Mediated and Moderated Effects of Business and Project Planning on Innovation Projects in Hospitals

Based on multi‐respondent data of 130 innovation projects in hospitals, our study analyses the role of planning intensity for project success. Besides showing that also in complex service systems innovation projects are supported through planning, we contribute to innovation management research, first, by clearly differentiating between the effects of business and project planning; second, by integrating intra‐team co‐ordination as a possible mediator of the planning success relationship; and, third, by taking into account the degree of innovativeness as a relevant contingency. We apply a multi‐level regression analysis, include several control variables, and limit common source biases by a multi‐respondent empirical design. The results demonstrate that both planning types show complementary effects. Project planning increases intra‐team co‐ordination, which mediates the planning effect on project success. Business planning has a direct effect on project success. However, the moderating effects of project innovativeness are oppositional. While business planning becomes more important for higher degrees of innovativeness, the efficacy of project planning is limited to incremental innovations. We conclude with a discussion of implications for hospital and innovation management as well as future research.     

‘Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth’: Key Persons and their Roles in Inter‐Organizational Innovations

Key persons can play an important role in the development and diffusion of new products, processes or technologies. Their functions, contributions and interactions within companies have been subject to numerous investigations. From a theoretical point of view, promotor theory focuses on several specialists to overcome different barriers to innovation, while champion theory concentrates on generalists playing multiple roles. Empirical results point to generalists being better suited for highly innovative projects, but on the other hand different roles should preferably be played by different key persons. A central gap in the literature is that this issue has not been investigated sufficiently so far in an inter‐organizational context. The questions are: Is role accumulation beneficial for innovation project performance with respect to the key persons? Is role accumulation even more advantageous with increasing degrees of innovativeness? A sample of 107 innovation projects where small and medium‐sized enterprises take part is used as a unit of analysis. The network manager served as the respondent. A measurement approach based on an extended Rasch scale was introduced for this purpose. The results show that indeed ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’: Instead of many single‐role players in each organization, we need a few multiple role players in an inter‐organizational context.     

How does personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology promote knowledge workers’ innovative work behavior?

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and innovation diffusion theory (IDT), this study aims to reveal the mechanism of how personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology (PIIT) affects innovative work behavior through analyzing the mediating role of usage intention toward the online learning system and the moderating role of alignment with organizational values (AOVs). Our findings from a survey of 418 knowledge workers demonstrate that the effects of PIIT on innovative work behavior are stronger with higher AOV. Furthermore, we found that by impacting usage intention, the interaction of PIIT and AOV indirectly affects innovative work behavior.     

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.     

National Personality Profiles and Innovation: The Role of Cultural Practices

This study investigates the relationship between personality factors, cultural practices, and innovativeness on the national level. Hitherto no study has been done which considers these factors simultaneously. We argue that the relationship between national aggregated personality factors and the level of national innovation is mediated by national cultural practices. Our model is based on three arguments: First, Five Factor theory and cultural theory state that the national personality profile of a country influences its cultural practices. Second, person‐environment‐fit theory argues that personality factors can best manifest themselves in an appropriate environment. Third, in contrast to the individual level, we argue that on the national level cultural practices may not act as a moderator but as a mediator. Based on the triangulation of three datasets, we subsequently test our model on a sample of N = 33 countries. Our results demonstrate that innovation‐relevant national personality profiles are closely linked with innovation‐relevant national cultural practices. Further, we show that national cultural practices mediate the relationship between national personality profiles and national innovativeness. Additionally, we reveal that the recently proposed relationship between nationally aggregated personality profiles and national innovativeness virtually disappears as soon as national cultural practices are integrated into the model.     

Community‐Based Innovation Contests: Where Competition Meets Cooperation

While the principle of competition has long been found to be conducive to innovation, community‐based innovation contests additionally offer the possibilities of interaction and cooperation among participants. This duality makes innovation contests an interesting field for both academia and practice. However, a surge in practical implementations stands in contrast to a still restricted body of academic knowledge in the field. To close this gap, drawing on a boundary spanning perspective, we examine if and how cooperation in the competitive setting of innovation contests leads to innovativeness. Cooperative orientation of contest participants is explored within a community‐based innovation contest run in 2009 at one of the largest universities in Germany. We analyse a complete set of data collected during the contest, data from a follow‐up survey among individual participants (n = 943), as well as video and audio footage from four focus groups. Findings suggest that a very high as well as a very low degree of cooperative orientation result in a high degree of innovativeness, while a medium degree of cooperative orientation results in a low degree of innovativeness. Additionally, this research extends the concept of boundary spanning by identifying two subtypes: proactive and reactive boundary spanning.     

Individual and organizational influences on voice mail use and evaluation

This study develops and tests a simple model predicting influences on use of voice mail, and influences of voice mail use on later system evaluations. Data were collected in two organisations, using self-report and system-monitored usage measures. The study makes distinctions between individual and organizational innovativeness, communication-based and location-based group interdependence, overall and intentional voice mail usage, and generic and specific appropriateness of voice mail. Results were quite similar across the two organizations. Individual innovativeness had no influence, but organizational conservativeness had a positive influence on system usage, possibly for less innovative uses of voice mail as voice answering rather than as a voice messaging. Task analysability had a small positive influence on usage. Group location interdependency had perhaps the most consistent influence on voice mail usage. Greater intentional self-reported use of voice mail for voice messaging, rather than simple monitored and self-reported amount of usage, had somewhat of a greater influence on system evaluations. Individual and organizational variables had no significant influence system evaluations, controlling for the influence of usage. The discussion provides some suggestions for models of new organizational media use in organizations.     

The Reported Advantage: What Journalists say Chief Executives do to Foster Innovation in their Firms

Journalistic perceptions may be regarded as forums for knowledge creation, and therefore offer a potentially valuable but largely ignored source of research on the management of innovation. Journalistic accounts from Fortune Magazine's annual surveys were thematically analyzed over a ten year period, using ratings of innovativeness on the organizations reported. Three themes were identified as innovation directed executive actions which differentiated the more innovative firms. These CEO actions or strategies were characterized as a dilating of organizational focus, generating elasticity in organizational processes, and concentrating (‘swarming’) resources until innovations were stabilised. These themes cut across sectoral differences in the firms studied.     

User experience and personal innovativeness: An empirical study on the Enterprise Resource Planning systems

Although user experience and personal innovativeness are two important factors in new technology adoption, there has been no prior study to test these factors with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) adoption. This paper investigates moderating roles of user experience on the relationship between the personal innovativeness and the ERP adoption motivations. This issue is important because if the user has more experience with the systems then the power of influence of personal innovativeness on ERP adoption motivation would be different. Thus, this paper tests these important insights of ERP systems adoption with the two different field samples with high (more than three years) and low (less than three years) user experience, based on the innovation diffusion theory, self determination theory, and different types of motivations such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The findings, based on the PLS analysis of the model using 107 ERP end users, show that there are clear moderating effects of user experience—such as impacts of personal innovativeness on ERP systems adoption motivations are higher in case of low user experience samples, as expected. Academic and practical implications are discussed in the paper based on these empirical findings.     

Does the source of external knowledge matter? Examining the role of customer co-creation and partner sourcing in knowledge creation and innovation

External knowledge is widely acknowledged to be critical for organizational innovation. However, we lack understanding of how different sources of knowledge—namely knowledge from customers and partners—influence innovation. Grounded in the knowledge-based view of the firm, we theoretically develop and empirically test a model of mechanisms through which two forms of external knowledge acquisition i.e., customer co-creation and partner sourcing, foster knowledge creation and innovation. We posit that the different forms of external knowledge acquisition contribute differentially toward innovation outcomes. Finally, we examine the moderating role of knowledge dissemination capability on the relationships between external knowledge of both forms. We test our proposed model using data gathered from 655 organizations in two knowledge intensive sectors i.e., financial and information technology. Our model explains 65 % of the variance in knowledge creation and highlights that organizations with higher degree of knowledge creation are more likely to innovate through new patents. We extend prior research on customer co-creation and organizational innovation by identifying intervening organizational variables and mechanisms that explicate the effects of external knowledge on innovation. The results provide important implications for organizations regarding the capabilities needed to utilize external knowledge for innovation.     

SME Network Characteristics vs. Product Innovativeness: How to Achieve High Innovation Performance

Small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) must on the one hand innovate for company survival with the appropriate degree of product innovativeness, and on the other they need to collaborate and focus on core competences for efficiency matters. This research examines the relation of network characteristics and product innovativeness on innovation performance in SMEs. We tested hypotheses on the relationship between these three variables via data gathered from 60 SMEs, active in the medical devices sector. In this context we aim to offer consensus on the theoretical and empirical question of whether or not network characteristics and product innovativeness have a direct effect on innovation performance of SMEs. Results show no significant direct effect of product innovativeness on innovation performance. A positive interaction effect of multiple network characteristics on innovation performance was found, which confirms the significant importance of network configuration on innovation performance for SMEs. It indicates that, for SMEs in a highly regulated sector like the medical devices sector, the interaction of network characteristics is of crucial importance for high innovation performance. It is the combination of network characteristics that counts.     

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.     

UK Film Companies: Project‐Based Organizations Lacking Entrepreneurship and Innovativeness?

The growth of project‐based forms of organization has been interpreted as a response to rapidly changing technological and market environments. Companies operating in this way are assumed to be inherently innovative, continually breaking up and reconfiguring teams of workers whose highly developed skills enable them to multi‐task and apply their knowledge in novel situations, in which new technology is swiftly assimilated and deployed. Project workers, who may engage in repeat contracting with different employers, belong to technical communities wherein knowledge is developed and resides. The transformation from vertical integration to project‐based working in the film industry would thus appear to privilege innovation. However, in the UK film industry at least, this study suggests that, in spite of freelance working, crew and technicians follow highly specialized, hierarchical careers, and that the organization of production is virtually the same as it was at the height of the Hollywood ‘Studio System’. Furthermore, it will be argued that the informal, reputational networks that operate in the UK industry may act as a barrier to development rather than as an engine of change.     

Gambling versus Designing: Organizing for the Design of the Probability Space in the Energy Sector

The objective of this paper is to elucidate an organizational process for the design of generic technologies (GTs). While recognizing the success of GTs, the literature on innovation management generally describes their design according to evolutionary strategies featuring multiple and uncertain trials, resulting in the discovery of common features among multiple applications. This random walk depends on multiple market and technological uncertainties that are considered exogenous: as smart as he can be, the ‘gambler’ must play in a given probability space. However, what happens when the innovator is not a gambler but a designer, i.e., when the actor is able to establish new links between previously independent emerging markets and technologies? Formally speaking, the actor designs a new probability space. Building on a case study of two technological development programmes at the French Center for Atomic Energy, we present cases of GTs that correspond to this logic of designing the probability space, i.e. the logic of intentionally designing common features that bridge the gap between a priori heterogeneous applications and technologies. This study provides another example showing that the usual trial‐and‐learning strategy is not the only strategy to design GTs and that these technologies can be designed by intentionally building new interdependences between markets and technologies. Our main result is that building these interdependences requires organizational patterns that correspond to a ‘design of exploration’ phase in which multiple technology suppliers and application providers are involved in designing both the probability space itself and the instruments to explore and benefit from this new space.     

Pre‐computed Gathering of Multi‐Bounce Glossy Reflections

Recent work in interactive global illumination addresses diffuse and moderately glossy indirect lighting effects, but high‐frequency effects such as multi‐bounce reflections on highly glossy surfaces are often ignored. Accurately simulating such effects is important to convey the realistic appearance of materials such as chrome and shiny metal. In this paper, we present an efficient method for visualizing multi‐bounce glossy reflections at interactive rates under environment lighting. Our main contribution is a pre‐computation–based method which efficiently gathers subsequent highly glossy reflection passes modelled with a non‐linear transfer function representation based on the von Mises–Fisher distribution. We show that our gathering method is superior to scattered sampling. To exploit the sparsity of the pre‐computed data, we apply perfect spatial hashing. As a result, we are able to visualize multi‐bounce glossy reflections at interactive rates at a low pre‐computation cost.     

Does job insecurity hinder innovative work behaviour? A threat rigidity perspective

Current work life is characterized by globalization, technological changes and the aftermath of the economic recession, thereby increasing the need for organizations to be innovative to maintain their competitive position. At the same time, this turbulent organizational landscape gave rise to perceptions of job insecurity (JI), that is, the subjectively perceived likelihood of involuntary job loss. The present study investigates whether job insecurity relates to innovative work behaviour (IWB) and introduces threat rigidity theory as an explanatory framework for this relationship. Based on this theory, we propose a serial mediation model, in which job insecurity relates to an increase in irritation, which subsequently relates to a decrease in concentration, resulting in a decrease in both dimensions of IWB, namely idea generation and idea implementation. By means of survey data from 394 Dutch‐speaking Belgian employees, we used structural equation modelling to compute our mediation analyses (bootstrapping method). Our findings are in line with threat rigidity theory, as the results demonstrate that the threat of job loss impairs employees' innovativeness through increased irritation and decreased concentration. This study contributes to job insecurity as well as IWB research, by introducing a process model that sheds light on job insecurity outcomes and antecedents of IWB.     

A Multi‐Level Model for Organizational Ambidexterity in the Search Phase of the Innovation Process

Innovation is one of the most critical means in supporting and improving the competitive position of the firm, in particular, and a firm's survival and growth depend greatly on its ability to balance the exploitation of existing knowledge with the exploration of new possibilities, by building ambidexterity capability. While different alternatives to realize the simultaneous reconciliation of exploration and exploitation at an operational level have been proposed, how organizations build ambidexterity capability is not fully understood. The aim of this paper is thus to explore how exploration and exploitation balancing can be achieved in practice. We decided to focus on the early phase of the process where firms search for new ideas with which to renew themselves. To this end, we analysed the search phase of a highly innovative technology‐based company by investigating structural design choices combined with the presence of specific roles and searching practices. The results show how the exploration and exploitation balancing act can actually be achieved and maintained through a multi‐level approach that integrates both the operational and the strategic levels. Our findings thus contribute to the organizational ambidexterity literature, by proposing a first interpretative model for dealing with ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process.     

Employee acceptance of disruptive service innovations at the frontline: The role of collective sensemaking processes

Acceptance of service innovation by frontline employees is a challenging issue, especially if such innovations have the potential to disrupt existing value creation models and individual competencies. Disruptive service innovations are often (1) characterized by a high degree of innovativeness related to significant changes in technology and in the market and (2) may be introduced by technology manufacturers as new service market entrants that cause a competitive threat to the existing service provision. We argue that such innovations challenge frontline employees' focus on routines and standardized service operating procedures. The perceived threat and resulting high levels of uncertainty may inhibit innovation acceptance. Our study follows a collective sensemaking perspective, paying special attention to investigating the moderating role of (1) the exchange of operational information within a workgroup and (2) a firm's entrepreneurial orientation. Whereas the former may increase frontline employees' preference for incremental improvements, the latter may help to increase the acceptance level of potentially more disruptive innovations. We test our theoretically derived hypotheses with an experimental vignette study of 671 frontline employees in the field of audiology, a health care market particularly affected by both more radical and market entrant innovations. Results show that a high degree of innovativeness has a negative effect on innovation acceptance. Frontline employees accept radical innovations less readily than incremental innovations. A competitive threat from new technology manufacturers in the supply chain does not lead to a lower innovation acceptance level. The moderation results indicate significant effects of both information exchange and entrepreneurial orientation. Intensive information exchange within the workgroup strengthens the negative relationship between the degree of innovativeness and innovation acceptance. In contrast, a high degree of entrepreneurial orientation weakens the negative relationship between a competitive threat and innovation acceptance.     

Skills,scope and success: An empirical look at the start‐up process in creative industries in Germany

Creative industries comprise enterprises focusing on the creation, production and distribution of creative or cultural goods and services. Following an explorative empirical approach, we analyse start‐ups in creative industries regarding three issues along the start‐up process: (1) personal characteristics of creative entrepreneurs, (2) their use of labour and capital as input factors, and (3) start‐up success as measured by start‐up survival, degree of innovativeness and change in household income. Based on individual‐level data from the KfW Start‐up Monitor, a large‐scale survey on entrepreneurship in Germany, our regression results show that entrepreneurs in creative industries tend to be younger and better educated than entrepreneurs in other economic sectors. Businesses in creative industries are prevalently started on a small scale, as part‐time occupations, and with less financial resources. Yet they show a higher persistence and an above‐average degree of innovativeness.     

Explaining the adoption of grid computing: An integrated institutional theory and organizational capability approach

Grid computing can meet computational demands and offers a promising resource utilization approach. However, little research details the drivers of and obstacles to adoption of this technology. Institutional and organizational capability theory suggests an adoption model that accounts for inter- and intra-organizational influences. An empirical study with 233 high-ranking IT executives reveals that adoption results from social contagion, while organizational capabilities such as trust, firm innovativeness, tendency to outsource, and IT department size, influence adoption from an intra-organizational perspective. The findings show that mimetic pressures and trust play major roles in adoption processes, which differentiates grid computing from other inter-organizational systems.