Varying involvement in digitally enhanced employee-driven innovation

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge about the mechanisms behind, and the implications of, varying involvement in digitally enhanced employee-driven innovation (EDI) by studying how a firm integrates a web-based tool in the organization of its EDI process. Design/methodology/approach Based on a qualitative in-depth interview study with managers and employees at one high-performing and one low-performing office of a global IT firm, a critical discourse analysis was performed. It explored how the EDI discourse was produced, distributed and consumed in relation to the web-based tool for collecting and selecting employee ideas. Findings The results demonstrate that the production of the innovation discourse by the top-level management, which emphasizes client satisfaction rather than employee engagement, restricts the employees’ utilization of the digital platform that distributes the discourse. However, at the high-performing office, employee participation is ensured because the local managers act as co-distributors of the digital tool. Research limitations/implications The single case study design limits the generalizability of the results, but is nevertheless relevant for understanding the mechanisms and implications in similar contexts where web-based tools are used to enhance EDI processes. Practical implications The study provides practical insights into the importance of local management’s active promotion of digital tools in order to ensure employee involvement. Originality/value The study contributes to the EDI literature by identifying some mechanisms behind and the implications of varying employee involvement in digitally enhanced EDI processes.

Employee behaviours beyond innovators in internal crowdsourcing: What do employees do in internal crowdsourcing, if not innovating, and why?

“…These studies have mainly investigated the supporting behaviours enacted by employees in offline settings, while such supporting behaviours are seldom investigated in online contexts. Our study addresses recent calls for how EDI is enacted through web‐based online tools, with respect to the behaviours performed by employees to support the innovation process (Bäckström & Lindberg, 2019; Høyrup et al, 2018). We extend this research by showing that employees voluntarily enact different supporting activities for innovation in online crowdsourcing, focusing on the support and refinement of others' ideas.…”

“…However, these supporting behaviours have only been explored in offline settings (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006). Recent studies emphasize the need to investigate employees' enactment of EDI, especially when enabled by web‐based tools , as in the case of internal crowdsourcing (Bäckström & Lindberg, 2019; Høyrup et al, 2018). We argue that internal crowdsourcing represents a relevant setting to explore supporting behaviours that offline settings offer few opportunities to study: namely, social contexts organized in such a way that geographically distributed employees, in many cases being strangers, can voluntarily support one another's innovative efforts.…”

“…Second, our study contributes to the literature on EDI. We address recent calls for how EDI is enacted in web‐enabled platforms (Bäckström & Lindberg, 2019; Høyrup et al, 2018). While EDI research has focused on how ordinary employees voluntarily engage in innovation activities beyond their formal work responsibilities, such engagement has only been investigated in offline settings.…”

Linking Structural Empowerment to Employee-Driven Innovation: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment

“…One of these models is expressed through the conceptual framework of employee-driven innovation (EDI), which embraces innovation activities that are initiated and driven by ordinary employees (Renkema 2018;Smith et al 2012;Båckstrom and Lindberg 2018). To drive innovation implies that employees participate in both the generation of creative ideas and their implementation (Smith et al 2012;Bäckström and Lindberg 2019). Kesting and Ulhøi (2010) argue that "for ordinary employees, to drive innovations largely means participating in those organizational decision-making procedures by which innovations are triggered and determined" (p. 68).…”

Orchestration of employees' creativity: A phased approach

“…Three streams of EDI are discussed in literature [13]: one that discusses EDI as a bottom-up process in which innovation arises unintentionally in daily work, one that highlights EDI as a mix of bottom-up and top-down processes in which management supports innovation processes initiated by employees, and one that considers EDI as a top-down process in which management motivates employees to be involved in innovation processes. However, striving for innovation can be a challenge for a company, as there are many ways in which innovation processes can be orchestrated to achieve concrete results [36]. One way to orchestrate the innovation process is to use digital technologies (e.g., web-based tools), to encourage the entire workforce to contribute innovative ideas (e.g., [37,38]).…”