The Chameleon Effect: Rethinking Innovation as an Adaptive Resemblance

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to extend our knowledge of the elusive concept of innovation by investigating meanings and experiences of it among members in a small med-tech organization. This involves examining how individuals interpret and make sense of innovation and, if or how, they relate to their own organization as an innovative one. A single organization has been studied through an abductive approach. The ontological position of constructionism is assumed, and we draw upon both interpretivist and critical traditions. Data was collected from ten semi-structured interviews with members of the case organization. While we turn to mainstream literature to present a common conceptualization of innovation in terms of ‘outcome’ and ‘process’ (Anderson & King, 1993), our main focus is to assume a critical approach to innovation through the ideas presented by Hallonsten (2023). We also present a large portion of literature on how innovation fares from a sensemaking perspective (Salaman & Storey, 2005) to explore common drivers of innovation. Although consensus about being innovative exists, there seems to be a large amount of ambiguity in how innovation is made sense of in our case study. We have found that inter- and intra-organizational aspects are drawn upon to talk about innovation, and conceptualize innovation as an adaptive procedure that might appear ad hoc.