In this sub-chapter, I will form a theoretical framework based on the literature discussed above.
I analyze and discuss the linkages between theoretical findings and form a synthesis. I will combine the theoretical findings to form understanding of utilizing employee-driven innovation in strategic planning. The main purpose is to focus on aspects that are related to my research questions. The framework was utilized for the gathering of empirical data, and it will be assessed and developed based on the empirical findings.
The literature of employee-driven innovation widely recognizes the possible benefits it may provide for an organization. Employees are assumed to possess hidden abilities of innovation, which implies that employees could be perceived as innovation resources for organizations.
These resources have capabilities to think creatively and to be able to contribute to innovation and change. Why employee-driven innovation could be highly beneficial is because employees for example possess in-depth and context dependent operational knowledge, there are more employees than managers in organizations and employees may have relevant networks.
Employees could so see things that managers are not able to. The employee-driven innovation to unfold, employee participation is seen important, as employees could participate to innovation directly or indirectly (Tonnessen, 2005). But what may underlie below the employee-driven innovation in an organisation, is its innovation capability. Saunila and Ukko (2012) suggests the innovation capability to be ’potential’ which consists of factors which reflect the potential that organisations have to produce innovations. The direct or indirect employee participation in innovation to happen, these factors could be seen to have an important
role: (1) leadership and decision-making processes, (2) organizational structures and communication, (3) collaboration and external links, (4) organizational culture and climate, (5) individual creativity and know-how. In their later study (Saunila, Pekkola & Ukko, 2014), they also propose that work wellbeing, regeneration and employees’ individual activity are important. Kesting and Ulhøi (2010) proposes that employee-driven innovation is embedded in everyday critical and reflective experiences and work practices, which are triggered in social interaction and exchange. Thus, it could be assumed that for employee-driven innovation to unfold in an organisation, the factors above and interaction are crucial to enable its triggering.
Participation channels are closely related to enabling innovations to unfold and proceed further.
Strategic planning could be defined as formalized, periodic process that provides a structured approach to strategy formulation, implementation and control. Traditionally strategic planning has been seen as organisations’ top-managements responsibility, but recently literature has been more interested in diversity of actors in strategic planning. (Wolf & Floyd, 2017). Distinctive approach from this kind is strategy-as-practise, which focuses in comprehensive in-depth analysis of strategy practises which takes place in organizations. Strategy-as-practise approach considers participation as central issue in strategy work. Thus, for employee-driven innovation to unfold in strategic planning the participation of employees could be seen as central issue.
Research of employee participation in strategy is although lacking, so it is needed to consider alternative approaches how employees may participate.
Important factors for employee-driven innovation are resources and time (Kesting & Ulhøi, 2010). Regular employees do not possess resources such as strategic information or time to generate ideas during their working tasks. Kesting and Ulhøi (2010) also states that employees may not have motivation to generate ideas if not being rewarded, and that employees may possess cognitive biases as they are bounded by their routines. Based on the literature, for employee-driven innovation to unfold in strategic planning, the issue of employee participation in strategic planning and employees resources could be seen central.
Figure 1. Employee innovativeness in strategic planning
The theoretical framework is linking the discussion above (Figure 1). Innovation capability could be seen to form basis for employee-driven innovation by providing innovation capability factors described above. In addition to innovation capability factors, employee-driven innovation to unfold participation and resources could be seen crucial. Participation is also seen crucial in the strategy-as-practise literature, thus linking the employee-driven innovation discussion in to strategy by indicating that participation is the key to utilize employees innovative resources. The link between strategic planning and employee-driven innovation is rather weak based on the theory as it has not been studied. In addition to participation, for employee-driven innovation to unfold in strategic planning it could be assumed that employees should possess adequate resources and that their actions are being managed towards relevant direction as employee-driven innovation literature suggests resources, motivation and time to be crucial. Similarly strategy literature argues that these factors are important in strategy making.
The theoretical framework and the link between strategic planning and employee-driven innovation should be further studied. Previous literature has discussed employee-driven innovation and narrowly employee participation in strategic planning, but the literature lacks
Employee
studies of how employee-driven innovation could actualize in organisations strategic planning and so provide competitive advantage. I am aiming to shed light into that gap by interviewing five middle managers from different companies in engineering industries. The importance of middle managers as strategy practioners has been widely recognized in the recent research (Lavarda, Canet-Giner & Peris-Bonet. 2010; Floyd & Woolridge, 2000). Lavarda et al. (2010) suggests that middle managers develop a very important role in the integrative strategy process, acting as an agent between top and bottom levels, and so intercede and change organisation directions. Floyd and Woolridge (2000) propose that activities of middle managers and their attention to emerging trends largely determine how organisations renewal occurs. As the middle managers act as agents between bottom and up levels, it could be assumed that they possess views of strategy formulation. Also, their work usually is rather operational and they are working with employees, so they may be able to recognise employees innovativeness and possibilites and restrictions for the utilization of it. I am only interested in strategic planning, not in all the phases what strategy work may include. Engineering industries are traditionally considered as traditional and rather hierarchical but on the verge of changes in their centralized decision-making, so I am anticipating that focusing on those industries would provide fruitful findings.
To conclude, I am focusing on how employee-driven innovation could unfold in strategic planning, how employee-driven innovation could be enabled and how employees could participate in strategic planning. The synthesis above provides understanding of how employee-driven innovation could unfold in strategic planning, but also reveals gaps which are needed to study in attempt to gain more comprehensive view. Innovation capability could be seen important in providing basis for employee-driven innovation, as the the innovation capability factors are clearly related to employees innovativeness and to possibilities of its emergence.
Participation could be seen as the main triggering factor of the innovation ’potential’, which may be conducted directly or indirectly. Literature recognizes barriers for employee-driven innovation, which should be tackled to enable the employee-driven innovation to unfold.
Similarly as the literature of employee-driven innovation, literature of strategy recognizes participation as an crucial factor. The literature although lacks knowledge how employees may participate in strategy and therefore enable their innovativeness in to use. I aim to provide knowledge in to that gap by interviewing middle-managers from different sized engineering companies. In the final chapter, I will introduce the synthesis of the theoretical framework and empirical knowledge.
3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research approach
Case study approach is widely used in business research, as it has the ability to present complex and hard-to grasp issues in accessible, vivid, personal and down-to-earth format. In case study, a central feature is the construction of ’the case’ or several ’cases’, as its purpose is to understand the case, solve the case and investigate the case in relation to its contexts. (Eriksson
& Kovalainen, 2008). Also, Tellis (1997) presents that common to various definitions of case study research is the emphasis on the production of detailed and holistic knowledge, which is based on the analysis of multiple empirical sources rich in context. Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008) reminds that business researcher makes the case ‘a case’ by carrying out the research:
they transform the object of study into an object of interpretation and understanding and by doing this also define the boundaries of the case.
In this thesis, studying multiple cases and developing new theoretical constructs are seen interesting and central in answering the research questions. The topic is new, so I would argue that from different cases more interesting and wider range of findings could be made to form introductory underestanding of it. Therefore, common patterns, mechanisms and properties are being focused. Thus, the type of this study is extensive case study, as Eriksson & Kovalainen (2008) describe extensive case study to aim at elaboration, testing or generation of generalizable theoretical constructs by comparing (replicating) a number of cases. The different cases will be treated as instruments in exploring the phenomena and developing theoretical propositions. The main focus in this study is finding similarities in cases, but interesting or notable differences are also being covered.
3.2 Cases
I selected five cases in order to gain adequate level of data from different contexts. When selecting the companies, their industry, organization structure and interviewees position had to be taken into consideration. In this study, the focus is in engineering industry companies and middle managers perspectives, so narrowing the criteria to the following was required:
1. Engineering company operating in Finland 2. Interviewee works in middle manager position
3. The companies should represent different-sized organisations
The companies in this study represent large, medium and small sized organizations. Two of the companies could be defined as large, one as medium and two as small sized. Studying different sized companies provide more variety of views, but still retain similarities to some extent as they are operating in similar kind of industries and with similar organizational structures.
The companies and interviewees will be introduced in the following sub-chapters. The cases are anonymous to protect the companies’ and interviewees’ vulnerable information.
3.2.1 Case A
Company A is a large industrial company providing technical services for power and communication networks. They deliver comprehensive range of solutions, such as project deliveries, maintenance and upgrade services. In Finland, its turnover is 150-300 million euros.
The interviewee from Company A is working as a manager with responsibilites related to large customer projects. Main duties are managing of quotation procedures, initiating projects and communication with customers. The interviewee reports directly to business line director.
3.2.2 Case B
Company B is a large global industrial company operating mainly in robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment and automation. They have several business lines in these areas, but in this case the business line is industrial automation and more specifically marine business line. In 2018, its turnover globally was about 28 billion dollars. In Finland, their turnover was about 2 billion euros.
The interviewee from Company B is working in the marine industry under industrial automation division. His main responsibility is the procurement of certain product category globally
working as a manager. He also belongs to supply chain management team. The interviewee reports directly to director of procurement.
3.2.3 Case C
Company C is a middle sized industrial company operating in the process piping industry. It provides manufacturing and maintenance services for the needs of its customers. The company mainly operates in Finland. The turnover of the company was about 30 million euros in 2018, and they had about 150 employees. The company is part of group, which total turnover in 2019 was about 60 million euros.
The interviewee from Company C is responsible of managing projects in customers’ premises and depending of the project he has 20-100 subordinates. The interviewee has comprehensive experience from operational positions in engineering industries, especially from the process piping industry.
3.2.4 Case D
Company D is a small sized engineering and consultancy company operating in the building services industry. The main business of the company is to provide electrical planning and supervision, IT-system design and consultancy services. Their customers are mainly in Finland.
In 2018, their turnover was about 1 millon euros and they had 15 employees.
The interviewee from Company D is responsible of managing projects, and he has responsibilities in quality related issues and in IT-system designing. He is also part of the company management team. The interviewee has plenty of responsibility in operational but also in managerial tasks.
3.2.5 Case E
Company E is a small sized industrial company operating in the logistics industry. Its main business is to design and manufacture superstructures for bulk cargo transport. Their customers are mainly from Finland. In 2018 their turnover was about 8 million euros and they had 40 employees.
The main responsibility of the interviewee from Company E is to ensure that the company meets its required level of quality in its operations. He works as manager between different departments of the company. He also has responsibilites in software development and warehouse management. The interviewee reports to the management of the company.
3.3 Data collection
I gathered the data by using semi-structured interviews, because it allows to respond more suitably to both ’what’ and ’how’ research questions. The interviews with the interviewees were guided so that the discussion covered the most important topics and issues of the study, but also provided flexibility for unexpected discussions and findings. Also, using semi-structured interviews the data was compareable between different cases, as the material gathered was somewhat systematic, comprehensive and similar to some extent. The tone of interviews was fairly conversational and informal. (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008).
Silverman (2003) provides a typology of interview studies, which are positivist, emotionalist and constructionalist. In this study, the research questions were more or less positivist and emotionalist. More positivistic questions attempted to find ’facts’, which in the case of my research were suitable for example in finding practical ways of participating employees in strategic planning. Emotionalist questions seek to focus in interviewee’s experiences, coming up with findings of their perceptions, conceptions and viewpoints.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed into written format. Each interview lasted 40-60 minutes, and four of those were conducted using Skype and one face to face. Interviewing language was Finnish.
3.4 Data analysis
The data gathered from interviews was analyzed using qualitative content analysis and rhetorical discourse analysis. Eriksson and Kovalainen (2015) presents that qualitative content analysis focuses on the content emphasising in ’what is said’ and ’what is done’ in the data.
They also state that in addition to the focus on the content, qualitative content analysis is interested in the contextual meaning of the data with an emphasis on ’how something is said and done’ and ’why in this particular way’. One purpose of qualitative content analysis is also to produce holistic and factual description, which provides the ’big picture’ about the phenomenom under study. Another purpose is to produce a detailed, rich and nuanced interpretation of the contextual meanings of the data. This type of analysis suits the purposes of this study, as focusing on the content of the interviews provides views how employee-driven innovation is unfolding in the case organisation, how strategic planning is being made and how employee-driven innovation is emerging in the organisations strategic planning. Furthermore, analysing the data from the perspective of how something is said and done provides deeper understanding of how employee-driven innovation in strategic planning is being seen and understood by the middle managers and how it may be unfolding behind their concsious understanding of the topic.
The analysis followed the categorization principles suggested by Eriksson and Kovalainen (2015). The analysis started by going through the data several times to get an overall understanding of it. When adequate level of understanding was reached, I started selecting coding units. Sentences were chosen as units of analysis, as they are small, easily definable and easy to classify. To gain more variety of perspectives, also actors and actions were being used as coding units. The next step was to develop a coding scheme including all coding categories, which I derived from theory and data. Then I started the actual coding and generated new categories and revised the original ones. Once the data was categorized into codes, I started analysing the categories and searched for patterns and relationships between them. Closely related categories were merged in order to provide a description of the bigger picture. After the categorization was completed, I used interpretation in attempt to answer the main questions of the research.
In addition to qualitative content analysis, I examined discourses of how middle managers speak about employee-driven innovation and employee participation in strategy in order to gain understanding of how actors, their positions, capabilities and roles are created through their use of language. The main focus is in participation discourse. In this study, I define discourse as the way an issue or a topic is spoken of, and that a discourse produces ’truth’ about objects that they speak of (Carabine, 2001). As an method of analysis, discourse analysis serves more as an umbrella term including several different analysis styles. These different styles share two assumptions in common: (1) that language would not neutrally reflect or describe the world, and (2) a belief in the importance of discourses in constructing our social world. (Gill, 2000).
Discourse analysis is interested in examining how actors make things understandable by their use of language. The main focus of interest is what kind of definitions are being used in different settings and what kind of realities are being created. (Jokinen, Juhila & Suoninen, 2016). I am specifically interested in the use of language of how middle managers asserts and argues their views of employee employee-driven innovation and participation in strategy. Therefore the style of analysis could be defined as rhetorical discourse analysis, which I used to gain deeper understanding of how employee-driven innovation and participation in strategy is seen and how employee-driven innovation could unfold in the organisations strategic planning.
3.5 Ethical considerations
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 EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS