The Influence of Significant Change Towards Remote Work on Employee-Driven Innovation
(2021) BUSN09 20211Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Working with innovation has become an essential factor in driving firm success in fast-changing industries like the energy sector. As a result, a considerable amount of previous research has focused on the innovation activities of employees working in R&D or similarly. However, a more recent field of research has focused on studying the employees outside these innovation-specific functions and acknowledge their importance in innovation, referred to as employee-driven innovation. In 2020, the world was shocked by a global pandemic causing a significant change towards employees being forced to work from their homes which, thus, provides a global experiment of remote work. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how employees... (More)
- Working with innovation has become an essential factor in driving firm success in fast-changing industries like the energy sector. As a result, a considerable amount of previous research has focused on the innovation activities of employees working in R&D or similarly. However, a more recent field of research has focused on studying the employees outside these innovation-specific functions and acknowledge their importance in innovation, referred to as employee-driven innovation. In 2020, the world was shocked by a global pandemic causing a significant change towards employees being forced to work from their homes which, thus, provides a global experiment of remote work. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how employees outside innovation-specific functions have experienced and managed their innovation activities related to important aspects of employee-driven innovation in the new context of a significant change towards remote work. A qualitative research approach is adopted through a single case study on an international energy provider to investigate this phenomenon. The primary data is acquired via semi-structured interviews with respondents both from the manager and employee perspective, allowing for a holistic view of the impact of remote work.
The findings of this study suggest that several important aspects influencing employee-driven innovation have been affected negatively, as it has resulted in a constraint for employees in the knowledge sharing of idea generation and coalition building in the innovation process. More specifically, overhearing and sharing tacit knowledge is challenging for remote workers in both the generation and coalition building of ideas. The findings related to motivation suggest that remote work has reduced several positive effects of the crucial intrinsic motivation in innovation and knowledge sharing, significantly impacting employee's ability to share ideas. Lastly, the findings suggest that remote work can harm trust in new relations making it especially challenging to build coalitions to support innovative ideas. By exploring the influence of a significant change towards remote work on employee-driven innovation activities, this study provides an enhanced understanding of the research gap and practical insights for companies operating in a similar context affected by this phenomenon. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9052520
- author
- Blidberg, Fanny LU and Pozder, Selma LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BUSN09 20211
- year
- 2021
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Innovation, Employee-Driven Innovation, Remote Work, Knowledge Sharing, Energy Sector
- language
- English
- id
- 9052520
- date added to LUP
- 2021-06-29 10:48:00
- date last changed
- 2021-06-29 10:48:00
@misc{9052520,
abstract = {{Working with innovation has become an essential factor in driving firm success in fast-changing industries like the energy sector. As a result, a considerable amount of previous research has focused on the innovation activities of employees working in R&D or similarly. However, a more recent field of research has focused on studying the employees outside these innovation-specific functions and acknowledge their importance in innovation, referred to as employee-driven innovation. In 2020, the world was shocked by a global pandemic causing a significant change towards employees being forced to work from their homes which, thus, provides a global experiment of remote work. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how employees outside innovation-specific functions have experienced and managed their innovation activities related to important aspects of employee-driven innovation in the new context of a significant change towards remote work. A qualitative research approach is adopted through a single case study on an international energy provider to investigate this phenomenon. The primary data is acquired via semi-structured interviews with respondents both from the manager and employee perspective, allowing for a holistic view of the impact of remote work.
The findings of this study suggest that several important aspects influencing employee-driven innovation have been affected negatively, as it has resulted in a constraint for employees in the knowledge sharing of idea generation and coalition building in the innovation process. More specifically, overhearing and sharing tacit knowledge is challenging for remote workers in both the generation and coalition building of ideas. The findings related to motivation suggest that remote work has reduced several positive effects of the crucial intrinsic motivation in innovation and knowledge sharing, significantly impacting employee's ability to share ideas. Lastly, the findings suggest that remote work can harm trust in new relations making it especially challenging to build coalitions to support innovative ideas. By exploring the influence of a significant change towards remote work on employee-driven innovation activities, this study provides an enhanced understanding of the research gap and practical insights for companies operating in a similar context affected by this phenomenon.}},
author = {{Blidberg, Fanny and Pozder, Selma}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Influence of Significant Change Towards Remote Work on Employee-Driven Innovation}},
year = {{2021}},
}