Incentivizing innovation: The role of knowledge exchange and distal search behavior

Speckbacher, Gerhard; Wabnegg, Markus

doi:10.1016/j.aos.2020.101142

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 94 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Skunkworks project goals cannot be narrowly defined and must count on a high degree of openness and uncertainty. As evidenced in our case study, skunkworks members are expected to come up with out‐of‐the‐box ideas and proposals, in line with the role of high creativity climates and behaviours in innovation‐boosting (Gisbert‐López et al., 2014; Speckbacher & Wabnegg, 2020) and high‐performance (Agarwal & Farndale, 2017; Jiménez‐Jiménez & Sanz‐Valle, 2008; West et al., 2004) HR systems. The key role of creative ideas and the scarcity of pre‐defined goals make performance criteria to rely heavily on creativity‐based processes, behaviours and outcomes.…”

Section: Discussion: Identifying Skunkwork‐boosting Hr Practices For Radical Technology Developmentsupporting

confidence: 59%

Facilitating radical innovation through secret technology‐oriented skunkworks projects: Implications for human resource practices

Oltra

Donada

Alegre

2021

Human Res Mgmt Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Technology‐oriented skunkworks projects aim at facilitating radical innovation through approaches different from ‘normal’ research and development processes and have their specific organisational challenges. Joint human resource management (HRM) and innovation management research on HRM requirements for technology‐oriented skunkworks is so far scarce, revealing a timely research gap and propelling our research question: what are the human resources (HR) practices that best support secret technology‐oriented skunkworks projects (compared to HR practices in innovation contexts)? An exploratory case study of a skunkworks project at PSA Peugeot‐Citroën (currently Groupe PSA) reveals seven skunkworks‐boosting HR practices: extreme empowerment and autonomy in job design and task development, extensive team‐based training, creativity‐based performance appraisal, participative decision‐making systems, ultra‐open job descriptions, ‘undercover’ (extremely discreet) recruitment and selection processes and turbulence‐oriented employee flexibility. Managers responsible for technology‐oriented skunkworks projects are offered guidance. Overall, our investigation enriches the promising research stream on skunkworks in action and their HR‐related challenges, also opening further research opportunities on skunkworks managerial success conditions.

show abstract

Section: Discussion: Identifying Skunkwork‐boosting Hr Practices For Radical Technology Developmentsupporting

confidence: 59%

Facilitating radical innovation through secret technology‐oriented skunkworks projects: Implications for human resource practices

Oltra

Donada

Alegre

2021

Human Res Mgmt Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This requires firms' managers to allocate capital to innovation projects likely to generate positive net present value (NPV) projects, avoid risky innovations that might generate negative NPVs, and withdraw resources from projects found to be incurring losses after project initiation (Bushman and Smith, 2001). Therefore, innovation is often associated with utilising unanticipated opportunities and 'outsidethe-box' technologies or knowledge, bearing with uncertain outputs and risks, and tolerating the possibility of failure (Davila et al, 2009;Speckbacher and Wabnegg, 2020). As elaborated in Manso (2011), a firm's pursuit for innovative activities depends largely on its tolerance for failure.…”

Section: Theoretical Framework and Measurement Of Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, there are often systematic differences in the number of citations received by more recent versus earlier patents. The earlier patents could have received more citations simply because they were available for a longer period (Speckbacher and Wabnegg, 2020). Thus, this truncation issue is more severe for the more recently granted patents.…”

Section: Outcome-based Innovation Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their study highlights the impact of technological turbulence on the use of different management control tools in facilitating innovation. Using a combination of survey and patent data from 282 firms in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, Speckbacher and Wabnegg (2020) analyse the incentivising role of two key innovative behaviours: distal search and knowledge exchange. Distal search is defined as search for 'outside-the-box' knowledge that goes beyond the current technologies, problems or markets, whereas knowledge exchange is considered as an interactive teamwork process involving sharing ideas and information.…”

Section: Financial Reporting Quality and Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Financial reporting and corporate innovation: a review of the international literature

Huang

Habib

Sun

et al. 2021

Accounting & Finance

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We synthesise the empirical studies on innovation in the accounting, finance, and corporate governance disciplines using Bushman and Smith's corporate transparency framework as our theoretical lens. The review presents competing findings on the association between financial reporting and innovation. Most of the reviewed studies fail to address the critical question of how the financial reporting system affects the interactions among financial development, corporate governance and innovation. We suggest future research, ranging from enriching the theoretical perspectives to incorporating the future of innovation research in the COVID-19 environment.

show abstract

“…Starting with Kachelmeier et al's (2008) seminal study, a research stream has evolved in management accounting which analyzes the effects of performance evaluation and linked rewards on creativity (Brüggen et al, 2017;Chen et al, 2012;Grabner, 2014;Grabner et al, 2020;Grabner and Speckbacher, 2016;Kachelmeier et al, 2008;Kachelmeier et al, 2018;Kachelmeier and Williamson, 2010;Klein and Speckbacher, 2020;Speckbacher, 2017;Speckbacher and Wabnegg, 2020).…”

Section: Research In Management Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does performance evaluation kill creativity? A(re) interpretation of existing literature

Speckbacher

2021

PAR

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose Enabling employee creativity and channeling the creativity of employees toward process and product innovations is a starting point of value creation processes and strategy maps. The dominant view in early creativity research seemed to be that creativity and control are inconsistent. More recently, a number of studies have come to acknowledge that performance evaluations (and rewards linked to such evaluations) may well have positive effects on creativity. This paper aims to review existing results on the effects of performance evaluations on creativity from the perspectives of different research streams. Design/methodology/approach This paper analyzes a stream of research in social psychology which has promoted the notion of an overall negative effect of performance evaluations on creativity. The (reinterpreted) results from this research stream are contrasted with findings from the behaviorist perspective and with research in management accounting. Findings The review of the different research traditions in the analysis of the effects of performance evaluations on creativity indicates that the seemingly contradictory empirical results can be explained by the different settings used and by the different ways how performance evaluations and linked rewards are conceptualized. Originality/value The paper clarifies that, in contrast to common beliefs, performance evaluations and linked incentives do not kill creativity in general. Performance evaluations and incentives can support creativity and innovation if they are transparent about what kind of creativity is desired and how such creativity is measured and rewarded. Moreover, incentives can effectively support behaviors that are known to be important within creativity and innovation processes.

show abstract

Incentivizing innovation: The role of knowledge exchange and distal search behavior

Cited by 21 publications

References 94 publications

Facilitating radical innovation through secret technology‐oriented skunkworks projects: Implications for human resource practices

Facilitating radical innovation through secret technology‐oriented skunkworks projects: Implications for human resource practices

Financial reporting and corporate innovation: a review of the international literature

Does performance evaluation kill creativity? A(re) interpretation of existing literature

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About