I have considered ethical issues related to this study and followed good scientific practise throughout the thesis. Relevant ethical considerations in this empirical study are participants anonymity, privacy and confedentiality (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). I have been careful in protecting interviewees vulnerable information and ensuring the anonymity, as interviewees names or identities itself are not considered important in studying the topic of the study. The data gathered is stored safely, and I am the only person to see the data. Before the interviews, I introduced the purpose of this study, asked for permission to record the interview and explained how the data is being gathered and how it is being handled. I also asked if the interviewee wanted to see the description of its case before publishing this thesis. The language used in the interviews was Finnish, which then had to be translated in English for the analysis and presentation of the data. I was careful and exact in translating the data, so that the meanings remained as similar as possible.
4 EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 4.1 Strategy and innovation
The concepts of strategy and innovation are central in this study. Therefore, it was needed to examine how the middle managers understood those concepts, as due to their complexity they might be considered in different ways. Understanding how the interviewee understod the concept was also seen important for the proceeding of the interview, so that the interview could proceed depending of the different understandings of the concepts.
Strategy
In general, the interviewees defined strategy similarly. Strategy was seen as a plan, which purpose is to help the company to reach its goals. The purpose of the strategy was also seen as a guiding force towards the company vision and as large frames to integrate the actions of different departments. In all of the interviews, the interviewee described that forming strategy is the responsibility of the company’s management and that it is sort of a plan, thus supporting traditional views of strategic management. Example of definition of strategy (Case A, large company):
”Strategy is… When we go above my level to the CEO… responsibility of that management level to guide the company, set frames what the departments should be doing, what are the core businesses and in what we want to be focusing on”
Other definition (Case E, small company):
”Strategy in general is a plan to reach some goal. And if we are discussing about business strategy, in many cases strategy includes how we make business, how we get employees, how we purchase, how we keep good customers and what are our values”
When considering the participation discourse, the middle managers spoke about strategy as something shared, but did not specify who ’we’ are. Thus, strategy is seen to be participative, but who are participating in strategy is not evident. Participants in strategy formulation are seen to be members of the company management, which refers to traditional views of strategy as something shared and conducted by a small group of participants.
What was interesting to notice was that Case D and E (small companies) were the only ones to mention values to be part of strategy when first started discussing about it. Also, in few of the cases the interviewee mentioned implementation of the strategy, and that in addition to formulating strategy it is as well responsibility of the management team.
Innovation
When discussing about innovation, what was similar in all of the cases was that the interviewees described innovation as development work. They viewed innovation to be a process, rather than the outcome of the process. These findings support the view of innovation as a process (e.g Baregheh et al., 2009) They all also described that the purpose of innovation is to improve the organisations competitiveness. Example of definition of innovation (Case B, large company):
”Well, innovation means developing something… Innovation may be developing some product, service, software or anything. Basically developing of new product product model, process or development of anything… If you work in some large company, then innovation may mean that we improve some existing processes”
Other example (Case D, small company):
”Innovation means that some old process or procedure is being developed or that something totally new is being developed what has not existed before”
There were not any notable differences in interviewees understanding of the concept of innovation. Innovation was seen to be more or less development of something already existing (e.g processes, products and services) or developing something new inside the company, and so the ’innovators’ or ’developers’ were seen to be working inside the company. When the discussions went further, similarly the interviewees emphasized the development coming from inside the organisation. The interviewees therefore did not mention innovation to be distributed outside the organisation, which leads to view of innovation as ’intrinsic’ when compared to the concept of open innovation. (e.g Chesbrough 2003). Example (Case B, large company):
”We have for example own R&D department, which purpose is to develop new products to markets and develop existing products further… If somebody in the
organisation begins to develop or gets some new idea, we will almost always start to investigate the potential”
When considering the participation discourse, the interviewees spoke about innovation as something shared. The interviewees did not specify who the participants in innovation are, but spoke about ’we’ in general, thus indicating that everyone in the organisation may participate in innovation. This differs with the speaking of strategy, where small group of participants is seen to formulate strategies. Therefore the middle managers saw that employees may have innovative capabilites, as they may participate in the innovations of the company.
For the purposes of this study, it was fruitful basis to begin the discussions of employee-driven innovation, as the interviewees understood the innovation to emerge more from the organisation itself.
4.2 Employee-driven innovation
4.2.1 Emergence of employee-driven innovation
In all of the cases, as a concept employee-driven innovation was understood as innovation, which raises from the needs of the employees of the company. Mainly the ideas from employees were considered to be to develop the operative and daily work of the employees themselves.
Example (Case C, medium-sized company):
”The ideas from employees mainly relates to performing their own work… And yes, they are constantly attempting to figure out how to do the work phase even faster and more efficiently”
The interviewees were all considering that employee-driven innovation do emerge in their organisation, and they saw that it is crucial to utilize employees’ ideas. In most of the cases, employee-driven innovation was actually seen as the main source of innovation, in addition to specific R&D departments or similar. Example (Case A, large company):
”Employee-driven innovation is kind of the arrowhead how we drive innovations… But of course we have specific groups who develop for example agile solutions and other best practises”
In both of the large company cases it was mentioned that if an employee is having some useful idea, he might attempt the development process of that idea with specific department responsible of development. Thus, employee-driven innovation could also be seen to unfold in participation with specific development departments Example (Case B, large company):
”We have this specific R&D department, which develops products and processes.
If an employee is having an good idea, he may be participating in the development of that idea with the specific department from beginning to end of that process”
What was similar in all of the cases, was that the employee-driven innovation emerges in the
’field’. Employees are experts in their daily work and they are having ideas in constant basis, which are sometimes utilizable but sometimes inefficient. The ideas most of the time relates to operational work, as it is considered as their job. The main benefits of employee-driven innovation were seen as the development of operative work, processes and products. The interviewees expressed that employees may see something the management does not, as the management is focusing on different aspects. In few of the interviews the engagement of employees was being discussed in relation to employee-driven innovation. Similar in those discussions was the view that if employees ideas are being listened to and sometimes utilized, it raises the level of their engagement and therefore enhances their productivity. Example (Case C, medium company):
”When employees are motivated the best results will come… Work wellbeing and appreciation towards the employees work are crucial… It is therefore important to listen what employees have to say”
The participation discourse here was similar than when discussing of innovation in general.
Innovation is shared and employees from anywhere of the company may be participating.
Participation of employees was spoken of in really positive manner, thus indicating the importance of employee-driven innovation. Similarly as discussing of innovation, the middle managers saw that employees may have innovative capabilites and participate in the innovations of the company. The further discussions of employee-driven innovation here shows that it is actually truly important for the companies.
It could be concluded that innovation is seen truly important in the case companies, and that employees are seen as important participants in the organisation for the emergence of
innovations. Benefits of employee-driven innovation comes from the more effective ways of doing work and ideation of new products or services. In addition, listening to employees have positive effects in the engagement of employees and therefore increase their level of innovativeness and wellbeing at work.
4.2.2 Enabling employee-driven innovation
Employee-driven innovation was seen important in all of the cases and its benefits were evident, but how the employee-driven innovation is being enabled in companies varied to some extent.
It is evident that due to different sizes of the case companies, there are different practicalities in enabling employee-driven innovation. In the large companies there are specific ’innovation processes’, which purpose is to enable employee-driven innovation by intentionally encouraging employees to innovate and by making it convenient to express their ideas and help them to proceed with the idea. Example (Case A, large company):
”We have this so called ’best practices’, which is kind of innovation pipeline. We reward the inventors of new best practices and in particular the inventors of new innovations, which helps larger group of people… In this way we may find innovative employees who dare to say if something is not right”
In the large and medium companies there are also inner communication channels (such as intranet) which are being used to enable employee-driven innovation. Also circulation of positions was being mentioned in couple of the cases.
In all of the cases active communication was seen crucial in enabling employee-driven innovation. For example, all the companies have occasional meetings between managers and employees, where employees have possibilites to express their thoughts and ideas. In all of the cases the first contact if an employee had an idea in daily work usually is its closest manager, but in the small companies the employees also express their ideas directly to the management level. Active communication and initiativeness from employees side is also seen important, and therefore all the companies were attempting to courage their employees to communicate.
Example (Case A, large company):
”We encourage people to communicate by for example rewarding them for expressing ideas”
Other example (Case B, large company):
”If you don’t communicate what you have done or what you think, nothing can proceed… If you communicate actively, others could also proceed with the idea if you don’t want to. It is the organisation we are working for”
Other common enabling aspect that rose from the discussions was the education provided by the company for the employees. The interviewees saw that if employees are well educated, innovations may emerge more often. When discussing about education, the importance of implicit knowledge was being recognized. In few of the cases the interviewee expressed that one purpose of the education is to transfer implicit knowledge from more experienced employees to others not so experienced. Implicit knowledge was seen important in enabling of innovativeness of employees, as the employee may not have to learn years how to do his work efficiently and therefore waste resources for innovative behaviour. In one of the small companies, this implicit knowledge was seen crucial as it transfers ’old’ knowledge to ’new’
context so the innovations may emerge. Practical ways of transfering implicit knowledge were mentioned to be by working in pairs, education days and valuing long-term employments.
The participation discourse when discussing about enabling employee-driven innovation shows, that communality in the organisation is considered to be important in enabling innovations to emerge and proceed. The middle managers spoke how ’we’ in this together participate in innovation, and that no individual could generate innovation without the help of others. They also spoke how encouraging people to innovate is important and that motives of innovation should not lie in personal needs, which also supports the view of the importance of communality in enabling employee-driven innovation.
It could be concluded that there are variations how employee-driven innovation is being enabled. In large companies specific innovation processes are being used, but the enabling principles seems to be similar in all of the cases. Active communication is seen crucial, so companies are making communication channels fluent and attempting to encourage employees to communicate actively. Other common important enabling factor is education, which purpose is to increase employees innovative resources and transfer employees’ implicit knowledge. The
main factor for enabling employee-driven innovation could be stated to be management. All of those enabling factors are made possible by management, and so it determines how effectively the enabling factors are being used. It is managements responsibility to decide what enabling factors are being used and how.
4.2.3 Barriers to employee-driven innovation
The case companies acknowledge the importance and benefits of employee-driven innovation.
Therefore they are intentionally attempting to enable its emerging, but the interviewees recognize that there are different barriers for employee-driven innovation to emerge. The most significant barrier in most of the cases was considered to be resources. The interviewees saw that although employees may have useful ideas, those ideas may be difficult to execute as there are no resources available. The resources in these cases were mentioned to be mostly time and money. Example (Case A, large company):
”There are lots of good ideas, but when we start to think how much the idea will cost, it may be the biggest barrier… And in some cases it could be that there are no resources and because that the idea could not proceed… In a way all the barriers are related to resources, whether its human resoruces or monetary”
Other example (Case D, small company):
”Well, one is definately time, as even a good idea may be forgotten if there is a hurry. That is maybe the worst… Also there are the financial reasons, that there is no point to use resources”
Other barrier in most of the cases was considered to be the feasability of the employees ideas.
Some ideas are considered not to be reasonable to execute and they may provide only little value. Example (Case D, small company):
”In some cases we may state that the idea is not for us for example because of strategical reasons. Then the management may decide that it is not our thing”
Discourse analysis shows how the middle managers maintain the view of management as responsible of the decision-making. They speak how employees may have innovative ideas, but
managers decide whether the idea is being conducted. The interviewees speaking reveals that employees are not expected to possess information if certain innovative ideas are even possible to conduct. Thus, it is seen that employees may participate in innovation, but management is the main responsible.
In couple of the cases lack of communication was mentioned to be seen as a great barrier. In enabling employee-driven innovation communication was seen crucial, so it seems logical that if there is no efficient communication, it may have negative impacts in the emerging of employee-driven innovation. To conclude, the interviewees saw that the most significant barriers relate to resources, feasability of ideas and communication.
4.3 Participation in strategic planning 4.3.1 Strategic planning
When first discussing about strategic planning, all of the interviewees saw that strategic planning is the main responsibility of the management of the company. Management formulates strategies which are then implemented in the organisation. In the large and medium sized companies, the top level forms the more abstract strategies, and lower levels interpret those strategies and adjust it depending how they see that the strategy is reasonable to execute.
Example (Case B, large company):
”Globally the top management draws very wide outlines. Then, the next layer of management inteprets those outlines, narrows and adjusts how they see the best.
After that, the next layer again interprets, narrows and adjusts”
In the small companies there were not such complexity, as the level of hierarchy is low. The interpretation was seen to be needed from all the members of the organisation. Example (Case E, small company):
”It is our management that decides what our strategy is… Every member of our organisation is responsible for interpreting that strategy and act as they see the best to implement that strategy”
In every interview, it was considered important that employees have an adequate level of understanding of the company’s strategy. In that way it was seen more probable that all parts of the organisation are moving in the same direction. Example (Case E, small company):
”It is important, because it makes clear how to operate and helps to integrate the actions of different parts and prevent from doing what is not reasonable for us”
Discourse related to strategic planning shows how the middle managers maintain the view of management as strategy experts. The management formulates strategies, but everyone in the organization has the responsibility to follow the strategies based on their understanding.
Employees are seen as implementors of strategy, not formulators. Responsibility is although given to employees to interpret the strategies and act as they see the best.
The views of strategic planning were at first rather traditional. The participants in strategic planning were seen to be top managers and that it is the responsibility of the rest of the organisation to implement those strategies. When discussed about strategic planning, in many of the cases it was mentioned that there are challenges in communicating the strategy, and that it would be important that the employees would have an overall understanding of the strategy.
4.3.2 Employee innovativeness in strategic planning
When discussing about issues related to utilization of employees’ innovativeness in strategic
When discussing about issues related to utilization of employees’ innovativeness in strategic