and financial advantages than well-established programs relying on incremental innovation.

Although the proposed conceptual frameworks are rooted in strategic management theories, the proposed models and expected outcomes have not yet been empirically tested or validated. However, initially, these models appear to have more face validity in explaining breakthrough sustainability success stories, such as Nike, than do competing explanations. Most importantly, the counter-intuitive finding that radical innovation is likely to be more effective in driving both sustainability and financial outcomes is a topic for future investigation.

The proposed models and accompanying rationale have direct implications for practitioners. They provide practitioners with a road map to logically and deductively frame sustainability strategies based on their current business strategy. Practitioners are often hindered by the lack of high-level guidance for making the transition from operationally focused sustainability tactics to strategies than are congruent with current business strategies. The current paradigm of using incremental sustainability strategies on an ad hoc basis does not always provide neutral outcomes regarding financial effects and competitive advantage – they may yield negative effects.

The importance of sustainability strategies and management practices cannot be overstated. On a global scale, evidence indicates that most corporate sustainability programs are ineffective at slowing the rate of global forces offsetting sustainability. The proposed models and strategic management approach are intended to dramatically increase the effectiveness of sustainability improvement by closely aligning them with corporate strategies. Historically, companies have struggled to make the leap from randomly using eco-efficiency tools to making sustainability a key component of their business strategy.

This paper integrates a number of diverse lines of inquiry from the strategic management literature into a counter-intuitive approach for integrating sustainability into a firm’s core business strategy. The proposed conceptual frameworks can be used, prospectively, to design new sustainability strategies, or it can be used, analytically (retrospectively), to understand reasons for failure or under-performance in sustainability initiatives.

In this study, the authors argue that the host environment of subsidiaries may affect subsidiary initiative via relationships with two stakeholders: public and private stakeholders. On the one hand, the public relationships and private relationships of subsidiaries may affect their tendency to demonstrate initiative. On the other hand, including technological innovation as a moderating effect supports the tendency towards subsidiary initiative.

This study obtained the data through a survey of 216 subsidiaries in China; chief executive officer or senior managers were selected as the data collection sources. AMOS analysis was used to address sophisticated data analysis issues.

Findings based on samples from China support these arguments. The findings contribute to the literature by highlighting that different types of subsidiary initiative coexist within subsidiaries and by accounting for the external environmental relationships and technological innovation.

What determines subsidiary initiatives in the host market? We find that (1) public relationships directly influence subsidiary initiatives, and (2) this effect is moderated by technological innovation. The theoretical framework shows that this interaction arises from the separate impacts of innovation characteristics, especially a foreign subsidiary's interest in entrepreneurial action affecting both growth and maintenance initiatives. In summary, this article concludes that initiatives are not simply the activities of subsidiaries. The authors hope that the strong explanatory and predictive power of these external factors and technological innovation are further enhanced when these concepts are integrated with the charters of internationalizing MNEs.

European rural development programmes are driving multi-actor interactive innovation initiatives and alliances to create an environment in which innovation acts as a tool for accelerating rural development processes. In Europe, where rural areas are facing many challenges, identifying which challenges, difficulties, obstacles or risk factors that interactive innovation projects have had to face in rural areas while being planned and set up would be interesting. The objective of this research work was to, therefore, identify and analyse the risk factors of 200 rural projects and initiatives that were selected as case studies from the whole of Europe.

The employed methodology consisted in conducting interviews to subsequently perform statistical independence analyses of the qualitative variables characterising the found projects and risk factors.

The findings indicated that most of the risks that rural projects and initiatives faced were related to the social domain which was, in turn, the fundamental pillar of interactive innovation. Dependence was found between social risk factors appearing and the innovation type carried out; the risk factors corresponding to the political–legal risks category and the project or initiative coordinating country; and the economic–technical risks category and the initiatives' geographic magnitude.

This paper exposes the main risks identified within various rural innovation initiatives and projects around Europe. For this purpose, a statistical analysis of independence was performed, allowing us to generate reliable and accurate results of the main risks associated with certain descriptive characteristics (coordinating region, domain, innovation type, gender balance and geographic magnitude) of the initiatives studied.

The purpose of this paper is to present a longitudinal case study of a regional innovation policy initiative, in which ideas with regard to how innovation might be facilitated were changing over time. Through the scrutiny of insights in industrial network studies (IMP), the authors seek to shed light on the challenges created by policy interventions aimed at constructing complementary networks for the facilitation of innovation. That is to say, the authors endeavour to understand the interfaces between innovation networks and industrial networks, and the way in which they may influence innovation.

This study is based on a longitudinal case study of four successive regional innovation projects in Norway. Data are drawn from relevant policy documents and project documentations, as well as from participatory observation of application processes and project activities.

This study shows that regional innovation policy concerns first and foremost the interaction within and between relatively established diverse networks, which affects both structuring and restructuring. Changes in innovation policy required the re-configuring of constellations of business networks, research networks and policy networks. All initiatives required mobilisation input by persistent actors – often boundary organisations or researchers. The construction of innovation networks served as an instrument in the production of new interfaces between businesses, researchers and policy makers. The use and usefulness of these networks as perceived by the business actors were heavily influenced by the way in which the networks were configured.

Generalisation based on in-depth qualitative case research requires further testing across similar and varying cases, and there have hitherto been relatively few studies of the interfaces between industrial and innovation networks. Despite this it can be argued that the conceptual distinction between constructed and emerging networks is a productive one in the study of networked innovation dynamics. During the research into this longitudinal case, it has been interesting to observe the way in which innovation research, and thus its influence on innovation policy, has changed over time. It would be beneficial if further studies were to be conducted on the way in which this has played out.

The administration of the public funding of innovation network activities requires great care. Where innovation policy initiatives are closely related to established industrial networks, it may be possible to strengthen innovation dynamics, challenge established practices and conceptions, and contribute to expanding, or even initiate innovation activities. In the first place, new activities need to be initiated in a way that supports the long-term development of actual business networks; and second, innovation policy bodies should be prepared to stimulate activity over longer periods of time.

This paper engages in, and combines, two parallel and rarely interacting debates on, respectively, innovation within innovation policy (innovation systems, clusters, networks) and industrial network studies (IMP and others). The authors make an “ideal type” distinction between alternative “constructed” networks and “emerging” networks, and the way in which they influence innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to determine empirically the influence of leader-member exchange (LMX) on employees’ creativity and innovation. In addition, this study investigated the moderating role of employees’ personal initiative on the associations.

Data were gathered from 1,221 employees working in organizations across various industries in Australia.

The findings of this study revealed positive and significant relationships between LMX and employees’ creativity and innovation. Also, the findings indicated employees’ personal initiative moderated the LMX-employees’ creativity and LMX-employees’ innovation relationships.

Organizations should invest in LMX training and in the selection of leaders with this leadership style if their aim is to nurture and intensify employees’ creativity and innovation. They also should invest in personal initiative training in order to amplify the effect of LMX on creativity and innovation in organization.

This study makes vital theoretical contributions in different ways. In the domain of creativity and innovation, it addresses factors that impact employees’ creativity and innovation. It expands knowledge about organizational resources that nurture and enhance the creativity and innovation of employees. For LMX, this study supplements existing research by examining employees’ creativity and innovation as outcomes. Also, identifying personal initiative as an amplifier of the LMX-employees’ creativity and innovation relationships extends research in that domain. This study is also a rare investigation of the Australian context.

Global outsourcing shifts manufacturing jobs to emerging countries, which provides new opportunities for improving their economic development. The authors develop and test a theoretical model to predict first, how sustainable supply chain initiatives might influence reverse logistics outcomes and second, the impact of eco-reputation and eco-innovation orientation strategies on the deployment of sustainable supply chain initiatives. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The proposed new model of antecedents and outcomes of sustainable supply chain initiatives underwent a rigorous empirical test through structural equation modeling with samples from an emerging market.

The results show that firms that implement sustainable supply chain initiatives can realize positive reverse logistics outcomes; the study also provides new insights into eco-innovation and eco-reputation strategic orientations as theoretically important antecedents of sustainable supply chain initiatives.

Though the authors identify three components of sustainable supply chain initiatives, other components could exist, and ongoing research should investigate them.

The findings have important implications for managers in emerging markets seeking to initiate ecologically friendly business practices. The authors offer strong evidence of the benefits obtained from reverse logistics in sustainable supply chain initiatives. Policy makers and firms attempting to nurture sustainable supply chain initiatives should not overlook the important role of eco-reputation and eco-innovation strategic orientations, which the results identify as important enablers.

This study offers evidence of the critical role of eco-reputation and eco-innovation strategic orientations in deploying sustainable supply chain initiative programs, as well as of their mutual effects. This study also offers empirical evidence that implementing sustainable supply chain initiatives leads to reverse logistics, creating value, and a new source of competitive advantages.

The case would help students to learn the concept of high involvement innovation activity and how to apply it in large service organizations to increase innovation involvement. The case will help the students to reflect on the significance of organizing structure and culture of an organization for enabling innovation and innovation process models. The case would further help the students to develop the skill to plan and implement simple, innovative innovation process models which will increase the ideation capabilities of the organization. The students will also be able to understand the role of informal learning in innovation and how to facilitate it.

Cyient – a global services firm – had always focused on innovation as a key strategic capability winning various annual client awards for over a decade. However, in 2012, Cyient missed the innovation awards which led to the introduction of Idea Tree initiative in Aerospace & Defense (AED) business unit of Cyient. Cyient was able to co-create patents and offer cost savings to its clients through the Idea Tree initiative. This cost-effective and unique initiative resulted in re-organizing the structure (from formal to a quasi-formal), culture (open to new ideas, mistakes and failures) and process (stage-gate) inside Cyient AED business unit. However, Idea Tree also suffers from challenges such as lack of a digital format, lack of corporate presence across Cyient and its highly informal nature. In this context, the CEO wants to review the Idea Tree initiative to decide on its future in Cyient.

The case is suitable for teaching multiple facets of innovation for MBA and Executive MBA classes in core Strategy, Managing Organizations and Entrepreneurship and for elective courses such as Innovation Management, Organizing for Innovation or HRM for Innovation. The case is suitable for both fresher and experienced participants.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Organizations facing issues related to growth, innovation, and strategy are embracing design thinking, a problem-solving process. This study explores 40 design thinking initiatives and identifies operational practices emerge and empirical categories across various contexts. Quantitative analyses of the initiatives and qualitative interview data are used to distinguish four configurations of action analogous to races: training, emphasizing learning-by-doing; marathons, capturing personal reflection over a long project; relays, highlighting team collaboration; and sprints, reflecting fast-paced product innovation. The initiatives are differentiated as designer-led versus team-driven and, low-urgency versus high-urgency. Implications of practicing design thinking in Organization Development and Change are discussed.