Innovation Awareness – A Case Study about Psychological Distance to Digital Innovation Platforms

Abstract

Digital innovation platforms involve employees in the organizational innovation ecosystem and allow them to engage in the process of innovation development. Even though the incorporation of employees in the ecosystem and the associated adoption of platforms frequently fails due to differences between management’s objectives and employees’ point of view (i.e. lack of awareness of being responsible for creating innovation), the effect of the implementation of a new platform on employees’ innovation awareness (IA) is mostly overlooked. Thus, we conducted a qualitative study within the innovation ecosystem of an IT organization to explore how psychological distance to a platform’s implementation influences employees’ IA. Using construal-level-theory and interview data from 54 employees we create a research model suggesting that IA can be raised by lowering different forms of distance (temporal, spatial, social, or hypothetical) towards the implementation of a new platform. Hereby, we offer a new perspective on employees’ adoption of voluntary Information Systems (IS) in organizations.