Transitioning Towards Employee-Driven Innovation: Lessons From Pioneers in the ICT Sector

Although it could be profitable for innovation outcomes to engage a wide range of human resources in innovation processes, most employees are usually not involved. Generating ideas, testing and developing innovations are normally executed by R&D professionals only. We have investigated how new ways of conceiving the relationship between employees and innovation management processes can increase the odds of organizations in order to achieve successful innovations. In this new framework of engagement the employee can take on the role traditionally played by customers, namely to become the first tester, user and customer of an innovative product/service. This new role on behalf of the employee could create the basis of an innovative business model more suitable for identifying, prototyping, testing and spreading innovation. Through a multiple-case design, the paper relies on the data analysis of a secondary case achieved by innovation leaders in the ICT sector to address the research questions. Finally, implications for business model innovation are discussed.