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Management Practices for Promoting Employee-Driven Innovation

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Workplace Innovation

Part of the book series: Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being ((AHSW))

Abstract

Understanding why organizations differ in their abilities to obtain, explore and exploit their employees’ ideas and knowledge is important in order to increase the overall innovation capacity of organizations. In this paper, we investigate the impact of management practices concerning employees’ general involvement in innovation work. The study is based on interviews with managers, employees, and union representatives in twenty Norwegian organizations. The results highlight several important factors regarding both management practice and cultural aspects of everyday working life. We emphasize in particular the important role of the middle manager (such as a foreman, section head, or shift boss). The nature of interaction between managers and employees is also significant. For instance, managers’ ability and will to share information and to build trust-based relations across positions and professions, as well as facilitating efficient knowledge exchange between employees, are of particular importance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It should be noted that bonus systems were not found to be important for employee-driven innovation in our study (only 10% of the companies had some kind of reward systems). Thus we do not follow-up on this factor.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, International Research Institute of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway

    Kåre Hansen & Leif Jarle Gressgård

  2. Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management, Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Oscar Amundsen

  3. SINTEF Technology and Society, Trondheim, Norway

    Tone Merethe Berg Aasen

Authors
  1. Kåre Hansen
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  2. Oscar Amundsen
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  3. Tone Merethe Berg Aasen
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  4. Leif Jarle Gressgård
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kåre Hansen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. TNO , Leiden, The Netherlands

    Peter Oeij

  2. Creative Peas, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Diana Rus

  3. Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Frank D. Pot

Appendix

Appendix

Industry

(NACE-classification)

Company

Sector

Size (employees)

Informants

Private

Public

Leader

Employee

Union rep.

Administrative & support service activities

1

 

X

50–100

1

2

 

Construction

2

X

 

>250

1

1

1

3

X

 

>250

1

1

 

4

X

 

50–100

1

1

 

5

X

 

50–100

2

  

Electricity, gas, steam & air condition supply

6

 

X

>250

1

1

 

Financial & insurance activities

7

X

 

10–50

1

1

 

Information & communication

8

X

 

>250

1

1

 

9

X

 

100–250

 

2

 

10

X

 

50–100

1

2

 

Manufacturing

11

X

 

>250

1

 

1

12

X

 

10–50

1

2

 

13

X

 

10–50

1

2

 

14

X

 

>250

1

1

1

15

X

 

>250

1

2

1

Professional, scientific & technical activities

16

X

 

50–100

1

  

17

X

 

50–100

1

1

1

18

X

 

>250

2

1

 

Public administration & defence; compulsory social security

19

 

X

>250

 

2

 

20

 

X

>250

1

  

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Hansen, K., Amundsen, O., Aasen, T.M.B., Gressgård, L.J. (2017). Management Practices for Promoting Employee-Driven Innovation. In: Oeij, P., Rus, D., Pot, F. (eds) Workplace Innovation. Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56333-6_19

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