Creativity and Innovation Management最新文献

Sustainability transitions are a significant challenge that requires established industries to adopt innovative ways of doing business. Research suggests that while this is possible through business model innovation (BMI), risk avoidance by regime actors and high levels of future uncertainty act as barriers to successful transitions. Specifically, we lack knowledge about how established companies innovate their business model (BM) to reduce uncertainty related to sustainability transitions. We explore the case of a large forest-based manufacturing company in the construction industry, Stora Enso. We find that, by pursuing transformative BMI and combining multiple value creation logics, a company can reduce different types of uncertainty while shaping its business ecosystem towards more sustainable opportunities. We show that the BM can serve as an organizational tool for collectively exploring new knowledge, reducing uncertainty and driving change in a business ecosystem.

This study delves into the bidirectional relationship between collaboration network stability (CS) and technological innovation performance (TIP), and the moderating effect of knowledge network characteristics. Using patent data gathered from China's biotechnology industry between 1985 and 2022, we develop a simultaneous equation model and employ a three-stage least squares estimation to explore the bidirectional relationship between CS and TIP, as well as to reveal the underlying moderating mechanisms. The results indicate that CS and TIP affect each other. The impact of CS on TIP has an inverted U-shape, and TIP exerts a negative impact on CS. Knowledge network stability (KS) and diversity (KD) weaken the inverted U-shaped influence of CS on TIP.

While past research has shown that championing plays a key role in sheltering and advancing novel ideas towards implementation, relatively little is known about how adversity and failure are dealt with through championing behaviour. The current embedded case study draws from 43 interviews in a large industrial technology organization, examining new product and service development idea pathways. We found four types of championing responses in the 61 instances where initial idea advancement efforts did not bear fruit: lateral shifts, reworking, temporal shifts and moaning. In each of these, the idea was seen as valuable by the developer, but the attribution of initial failure and perceptions of effort-to-performance and performance-to-outcome expectancies varied in distinct combinations of conforming and nonconforming types of championing with varying intensity. Taken together, the results contribute towards understanding the multidimensional nature and temporal dynamics of championing in persisting under adversity by illuminating factors that contribute to championing response type decisions and opportunities to better support idea development efforts in organizations.

Using signalling and self-perception theory, we propose and test a multilevel model that investigates the impact of aggregated high-quality HR training on individual-level thriving through the innovative behaviour of managers. We collected data from 192 respondents in 45 teams from various multinational organizations and analysed it using a multilevel path analytic method, specifically Hierarchical Linear Modelling. The study's findings indicate that team-level perceived high-quality HR training positively predicts individual-level employee-rated managers' innovative work behaviour and employee-rated managers' innovative work behaviour is positively related to employees' thriving at work. This finding supports our hypothesis of an indirect positive effect from HR training quality to thriving via managers' innovative work behaviour. Furthermore, the cross-level analysis revealed that aggregated HR training quality strengthens the relationship signal that favours the manager's innovative work behaviour, which, in turn, positively affects their own thriving at work. Our research offers novel insights into the thriving process, underscoring the importance of considering both contextual and individual factors. Our findings' theoretical and practical implications are discussed in detail, including their limitations. In conclusion, this study provides valuable knowledge to organizations, managers and employees, highlighting the significance of high-quality HR training and innovative work behaviour in promoting employee thriving.

Recent literature in environmental management implies that employee behaviour is imperative for improving environmental sustainability. Despite this, little effort has been made into how human resource management (HRM) relates to green creativity. This research aims to examine if an organization's green HRM (GHRM) practices can foster green creativity among manufacturing sector employees through the serial mediation path of environmental concerns and employee engagement with environmental initiatives, using self-determination theory (SDT). To conduct this research, we collected and analysed data from 309 employees of manufacturing firms in Pakistan using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results supported a positive relationship between GHRM and green creativity and the role of environmental concern and employee engagement with environmental initiatives in mediating that relationship. Likewise, the findings indicated that the relationship between GHRM and green creativity would strengthen as employees become more environmentally concerned. Overall, this study contributes to the literature on HRM and environmental management by providing new insights into the critical role of GHRM in fostering green creativity. Using SDT as a foundation, this research provides theoretical and practical contributions and implications and valuable recommendations for scholars and managers in the manufacturing sector.

Current approaches for identifying valuable content among the multitude of solutions in crowdsourcing contests are resource-intensive and constrained by human processing capacity. As idea convergence processes usually focus on filtering out single ideas, the potential of solution-related knowledge among the heterogeneous ideas is not exploited in a sustainable manner. Transformer-based language models can process large sets of idea descriptions into digestible structures, with unprecedented capabilities for understanding and manipulating text. This study explores how they can help organizations and decision-makers navigate crowdsourced solution spaces efficiently and comprehensively. Inspired by theoretical concepts around problem-solving and innovation search, we conceptualize three related search practices—direct search, cluster exploration and pattern discovery—and illustrate them on 289 crowdsourced ideas for future mobility and energy services. Direct search can assist in identifying solutions that match pressing needs or subproblems. Cluster exploration enables aggregating semantically similar ideas into clusters to identify relevant needs. Pattern discovery synthesizes themes and interrelations to build a holistic understanding of potential solutions. The study contributes to the application of AI-assisted idea convergence by adding a new perspective beyond filtering out a few promising ideas.

We know that solvers self-selecting in social innovation challenges come from diverse backgrounds including, among others, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and professionals from various industries. However, we are not aware of what motives actually bring such solvers to self-select to address these challenges. This study aims at understanding how different kinds of motivations intervene and interact with the solvers' intention to participate considering the specific context of crowdsourcing for social innovation. Drawing on the self-determination theory, we built a theoretical framework that hypothesizes how intrinsic, extrinsic, and prosocial motivations interact with one another and affect solvers' self-selection process in social innovation initiatives. Empirically, to investigate the theoretical framework, a survey research design involving the use of questionnaires was adopted to obtain primary data from solvers engaged in crowdsourcing initiatives for social innovation to solve Covid-19-related problems in the HeroX platform. We found that prosocial motivations positively affect the solvers' self-selection process. Moreover, our results highlight that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations differently moderate the relationship between prosocial motivations and intention to participate. The results of this study offer relevant contributions to previous crowdsourcing and organizational psychology literature and provide critical implications for managers designing and organizing crowdsourcing for social innovation challenges.

This study examines the critical role of middle and frontline managers in an incumbent organization navigating discontinuous change, emphasizing the balance between exploring new opportunities and exploiting existing ones. While top managers set the strategic ambidextrous direction, the on-the-ground manifestation and tension management fall predominantly to the middle and frontline managers. We introduce a novel typology, classifying these managers as Evolutionists, Revolutionists, or Mediators, each with distinct cognitive framings. Our findings underscore the importance of understanding and moderating these cognitive framings to facilitate successful ambidextrous implementation. Key managerial implications include the need for heightened awareness of tension points, strategic resource allocation, mitigation of extreme cognitive framings, and the significant value of Mediator managers in steering ambidextrous strategies. This research paves the way for a deeper understanding of individual-level ambidexterity and provides crucial insights for organizations to innovate in times of discontinuous change.

Employees' innovative work behaviour (IWB) is crucial for organizations' long-term performance and success. In particular, research has examined leadership as a crucial antecedent of IWB, but there are inconclusive results about how leader–member exchange (LMX) translates into IWB. Building on LMX theory, we examine how the relationship between LMX and IWB is translated through subordinates' creative self-efficacy as a motivational factor and team support for innovation as a social-relational factor. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a matched field survey with 171 subordinates and supervisors and found a positive association between LMX and IWB. Our results also show that this relationship is mediated by team support for innovation but not by creative self-efficacy. Our findings confirm the importance of the social aspect in the innovation process and suggest that perceived social support plays a more significant role in the translation of LMX into the IWB than do individual motivational factors.

With the ongoing changes in the work environment, specifically turning from fulltime to no time at the office and nowadays pending somewhere in between, there is a need for decision makers to redefine their expectations of a day at the office. Previously, organizations worldwide focussed on creating workplaces that foster interaction and collaboration to enhance knowledge exchange and communication. Both are among the main drivers for stimulating creativity at the workplace, leading to increased innovation activities. Since offices are dramatically changing from lean, work-focused, and hierarchical workstations into employee-oriented, creativity-enhancing spaces with playground artefacts, the need for quantitative research on the effects of workplace design on creativity seems evident for researchers and practitioners. Although prior research has attempted to describe the physical work environment and its impact on creativity, empirical evidence is still lacking on what concrete attributes of a workplace employees perceive as inspiring. We therefore contribute to the existent body of knowledge by establishing a definition for inspiring physical workplaces as perceived by employees in times of digitalization and provide a conceptual model analysing the effects between workplace design, internal knowledge exchange, and creative problem-solving capacity. We assess our survey data with partial least squares structural equation modelling and provide first empirical evidence that our proposed formative index supports the common research agenda within the context of workplace design, and further, that aspects of workplace design not only enhance creative problem-solving capacity as an important dimension of creativity itself, but that this relationship is also partially mediated by internal knowledge exchange.