Boosting Creativity with Transformational Leadership in Fuzzy Front-end Innovation Processes

Abstract

One of the contemporary demands in organizations is the need to create new knowledge and innovations. The purpose of this study is to clarify how creativity for the fuzzy front-end innovation processes can be supported by transformational leadership. In addition, the study aims at recognizing (a) challenges that organizations confront at the beginning of innovation processes and (b) what characters of transformational leadership are emphasized as well as how leaders should react during these challenging processes. The qualitative data used in this study is a partial case study from a wider action research-based development project, which aims at revealing the hidden innovation potential at different levels of an organization. Creativity and innovation are essential parts of development processes. This study contributes to the current literature on search strategies in relation to transformational leadership (TL) by extending the understanding of how to support employees' creativity and involve employees in discovering new innovation opportunities. In addition, this study suggests that TL's characteristics can be shared positively in practice as well as be performed simultaneously in the same organization development process by different leaders.

Typology on Leadership toward Creativity in Virtual Work

“…The findings of the detailed analysis of company type B, "collective mind," indicate the importance of collective intelligence, shared responsibilities (e.g., Hyypiä & Parjanen, 2013), leaders' intrinsic motivation, resources for leaders to orchestrate collective work, and assertiveness, as highlighted in the following:…”

Impact of Transformational Leadership on Innovation Characteristic of Enforcement Employees in Malaysian Public Sector Agency. The Role of Trust as Mediator

“…In an innovation study area, it is found that an association of transformational leadership style with innovation of employees has been discussed, but the mechanism of leadership style influence innovation of the employees is less debated in the direct relationship based research [13][14][15]. Interestingly, through extra surveys on such relationship, it is found that the impact of transformational leadership on innovation is indirectly affected by employees' trust [16][17].…”

Capacitação em Gestão do Fuzzy Front End em uma empresa de Serviços de Alta Tecnologia

“…Jetter (2003) e Hyypiä & Parjanen (2013) explana o FFE como uma prática emergente na qual muitos pesquisadores têm focado esforços na investigação da aplicação de diferentes modelos em diversos setores empresariais e, consequentemente, sugerido abordagens, teoricamente, mais eficientes para a melhoria da gestão do processo de FFE. Jetter (2003) relata que a despeito destes esforços, ainda é possível constatar que muitas empresas não possuem uma gestão eficiente do FFE e abordam esta fase baseado na "intuição" ou em "processos de adivinhação" ao invés da adoção de métodos estruturados.…”