Becoming a High Involvement Innovation Organisation : How to enhance internal innovation at an IT infrastructure company by involving employees
Abstract: Increasing employee involvement in innovation activities opens up for opportunities to apply previously unused resources within established employee network connections. Despite identified possible outcomes from increasing participation, no previous research investigating how an IT infrastructure company can increase employee involvement in innovation activities exist. Therefore, this thesis investigates how a market-leading, Nordic IT infrastructure company can increase their employee participation in innovation activities through becoming a High Involvement Innovation Organisation, and the purpose of the thesis is to develop a recommendation of actions to take to increase employee involvement. To fulfil the purpose of the thesis, a single case study consisting of semi-structured interviews and two quantitative surveys was conducted. The project was initiated by an extensive literature search of the six identified main fields within High Involvement Innovation; Management support, Communication, Resource allocation, Competence development, Incentives and Measurements & KPI’s. The results from the study show a lack of sufficient communication and management support to be the main challenges for companies to conquer, as is confirmed in the literature. The conclusion is that the investigated firm has good preconditions to increase their employee involvement in innovation, and the provided recommendation consists of five actions for the firm to take; Communicate the urgency of innovation, implement a feedback system, stimulate the competitive culture through a recognition system, establish measurable innovation KPI’s and develop educational plans targeting innovation.
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