The human side of innovation management: Bridging the divide between the fields of innovation management and organizational behavior

Abstract

The human side of innovation management focuses on the people that are carrying out innovative endeavors in organizations. It marks the intersection between research on innovation management and organizational behavior. However, these two research areas are not well integrated in the current literature, despite the many promises such an integration holds to address the challenges innovative organizations, as well as their employees, are facing in general and in times of uncertainty and transformation in particular. This editorial provides an overview of the special issue and illustrates the divide between research on innovation management and organizational behavior. Applying bibliometric analysis, we point to the need to bridge research in these two areas. Aimed to act as a catalyst for such bridging efforts, this special issue on the human side of innovation brought together research based on different theoretical perspectives and diverse methodological approaches. In this regard, the analysis of the intellectual structure of the special issue articles, reported in this editorial, provides evidence the effectiveness of the intended catalysis.

Addressing the grand challenges of poverty with data‐driven creative service offerings

“…Our study offers several theoretical contributions. First, research in the domain of innovation management has typically focused on strategic and economic drivers of innovation by focusing on the macrolevel of analysis (i.e., country, industry, or firm level), while research in the field of data‐driven innovation has predominantly explored microlevels and mesolevels (i.e., team or individual level; Cappa et al, 2021; Duan et al, 2020; Johnson et al, 2017; Sultana et al, 2022; Weiss et al, 2022). Hence, integrating these perspectives in the study of BPDA capability for creative service offerings extends innovation management literature in the areas of digital innovation for tackling grand challenges (Appio et al, 2021; Grodal & O'Mahony, 2017; Olsen et al, 2016).…”

What kind of intimacy is meaningful to you? How intimate interactions foster individuals' sensemaking of innovation

“…Managing innovation in organizations is an important but challenging task. As people are considered the driving force behind any type of innovation (Amabile et al, 1996; Zhang & Bartol, 2010), it is essential to enable them to make sense of the innovation in order to contribute (Dosi et al, 2020; Hölzle et al, 2020; Mascareño et al, 2020; Weiss et al, 2022). Any innovation activity requires people to engage in a sensemaking process (Weick et al, 2005), namely, the individual and social process of constructing new meanings to understand the nature of the innovation initiative and develop a novel worldview (Konlechner et al, 2019).…”

The professionalization of innovation management: Evolution and implications

“…In corporate innovation management, the stakes are high, but satisfaction with innovation efforts is low (Castellion & Markham, 2013; Marc et al,, 2015; Nakata & Hwang, 2020). A critical factor for successful innovation is people; the people who use their creativity to imagine and create new products and the people who bring them to life and, ultimately, to market (Weiss et al, 2022). Yet innovation roles are sometimes performed informally and voluntarily (Maier & Brem, 2018) and employees interested in making a career of innovation management often do not have a clear path to follow (O'Connor et al, 2009), unlike marketing, operations management, or human resource (HR) professionals (O'Connor et al, 2018).…”