Positive Illusions and New Venture Creation: Conceptual Issues and An Empirical Illustration

This paper discusses the nature and role of positive illusions in the exploitation of new ideas and innovation leading to the development of new enterprises and industries. Positive illusions imply misperceptions of oneself and the environment that can lead to faulty investments and bankruptcies. However, without the optimistic misperceptions of one's own abilities and opportunities that positive illusions imply, little or nothing would happen. Thus, illusions that lead to initiative and commitment are crucial to create and exploit new innovations, even though venturing into new business areas always involves risk and potential failure. We discuss how entrepreneurs, public authorities, and the media might influence such illusions to stimulate innovative initiatives, as well as how entrepreneurs can adjust their misperceptions to avoid negative consequences without killing initiative. The paper is primarily conceptual and draws on insights from literatures such as cognitive psychology, strategy, management, and entrepreneurship. In our discussion we also utilise examples from blue mussel farming, which represents a potentially important innovation within the Norwegian aquaculture industry.     

The Antecedents of Individual Innovative Behaviour in Temporary Group Innovation

This study examines the antecedents of individual innovative behaviour in short‐term innovation camp conditions. Innovation is increasingly a joint activity conducted in various kinds of temporary settings that collect widely diverse people together for a brief time to work on a particular problem. As innovativeness of interplaying individuals is key for the success of collaborative innovation, it is important to study what factors enhance individual innovative behaviour in temporary settings. Data from 103 innovation camp participants were the basis of PLS‐SEM analysis. Results show that individual creative self‐efficacy, perceived task orientation and experimentation have significant effects on individual innovative behaviour. In contrast, participative safety, support for innovation, and vision are not associated with individual innovativeness. These findings suggest that the antecedents of individual innovativeness in temporary settings differ from those identified in conventional groups, pointing to a new field for future research.     

Variety is the Spice of Innovation: Mediating Factors in the Service Idea Generation Process

To create a breakthrough service innovation, firms need to go beyond current customers' needs and tap into the needs of the future market. As marketing theory favours customer‐centric approaches, customer‐led ideation and co‐creation of innovation seem natural candidates for extracting the ‘sticky’ information nested in some of the most innovative customers' minds. Grounded in the service innovation literature, this paper extracts innovative service ideas from ordinary users (n = 388) in three different service domains and seeks to identify the salient characteristics of the most innovative customers. Past research shows that innovative users are more likely to be service defectors, frequently switching from firm to firm, and motivated by their predisposition to seek variety. Using a structural modelling strategy, variety seeking is tested as a mediating factor between the subjective knowledge level and the presence of high level unmet needs leading to the generation of innovative service ideas. The results show that variety seeking fully mediates the relationship between subjective knowledge and unmet needs. Several interpretations of the role of variety seeking on customers' behaviour are explored within the context of capturing innovative service ideas.     

Expatriate cultural values alignment: The mediating effect of cross‐cultural adjustment level on innovative behaviour

Multinational companies assign expatriates to bridge the scarcity of employees with innovative behaviour from the local labour market. Despite expatriates' significant role in inducing innovative ideas for multinational companies, the existing literature has scarcely examined those antecedent factors that affect their innovative behaviour. Even though previous studies indicated the determinant impact of host countries' culture on the expatriates' work‐related behaviour, little is known about how far it affects their innovative behaviour. Therefore, drawing on the person‐environment fit theory, this study examines the impact of personal value orientation and the host country's culture alignment on expatriates' innovative behaviour. The study covers 149 expatriates, from nine countries, who work in the high‐tech industrial zone of Shenzhen, South China's industrial hub. Moreover, it applies a structural equation model using Amos^TM 23 to conduct the analysis. The results reveal that personal value orientation fit with the host country's national culture has a significant impact on expatriates' innovative behaviour. Cross‐cultural adjustment level is found to mediate this relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are drawn from the study's limitations.     

On‐the‐job Innovation: The Impact of Job Design and Human Resource Management through Production Ownership

A growing number of practitioners and academics endorse that the ability of organizations to foster, develop and use the innovative potential of their employees contributes to organizational success. Yet empirical investigation of individual innovation processes is lacking. In this research we address the question of whether both more flexibility in an employees’ job design and commitment‐oriented HRM activities promote individual innovative work behaviour. Findings suggest that a multifunctional job design and the perceived HRM system promote employee involvement in innovative activities through increased feelings of ownership for work‐related issues and problems.     

Individuals’ Innovation Response Behaviour: A Framework of Antecedents and Opportunities for Future Research

Innovation response behaviour is defined as individuals’ novelty‐supporting or novelty‐impeding action when navigating innovation initiatives through the organization. A typology of innovation response behaviour is developed, distinguishing between active and passive modes of conduct for novelty‐supporting and novelty‐impeding behaviour, respectively. The antecedents of innovation response behaviour are delineated based on West and Farr's five‐factor model of individual innovation. Moreover, we argue that within organizational contexts, individuals often fail to implement their ideas due to innovation barriers, perceived as factors that are beyond their control. Based on the theory of planned behaviour, we reveal how these barriers influence individuals’ intentional and exhibited innovation response behaviour. Propositions about proximal and distal antecedents of individuals’ innovation response behaviour are derived. Proposing a research framework to study the organizational process of innovation from an actor‐based perspective, this paper intends to link existing research on individual innovation with the process of innovation at the organizational level, explicitly accounting for the socio‐political dynamics and arising managerial problems associated with successful innovation implementation within organizational realities. Implications for research in innovation management are discussed and avenues for future research outlined.     

Social Network-Aware Interfaces as Facilitators of Innovation

Achieving continuous innovation in organizations requires a balance between exploiting yet acquired knowledge and exploring new knowledge.In addition to having the adequate resources,change and innovation capabilities require specific management support and organizational structures.Recent research has pointed out the importance of social network structure and of the activity of agents that work across domains or disciplines in the innovation-oriented behaviour of organizations.As a consequence,information systems should ideally be able to support the analysis,development and management of such social structure for the benefit of organizational objectives.Current social network interfaces provide an established mental model to workers that can be hypothesized to be adequate for supporting activities that foster innovative behaviour.That behaviour is facilitated through exposing the activities of other workers across organizational structures.This paper reports on the design of a user interface specifically targeted to manage the social aspects of innovation based on some aspects of Hargadon’s model of innovation and knowledge brokering.The emergent nature of interactions in social network sites is used as the metaphor to foster situated cognition.The interface design assessment is described and some metrics for innovative behaviour that could be derived for such an interface are sketched.     

How Does Cognitive Conflict in Design Teams Support the Development of Creative Ideas?

Is cognitive conflict detrimental to the development of innovative ideas in design teams, or is it a precondition for innovative performance? Assuming that there is a relationship between cognitive conflict and innovation, what kind of strategies do teams use in situations of cognitive conflict and what are the consequences for creativity? This paper reports on a study analysing how design teams cope with cognitive conflict during idea generation in an experiment. The design process was captured in protocols that were generated from video recordings. We report the results of the analysis of verbal protocols according to the five styles of (cognitive) conflict behaviour: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Out of six teams, the results of the two highest and two lowest scoring teams are compared as regards innovation and functionality, which we see as the two components of creative outcomes. We show that design teams, even in a laboratory environment, encounter a considerable amount of cognitive conflict. A statistical comparison between the groups with the highest and the lowest innovative/functional design concept scores reveals significant differences in their conflict behaviour styles. The high innovation and high functionality groups used a more competing and a more compromising style, whereas groups rated low on the same parameters used a more collaborating style. The high rating groups on both creativity components used a more associating and rejecting behaviour style; the high innovation groups also generated more new ideas than the low innovation groups. The low rating groups on both innovation and functionality tended to repeat ideas more frequently. The main finding is that, in contrast with reports in previous research, the groups with higher innovation and functionality scores collaborated less than their peers in the low rating groups on these parameters. We interpret these results as signifying that creative performance in teams is not achieved mainly by agreement but needs cognitive confrontation.     

Testing the Proposed Linkage between Organizational Citizenship Behaviours and an Innovative Organizational Climate

This study investigates the link between an innovative organizational climate and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). OCB is discretionary individual behaviour that is not directly rewarded and that promotes organizational functioning. The genesis of OCB is Barnard's innovative and spontaneous behaviours instrumental for effective organizational functioning, yet innovation has not been part of the OCB construct development. Using employees of a financial services firm in the Midwest, we examine the relationship between an organizational climate conducive to innovation and OCB using the Climate for Innovation Questionnaire (CIQ) and Van Dyne et al.'s OCB scale, which assesses the dimensions of organizational Obedience, Loyalty and Participation. The CIQ was reduced to three dimensions (context, ideas and risk) via factor analysis. Our results indicate that OCB is not linked to an Innovative Organizational Context. The Participation dimension of citizenship behaviour was positively linked to Innovative Ideas. Loyalty OCB was negatively linked to Risk, and Obedience OCB was negatively linked to Ideas. Results suggest the need to re‐examine the OCB construct. Pragmatic implications include examining the organizational characteristics when innovation is desired. Additionally, managers should be cautious with interventions designed to increase OCB, as the available evidence indicates a generally negative OCB–innovative climate relationship.     

The perceived importance and the presence of creative potential in the health professional's work environment

The value of creative employees to an organisation's growth and innovative development, productivity, quality and sustainability is well established. This study examined the perceived relationship between creativity and work environment factors of 361 practicing health professionals, and whether these factors were present (realised) in their work environment. Job design (challenges, team work, task rotation, autonomy) and leadership (coaching supervisor, time for thinking, creative goals, recognition and incentives for creative ideas and results) were perceived as the most important factors for stimulating creativity. There was room for improvement of these in the work environment. Many aspects of the physical work environment were less important. Public health sector employers and organisations should adopt sustainable strategies which target the important work environment factors to support employee creativity and so enhance service quality, productivity, performance and growth. Implications of the results for ergonomists and workplace managers are discussed with a participatory ergonomics approach recommended.

Practitioner summary: Creative employees are important to an organisation's innovation, productivity and sustainability. The survey identified health professionals perceive a need to improve job design and leadership factors at work to enhance and support employee creativity. There are implications for organisations and ergonomists to investigate the creative potential of work environments.     

Editorial

This exploratory study combines quantitative and qualitative data on the innovative characteristics of business librarians and the organizational culture of their libraries. Because of the perceived connection between innovation and entrepreneurship, we surveyed business librarians from ten United States universities with top entrepreneurship programs. To gauge the innovative characteristics of organizational culture, we conducted interviews with managers from some of those libraries. Our results suggest that our survey population skews heavily toward the innovative side of Everett Rogers' innovation adopter categories. This raises the questions about the necessity of late-adopters for innovations to completely diffuse through a particular population. We conclude that while innovation is essential to these librarians and their managers, it must be clearly defined and openly supported by library administration.     

Tuning Users' Innovativeness During Ideation

Although there is increasing acknowledgement that consumers can contribute useful ideas during the development of innovative services, there has been little empirical examination of how such users can best be managed in order to contribute their ideas to the ‘fuzzy front end’ of new service development. The present study examines the relationship between the nature of user‐created ideas regarding new technology‐based services and the characteristics of the users supplying the ideas. In particular, the study investigates whether users' ideas become more incremental or more radical depending on the users' awareness of technological restrictions and their utilization of use experience. The results show that idea creators with high use experience who are unaware of any technological restrictions tend to produce service ideas that are more radical in nature, whereas idea creators with high use experience who are aware of technological restrictions tend to produce service ideas that are more incremental in nature. The study provides empirical support that, in order to provide innovative ideas, ordinary users involved in ideation must both have a contextual use experience and not be restricted in their ideation by ‘too much’ technology information and restrictions on potential feasibility.     

Networking Beyond Organizational Boundaries: The Case of Project Organizations

Project organizations operate in environments where innovation depends significantly on the ability to integrate different but interrelated knowledge bases. These knowledge bases include individuals who are located outside organizational boundaries and have no formal relationship with the organization, but are connected socially to project workers. Organizational researchers have generally recognized the importance of external social relations for knowledge search. However there is some debate on the question of whether social networks are more useful for innovation if they provide social cohesion through close interaction or access to diverse and novel sources of knowledge through more distant relationships. This study explores the configuration of project workers’ external social networks and their effects on innovative behaviour, using data on the network ties of workers in 17 project organizations in the new‐media industry. The findings are more consistent with the social embeddedness view of close social relations providing an important source of continuity in markets where intermittent projects are common. Project workers embedded in cohesive work‐related social structures outside the organization tend to be more innovative in their project work than workers lacking such networks.     

Burnout and innovative work behaviours for survivors of downsizing: An investigation of boundary conditions

The purpose of this study is to explore conditions in which innovative behaviour can have either desirable or undesirable effects. The current study surveyed employees who remained in an organization following downsizing. Voice costs and perceived influence were measured as boundary conditions. Based on our understanding of Conservation of Resources theory, these variables may be particularly important to consider how individuals view innovative work behaviours in stressful situations such as experiencing downsizing. The results of this study revealed that engagement in innovative work behaviours (IWB) was associated with reduced burnout in employees when they perceived few costs of speaking up in the post downsized environment, but at very high perceptions of voice cost (above 1.74 standard deviations above the mean), this relationship was positive. Similarly, and contrary to what was expected, engagement in IWB was negatively related to burnout when employees perceived they had little influence within the organization. We discuss possible interpretations of this unexpected result. This study adds to the small body of work that examines outcomes, rather than predictors, of innovative behaviour and also identifies conditions in which engaging in innovative behaviours has a negative impact on the individual.     

Think outside the box

As the new conference season swings into gear, Schlumberger and Sun Microsystems have announced their Spirit of Invention initiative designed to stimulate the development of smart-card-based applications using Java Card Technology. The initiative — featuring the fifth worldwide SIMagine competition and the second worldwide e-gate smart card contest — aims to generate new and innovative application ideas that may eventually be developed into working solutions.     

Facilitating SME Innovation Capability through Business Networking

Innovation processes can be regarded as complex, dynamic, and a result of cumulative dynamic interaction and learning processes involving many actors. In this setting, private small‐ and medium‐sized businesses (SMEs) can be considered a key factor – as generators of new ideas, as entrepreneurs carrying out new ventures, and as partners for other local actors. This study focuses on the SME networks and their ability to participate in innovative processes directed at new value creation. We present a case study of the development of a young innovation network. Our focus in the case study is on the SME's ability to carry out innovation and new value creation in a network. The key contribution of the study centers on the new understanding of the way SME innovation could be promoted through facilitated network development.     

Innovation Culture,Collaboration with External Partners and NPD Performance

Researchers and managers have found that the use of external knowledge in the process of new product development (NPD) helps to sustain a firm's competitiveness by strengthening its innovative performance. However, little is known about why some firms use external knowledge sources for NPD in an extensive manner while others hardly ever use them. In addition, there is disagreement about which external partners significantly contribute to the innovative performance of a firm as valuable knowledge sources. Based on the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and Kitchell's innovation adoption model, this paper expects a firm's innovation culture to have a significant impact on its openness to external knowledge – measured in terms of its collaborative behaviour with five different external partners – and for that behaviour to influence the firm's NPD performance. A sample of 254 technology‐based firms across several industries is used to empirically test the research model with covariance‐based structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings deepen our understanding of the discrepancies between successful pioneering firms active in technology and knowledge sourcing and others being less successful.     

Exploring practices in collaborative innovation: Unpacking dynamics,relations, and enactment in in‐between spaces

In the field of innovation management, the study of collaborative innovation has focused primarily on the type of networks to support innovation, the modularity of the product's architecture required to engage actors in collaboration, the strategies for patenting and knowledge appropriation, and the public policies likely to stimulate collaborative innovation. But given that many efforts to collaborate collapse and fail to generate the desired innovative value, previous research needs to be complemented with perspectives on what individuals and collectives actually do when creating collaborative innovation as they engage in “in‐between spaces”, spaces between actors created by and simultaneously creating social interaction, to understand the practices that both form and constitute the collaboration. Through such studies, new knowledge can be created building on detailed insights about what ensues as different actors engage in interaction to innovate together and contribute to identifying levers to build collaborative spaces that indeed foster innovation. With this special section, we wish to encourage innovation management scholars to rethink their approach to collaborative innovation research by complementing macro‐level insights with an exploration of the micro‐foundations of collaborative innovation to gain a more nuanced understanding of collaborative dynamics, relations and enactment.     

Enacting a technology-based science curriculum across a grade level: The journey of teachers' appropriation

Studying teacher enactment of an innovation helps us understand the process of effective spread of a curricular innovation to teachers who have differing levels of content readiness, pedagogical orientations, teaching competency, different student profiles, and professional development experiences. Towards this, we explore how different teachers in the same grade level appropriated a common science curriculum enabled by mobile technologies in their classrooms. The innovative science curriculum: Mobilized 5E (Engage–Explore–Explain–Elaborate–Evaluate) Science Curriculum was developed through an iterative cycle of design-based research. As curriculum designs were not self-sufficient by themselves, the enactments of the teachers differed in how they leveraged on students' artifacts, how they integrated the technology into the class, the ways in which they interacted with the students, and how they scaffolded students' activities in a mobile learning setting. In this study, the teachers' enactments of mobilized 5E lessons were observed, analyzed and compared, with the aim of exploring the differences of lesson enactment amongst them. The results showed that teachers' different pedagogical orientations affected their instructions, especially their ways of technology integration in the class, and their patterns of interactions with the students. Based on the exploration of the teacher enactment of the mobilized 5E curriculum, implications are drawn concerning the implementation of innovative curricula implementation and the supports for teacher professional development of such innovation with the ultimate purpose of sustaining and scaling.     

Innovation in the US Military

A case example is provided of a successful innovation initiative within the United States Air Force, and specifically within its Electronic Security Command, 1984–1992. Guidelines were developed from Pinchot's ‘rules of intrapreneurs’. Ideas were worked up into projects in Long Range Innovation Teams. The resistance to new ideas was considerably weakened because of top-down commitment to change. Eventually over 13,000 personnel became involved. Rewards systems were designed in accord with the principles of reinforcing intrinsic motivation through recognition.