Strategies to Promote Workplace Innovation: A Comparative Analysis of Nine National and Regional Approaches

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of strategies aimed to promote workplace innovation in nine national and regional policy contexts in the last few years. Its conceptual objective is to elaborate a model, developed by Naschold, and assess its usability in the analysis of contemporary workplace development strategies. The empirical objective of this article is to assess strengths and weaknesses of the strategies and similarities and differences between them by means of the model. The comparison results in a map of profiles of the nine strategies. The policy objective of this article is to raise issues that can be considered crucial for promoting learning across national borders in workplace development. The study was implemented between 2005 and 2008 as part of the EU-funded WORK- IN-NET project (2004-9).

The Nordic Model of Work Organization

“…If the good work appeared as an automatic consequence of central co-operation in working life, there would be little need for special agreements on workplace development, programs to promote new forms of work organization, and similar. Although no exact comparative data are available on this point, it is fairly certain that there are more such initiatives in the Nordic countries than in Europe in general [1,23]. At best, there is a relationship between "the Nordic model", the emergence of initiatives to promote the good work and the emergence of the good work itself.…”

Workplace organisation and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises

“…A number of countries have introduced such programmes. In Europe, Alasoini et al (2006Alasoini et al ( , 2009 identify and evaluate ten national and regional programmes in seven countries, while Ramstad (2005Ramstad ( , 2008 identifies Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany as frontrunner countries in policies for organisational innovation. The programmes differ in the extent to which they give primary emphasis to SMEs.…”

Project leadership in regional development coalitions: Horizontal and vertical challenges of trustkeeping

“…These kind of collaborative experiments have been a natural part of the series of large-scale national R&D programmes carried out in the Scandinavian countries since the early 1960s, and where Norway is the pioneering country (Alasoini, 2011;Gustavsen, 2008). Whereas the first field experiments in Norway emphasised an internal development focus within the single enterprise (e.g.…”

“…That is, the creation of parallel on-going learning process through more direct exchanges of ideas, experiences and concepts among involved actors in concrete local and regional development arenas. Alasoini (2011) points out that the latest Norwegian programmes (e.g. Value Creation 2010Creation /2000Creation -2006 and Program for Regional R&D and Innovation, 2007-) depart from other design-orientated programmes in Europe, 'with its radical process orientation and strongly constructivist starting point' (Alasoini, 2011: 266).…”