Fake it until you make it? Understanding “innovation theater” in organizations.

Abstract

Research suggests that despite increased support from the top management, organizations are not becoming more innovative as a result of their investment in innovation activities (e.g. accelerators, hackathons, intrapreneurship programs). Existing literature points out that this is caused by the fact that sometimes these efforts are only symbolic actions rather than substantial ones. This is known as “innovation theater”. This phenomenon has been poorly understood in academic research, although previous studies have analyzed similar phenomenons such as “symbolic actions” or “corporate hypocrisy”. It is not clear how this phenomenon emerges in organizations, what are its roots or what consequences it has for organizations. We conduct a deep qualitative study to analyze “how” and “why” this phenomenon occurs. We found different ways in how innovation theater is manifested (e.g. spaces to simulate, external alliances, internal structures) and we suggest this occur because of individual, unit, organizational and environmental drivers. We also identified negative and positive consequences of innovation theater at individual and organizational levels. Taking together these results and building on previous research, we propose a theoretical model which explains how and why innovation theater emerges in organizations through stages of maturity. This paper contributes in different ways to corporate innovation, innovation theater and symbolic actions literature. Mainly for being the first academic research that analyzes the phenomenon.