Employee Ideas Research Articles

Innovation in the frontline: Exploring the relationship between role conflict, ideas for improvement, and employee service performance

Although practitioners and scholars recognize that frontline employees' (FLEs') performance may improve rather than suffer from role conflict, research has yet to show how firms can manage this complex process. This study proposes that employees' ideas for improvement are a crucial mediator in role conflict's positive influence on FLEs' service performance. A conditional process model was tested in two empirical studies with multisource data. Results show that role conflict positively influences service performance through the employee's ideas for improvement. Role conflict also has a direct negative effect on performance. Detailed moderating analyses, using a floodlight approach, show that role conflict's total effect on service performance is positive only when an employee's learning orientation and the manager's level of encouragement for improvement are aligned. In other cases role conflict does not affect, or can even seriously impair FLEs' service performance. This study is the first to demonstrate empirically how, and under what conditions, role conflict can lead to performance enhancement of FLEs. Our findings help marketing managers to leverage role conflict for service innovation and to serve customers better.

Workforce Mobility and Innovation Outcomes

Employee ideas are a valuable starting point to improve operational efficiency. Organizations therefore systematically tap into employee knowledge. In this paper we empirically investigate how move...

Corporate Nudging and Employee Idea Development

Increasingly, organizations rely on the creative capacities of all staff members to bring forth ideas to solve organizational problems and to develop new products or services. However, there is inc...

Dynastic entrepreneurship, entry, and non-compete enforcement

We investigate entry in a dynastic entrepreneurship (overlapping generations) environment created by employee spinoffs. Contracting failures, caused by non-verifiability of profits from new activities in original firms and overall profits from subsequent entrants, may lead respectively to implementation of new employee ideas in spinoffs and constraints on borrowing to buy out non-compete agreements. If borrowing constraints are not binding, enforcement of non-compete agreements unambiguously improves social welfare outcomes, increasing the entry of both original firms and subsequent generations of spinoffs. However, if employees are unable to buy out their non-compete covenants, enforcement of these agreements shuts down socially profitable spinoff firms. Non-enforcement sacrifices entry of original firms that would be marginally profitable in the absence of employee spinoffs, but otherwise clearly improves social welfare outcomes over enforcement in the presence of binding finance constraints.

Pitching Employee Suggestions and Ideas: Managerial Voice Propagation up the Hierarchy

Pitching Employee Suggestions and Ideas: Managerial Voice Propagation up the Hierarchy

The idea-driven organization: unlocking the power in bottom-up ideas

Too many organizations are overlooking, or even suppressing, their single most powerful source of growth and innovation. And it's right under their noses. The frontline employees who interact directly with your customers, make your products, and provide your services have unparalleled insights into where problems exist and what improvements and new offerings would have the most impact. In this follow-up to their bestseller Ideas Are Free, Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder show how to align every part of an organization around generating and implementing employee ideas and offer dozens of examples of what a tremendous competitive advantage this can offer. Their advice will enable leaders to build organizations capable of implementing 20, 50, or even 100 ideas per employee per year. Citing organizations from around the world, they explain what's needed to put together a management team that can lead the type of organization that embraces grassroots ideas and describe the strategies, policies, and practices that enable them. They detail exactly how high-performing idea processes work and how to design one for your organization. There's constant pressure today to do more with less. But cutting wages and benefits and pushing people to work harder with fewer resources can go only so far. Ironically, the best solution resides with the very people who have been bearing the brunt of these measures. With Robinson and Schroeder's advice, you can unleash a constant stream of great ideas that will strengthen every facet of your organization.

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control groups. Employees in treatment teams received rewards if their ideas were approved. Nothing changed for employees in control teams. Our main finding is that rewards substantially increased the quality of ideas submitted. Further, rewards increased participation in the suggestion system, but decreased the number of ideas per participating employee, with zero net effect on the total quantity of ideas. The broader participation base persisted even after the reward was discontinued, suggesting habituation. We find no evidence for motivational crowding out. Our findings suggest that rewards can improve innovation and creativity, and that there may be a tradeoff between the quantity and quality of ideas.

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

We study a field experiment at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements. The company randomly assigned nineteen teams into treatment and control groups. Treatment team employees received rewards if their ideas were approved. Nothing changed for control team employees. Our main finding is that rewards substantially increased the quality of ideas. Rewards increased participation in the suggestion system but decreased ideas per participating employee, with no net effect on the quantity of ideas. Broader participation persisted after the reward was discontinued, suggesting habituation. We find no evidence for motivational crowding out.

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control groups. Employees in treatment teams received rewards if their ideas were approved. Nothing changed for employees in control teams. Our main finding is that rewards substantially increased the quality of ideas submitted. Further, rewards increased participation in the suggestion system, but decreased the number of ideas per participating employee, with zero net effect on the total quantity of ideas. The broader participation base persisted even after the reward was discontinued, suggesting habituation. We find no evidence for motivational crowding out. Our findings suggest that rewards can improve innovation and creativity, and that there may be a tradeoff between the quantity and quality of ideas.

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

A Field Experiment in Motivating Employee Ideas

Rewarding value‐creating ideas in organizations: The power of low‐powered incentives

Ideas from employees are a major source of value creation in firms, yet the merits of rewards for incentivizing the generation of ideas are highly contested. Using a computational model, we show that firms can improve performance by offering low‐powered rewards for the selection and implementation of employee ideas. Low‐powered incentives provide a sufficient stream of good ideas, but few exceptional ones. Higher‐powered incentives, in contrast, do not systematically translate into exceptional ideas either, but generate an excessive number of good ideas. Performance‐based rewards thus appear to be a blunt tool to harness the long tail of innovation. We develop propositions to guide empirical research and discuss their implications for strategy and organizational design. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Finding the gold hidden in your company

AbstractJust because a company is excellent doesn't mean it can't improve. Smith finds that often the source of that improvement can be found in employee ideas. However, common barriers block improvement, such as controversy, information, time, change, silos, and processes. He outlines 12 principles for breaking down those barriers, starting with the process being led by the CEO, engaging the whole organization in change, and that ideas should be considered “based on facts and analysis, not opinions.” An especially crucial principle is building consensus. Without it, “there is no commitment to or investment in bringing an idea to fruition.”

Adopting Employees' Ideas: Moderators of the Idea Generation–Idea Implementation Link

This study examined the possibility that the relationship between the number of ideas an employee generated and the number of those ideas that were adopted by the organization was moderated by the general radicalness of the employee's ideas (i.e., the extent to which the ideas were breakthrough or groundbreaking), the employee's intention to stay, psychological safety, and coworker support. Ninety-three employees generated one or more ideas and raters evaluated the radicalness and implementation of these ideas. Results showed a positive relationship between the number of ideas generated by an employee and the number adopted when the employee's ideas were generally low in radicalness. However, when an employee's ideas were generally high in radicalness, there was a positive relationship between the numbers generated and implemented only when the employee intended to remain a member of the organization or felt psychologically safe at work. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.

Collective entrepreneurship atQualcomm: combining collective and entrepreneurial practices to turn employee ideas into action

Successful new products are essential to every company for survival in the marketplace. Especially discontinuous innovations are attractive because they can contribute to revenue growth by creating new businesses or addressing new market segments. Employees and their entrepreneurial spirit are often not fully utilized in a company's innovation activity. This paper presents a coherent methodology to promote corporate entrepreneurship and transform the creative thinking of many employees into valuable products. The application of this methodology atQualcomm has resulted in more than 1,100 participants submitting almost 730 new business ideas, resulting in over $60 million in funding for several incubation and joint‐venture projects over the past four years, some of which have already produced innovations that the company values at over $300 million. Further, the paper discusses the limitations of this approach, its transferability to other companies as well as implications for future research.

Motivating Organizational Search

Ideas from employees are a major source of value creation in firms, yet the merits of rewards for incentivizing the generation of ideas are highly contested. Using a computational model, we show that firms can improve performance by offering low-powered rewards for the selection and implementation of employee ideas. Low-powered incentives provide a sufficient stream of good ideas, but few exceptional ones. Higher-powered incentives, in contrast, do not systematically translate into exceptional ideas either, but generate an excessive number of good ideas. Performance-based rewards thus appear to be a blunt tool to harness the long tail of innovation. We develop propositions to guide empirical research and discuss their implications for strategy and organizational design.

Innovation Management and an Innovative Ideas System

Innovation Management and an Innovative Ideas System Innovation management is one of the most important tasks for managers in order to make their organizations successful and efficient. A part of this ranges from innovative employee ideas for small everyday improvements up to innovations that bring enormous savings. The survey tries to determine which factors influence the number of innovative ideas and to propose methods for improvements in this area. The basic research method used was a questionnaire, which helped us gather data and the basic method used for data processing was statistical analysis. First, we established that there is a progressive correlation between the number of innovative ideas submitted in the past and the number of anticipated innovative ideas in the future. Second, we established that the following three factors have an impact on innovation and creativity: (1) work and education; (2) working and living conditions; and (3) rewards and payment. Finally, we have established that there is a correlation between satisfaction with the rewards and payment factor and the current life-cycle stage of organization. To summarize, the level of innovation and creativity of employees is influenced by their overall satisfaction in an organization.

Atlantic County Utilities Authority: Building Renewable, Sustainable and Carbon-free Operations

The Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) has two divi-sions, Solid Waste and Wastewater, and holds as its mission to be anenvironmental leader responsible for enhancing the quality of life for itsresidents through the protection of waters and lands from pollution byproviding responsible waste management services.ACUA’s mission is accomplished via the use of new technologies,innovations and employee ideas. These technologies include the use ofsustainable landfill technologies and waste diversion strategies. Waste-water, the most energy intensive of the two divisions, now derives themajority of its energy from on-site renewable sources. ACUA was alsothe first New Jersey organization to join the Chicago Climate Exchange(CCX). CCX is the world’s first and North America’s only legally bind-ing, voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) emission registry, reduction andtrading system.Additionally, ACUA is developing several projects. At Wastewater,two beneficial reuse projects are underway: a Category I in Smithville, NJand a Category IV for Marina Energy in Atlantic City, NJ. Both projectsare anticipated to be operational by 2010 and process a combined 155million gallons of water per year. At the Environmental Park, there aretwo exciting projects anticipated for development in 2009: a compressednatural gas (CNG) station and a landfill solar project.

Atlantic County Utilities Authority: Building Renewable, Sustainable and Carbon-free Operations

ABSTRACT The Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) has two divisions, Solid Waste and Wastewater, and holds as its mission to be an environmental leader responsible for enhancing the quality of life for its residents through the protection of waters and lands from pollution by providing responsible waste management services. ACUA's mission is accomplished via the use of new technologies, innovations and employee ideas. These technologies include the use of sustainable landfill technologies and waste diversion strategies. Wastewater, the most energy intensive of the two divisions, now derives the majority of its energy from on-site renewable sources. ACUA was also the first New Jersey organization to join the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). CCX is the world's first and North America's only legally binding, voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) emission registry, reduction and trading system. Additionally, ACUA is developing several projects. At Wastewater, two beneficial reuse projects are underway: a Category I in Smithville, NJ and a Category IV for Marina Energy in Atlantic City, NJ. Both projects are anticipated to be operational by 2010 and process a combined 155 million gallons of water per year. At the Environmental Park, there are two exciting projects anticipated for development in 2009: a compressed natural gas (CNG) station and a landfill solar project.

Perceptions of learning among Swiss watch managers

PurposeThis paper aims to explore managers' perceptions of learning within a sample of Swiss watch firms.Design/methodology/approachA purposeful (judgmental) stratified sampling method was employed, where in‐depth interviews with 13 marketing managers and owners were carried out over a three‐month period. Meaning units (MUs) were abstracted, which were compared and discussed with the interviewees until a basic agreement of terms could be made.FindingsBy providing tangible evidence of qualitative statements, this research suggests that if decision makers wish to influence business performance, they need to be aware of this comprehensive insight into the potential of learning orientation.Research limitations/implicationsThis research has taken a qualitative approach to establish external reliability. Hence, this could be followed by a large‐scale survey to discover how it can influence employee idea generation and performance. Another limitation is the exclusive focus on senior managers and owners of Swiss watch companies, who have a specific culture, history and experience. Consequently, it would be useful to take a similar approach to other established industries with different culture and environmental characteristics and experience, so that comparisons can be made.Practical implicationsThe paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organisations. The paper has practical implications for managers involved in unifying focus for the efforts and projects of individuals as it shows the importance of an organisation focusing on learning orientation, thereby leading to superior performance.Originality/valueThe paper provides a good example of learning deficiency as one of the main reasons why these companies find it so hard to successfully stay in the market.