The digital revolution is happening, transforming the way we move and produce. Success in the digital revolution means that the rail industries need to use the best available technologies focusing on people. The managerial and organizational practices adopted by railway entities have considerable significance for Railway's ability to succeed in global competition. One of the challenges for railway entities is to deliver innovative products, offering quickness and flexibility to respond to changing demands from their customers. Non-technological innovations and especially Workplace innovation, have a key role to play in the digitalization and acceleration of technological developments, therefore in the railway sector competitiveness. This draws attention to the importance of innovation climate and employees' commitment aiming at improving staff motivation and working conditions, thereby enhancing labor productivity, organizational performance, innovation capability, reactivity to market change, and consequently business competitiveness. As with any emerging opportunity, there is no established path to follow to activate inclusive growth in railway SMEs to uptake Workplace innovation. To address these issues, this paper develops and tests a research model that covers individual behavior, organizational practices, and process practices of innovation among employees, analyzing the impact of Workplace Innovation on firm performance.

The rail sector has a significant impact on European industry, hence it is important that it follows current innovative trends if it wants to stay competitive. To this end, the railway sector has to adapt to the new digital revolution that is sweeping the sector, but especially the small and medium-sized companies that are part of it, and Workplace Innovation will play a key role in this process. During the RailActivation project it has been seen that SMEs have difficulties when it comes to developing and applying innovation, but due to their size SMEs can gain the advantage of implementing innovation more quickly. The RailActivation project aimed to help SMEs from the railway sector and provide solutions to the problems faced by companies when adapting to this new revolution, by creating an organisational mechanism that would help companies in the process of adopting Workplace Innovation. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper develops the research model for the railway industry, based on the concept of Workplace Innovation and the needs of SMEs. In addition, a general overview of the Innovation Way methodology applied during the workshops of the RailActivation project is presented, as well as the general and specific results obtained in the companies where the Pilot Scheme was applied.

The rail sector is a sector with a significant impact on European industry and it is therefore important that it follows the current innovative trends. We live in an increasingly digitised society but, until now, digitisation has not been a priority issue for the sector as the rules that apply to the entire value chain have hindered the digitisation process. Even so, technologies are not enough, and innovation must be implemented in companies at the organisational and employee level. The RailActivation project has experimented with workplace innovation to foster innovation capabilities in the railway sector, providing elements for companies to remain as innovative and competitive as possible, as well as to have additional tools to adapt to these challenges. In order to help in this process, this article proposes a series of recommendations based on the lessons learnt during the implementation of the project. These recommendations establish a link between policy and workplace innovation practices and could be a reference framework for further research and policy. The suggested policy recommendations are focused on companies and policy makers and are based on the results obtained from the different consultations with the stakeholders involved in this research.

The rail sector is a sector with a significant impact on European industry and it is therefore important that it follows the current innovative trends. We live in an increasingly digitised society but, until now, digitisation has not been a priority issue for the sector as the rules that apply to the entire value chain have hindered the digitisation process. Even so, technologies are not enough, and innovation must be implemented in companies at the organisational and employee level. The RailActivation project has experimented with workplace innovation to foster innovation capabilities in the railway sector, providing elements for companies to remain as innovative and competitive as possible, as well as to have additional tools to adapt to these challenges. In order to help in this process, this article proposes a series of recommendations based on the lessons learnt during the implementation of the project. These recommendations establish a link between policy and workplace innovation practices and could be a reference framework for further research and policy. The suggested policy recommendations are focused on companies and policy makers and are based on the results obtained from the different consultations with the stakeholders involved in this research.

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