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C

HALLENGING

I

NNOVATIVENESS OF

C

ULTURE

THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE EFFECITVENESS OF IDEA CHALLENGES TO INCREASE INNOVATIVENESS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Master thesis, MscBA, specialisation Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

June 18, 2012 F.W. Bakker, BSc Student number: 1398741 Hoofdweg 666 1055AB Amsterdam E-mail: fwbakker@gmail.com

Supervisor / University of Groningen Drs. H.P. Van Peet

Second assessor / University of Groningen Dr. J. Rupert

Supervisors / field of study J.A. Huisman, MSc

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ABSTRACT

This research paper describes a study aimed at determining the effectiveness of an intervention, named ‘Idea Challenge’1, to increase innovativeness of an organisation’s culture. The intervention is studied through participative observation and documentation and thereafter theoretically assessed using a framework that prescribes steps for effective culture change. It was found that the Idea Challenge met the characteristics of effective culture change efforts only to limited extent.

A retrospective multi-case study was performed to empirically study the intervention’s effectiveness. A set of innovation related values and behaviours were identified from theory and quantitative-qualitative interviews were held with Idea Challenge participants at two organisations in order to determine effects on:

1) perceived organisational values;

2) innovative behaviour performed during Idea Challenge participation; and 3) innovative behaviour performed in participants’ normal day-to-day work.

It was found that the intervention was ineffective at changing organisational values and increasing innovative behaviour in participants’ normal day-to-day work. The Idea Challenge did prove to be an effective drive for innovative behaviour during participation in the intervention. This leads to the suggestion that the intervention may be effective at changing organisational culture over a longer period of time by embedding the practice into the organisation and by employing it as a mechanism for constant reflection, learning and reinvention of the organisation. Additional recommendations for potentially increasing the effectiveness of Idea Challenges at creating a more innovative organisational culture are given.

Keywords: Idea Challenge, Organisational Culture, Organisational Change, Innovation, Innovativeness.

1 The Idea Challenge is a method for idea generation, idea development and selection supplied to large

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PREFACE

The master thesis lying in front of you marks the end of my study Change Management at the University of Groningen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen).

It is also the end of a period that has at times been challenging to me personally. I have previously tried to balance a demanding internship at a bank in troublesome times with starting my first solo research project and with my personal health. Unfortunately I did not succeed in this balancing act and was not able to get the thesis off on a good start. The second and final project proved to be more successful. I was warmly welcomed at Innovation Factory where I was given an internship and an interesting thesis assignment.

The process of writing this thesis has also been a process of ups and downs. The previous thesis project influenced my motivation at times and the health problems that sometimes re-emerged affected my progress. Though looking back it was less of a challenge, amongst others due to the positive influence of the working environment during my internship. At the end of 2011 I was asked for a fun and rewarding job at Innovation Factory, making all years at university worthwhile.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ... 2   Preface ... 3   Table of Contents ... 4   1.   Introduction ... 6   2.   Theoretical Framework ... 10   2.1   Innovation ... 10  

2.1.1   Innovation and innovations ... 10  

2.1.2   The innovation process ... 12  

2.1.3   Virtual communities ... 14  

2.2   Organisational culture and change ... 15  

2.2.1   Organisational culture ... 15  

2.2.2   Changing culture ... 18  

2.2.3   The Idea Challenge as a cultural change intervention ... 21  

2.3   Innovative Cultures ... 25  

2.3.1   Elements of innovative cultures ... 25  

2.4   Conceptual model ... 28  

3.   Research Method ... 30  

3.1   Data gathering ... 30  

3.1.1   Retrospective multi-case study ... 30  

3.1.2   Quantitative-qualitative interviews ... 31  

3.1.3   Interviewee selection ... 33  

3.2   Data analysis ... 35  

3.2.1   Attribution of the effect strength ... 36  

3.2.2   Possible conflicting results ... 36  

4.   Results ... 37  

4.1   Case 1: Heineken INEX Idea Contest ... 37  

4.1.1   Impact on experienced organisational values ... 37  

4.1.2   Impact on innovative behaviour during and within the scope of participation ... 38  

4.1.3   Impact on innovative behaviour in normal work ... 40  

4.2   Case 2: PostNL Leonardo ... 41  

4.2.1   Impact on experienced organisational values ... 42  

4.2.2   Impact on innovative behaviour during and within the scope of participation ... 43  

4.2.3   Impact on innovative behaviour in normal work ... 45  

4.3   Cross-case analysis ... 46  

4.4   Overview of results empirical study ... 47  

5.   Conclusions and Recommendations ... 49  

5.1   Conclusions ... 49  

5.1.1   Theoretical assessment ... 49  

5.1.2   Innovative values ... 50  

5.1.3   Innovative behaviour within the scope of the intervention ... 51  

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5.1.5   Overall conclusion and discussion ... 53  

5.2   Recommendations ... 54  

5.3   Reflection and suggestions for further research ... 57  

Literature references ... 59  

Appendix 1: Background information on Innovation Factory ... 63  

Appendix 2: Description of Idea Challenge intervention ... 64  

Appendix 3: Theoretical analysis of Idea Challenge Intervention effectiveness ... 69  

Appendix 4: Value and behaviour items ... 71  

Appendix 5: Description of Idea Challenge Cases ... 72  

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1. INTRODUCTION

Innovation is recognised as an important if not the main driver for companies to prosper, grow and sustain a high profitability (Drucker, 1988; Dougherty & Hardy, 1996; Christensen, 1997). The ability to continuously renew and innovate is critical for sustaining a competitive advantage and even for survival of organisations. In the last decades, new products, processes and services have appeared at an ever-increasing rate (Burnes, 2004), putting pressure on traditional, large and mature organisations. It is especially these organisations that face difficulties in balancing between benefits from their existing mainstream businesses and the creation of new activities that could be the mainstream business of the future (Dougherty & Hardy, 1996; Elonen, Blomqvist, & Puumalainen, 2008; Burnes, 2004). The internal innovation process often fails to create value, because operational productivity is intolerant for the mind-set and practices needed for innovativeness, particularly for the so-called “fuzzy front-end” (Buckler, 1997). Successful innovation requires management of tensions between flexibility and control. Flexibility is needed to allow for the explorative part of innovation, which requires creativity, empowerment and change. On the other hand, control is needed to manage innovation. Control provides discipline in, and focus on innovation initiatives and helps to achieve goals and meet budgets (Dougherty, 1996).

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The intervention is targeted at structuring the front-end of the innovation process with the objective to get more and higher quality ideas for innovations. The best ideas are selected for further development, thereby feeding the remaining innovation process with more ideas that have a higher chance of getting implemented successfully. The front-end of an innovation process can be fuzzy because it precedes the start-up of manageable development projects and remains vague and indistinct (Boeddrich, 2004). A process cannot be effective without sufficient throughput and practice has shown Idea Challenges are indeed very successful in providing this throughput: they deliver more and better ideas for potential innovations to deal with current organisational challenges. What is unclear however; is whether Idea Challenges exclusively lead to the planned objective of more and higher quality ideas for innovations. Involved consultants and Idea Challenge programme managers in client organisations report they suspect Idea Challenges may also affect the organisation’s culture: after one or more idea challenges, organisational values and behaviour of organisation members could be characterised as being ‘more innovative’. If this were true, it would imply Idea Challenges are useable as a tool to deliberately increase innovativeness of culture. Since changing an organisation’s culture is principally not one of the objectives of the Idea Challenge, this would be an unplanned outcome. If an effect exists, it would bode for the possibility for Innovation Factory and it’s clients to include changes to cultural variables into the objectives of Idea Challenges.

It can be argued that the impact on culture at the organisational level must be minimal, since the central activities of this intervention typically span 4-8 weeks per Idea Challenge. This is a short time-span compared to the time a successful culture change process is estimated to take by scholars: 6 to 15 years (Uttel, in: Cummings & Worley 2008, p.522). Also, generally only a limited percentage (less than 5%) of the total number of employees participates in the Idea Challenges. On the other hand, when looking at the guidelines for changing organisational culture (Cummings & Worley, 2008) several guidelines appear to be covered in the activities that together comprise an Idea Challenge and its characteristics. Employees that do participate in Idea Challenges may thus show an increase in innovative behaviour and experience an increased organisational emphasis on innovative values. If this is indeed the case, another question arises: does this change sustain over the long run or does the Idea Challenge only bring about short term change to culture characteristics?

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behaviour with respect to time for experimentation, perceived safety, collaboration and democratic communication. Organisational values are shared conceptions of what ought to be in organisations. They tell members what is important and what deserves their attention. Behaviour – in this case innovative behaviour – is guided by these values (Cummings & Worley, 2008). Given the fact that only a limited share of the total number of employees participates and the intervention is short lasting by its nature, significant effects on experienced values and behaviour are not expected at the organisation level or with non-participants. This paper is therefore limited to researching effects experienced by Idea Challenge participants.

As the intervention itself expects change recipients to engage in innovative behaviour, we need to account for the possibility that a change to innovative behaviour could be limited to the scope and duration of the intervention. This means it is possible that outside the scope of the intervention the cultural variables remain as-is. For this reason a distinction is made between innovative behaviour within the scope of the intervention on the one hand, and on the other hand innovative behaviour outside the scope of the intervention, which is the employees’ day-to-day operation or ‘normal work’.

For Innovation Factory’s consultants and its client organisations, a better understanding about the effects the Idea Challenge intervention may have on innovativeness of culture can be of value. Innovation Factory can use it as a sales argument for culture improvement and both the consultant and her clients can use the information in order to assess whether or not additional tools need to be employed if the goals of innovative organisational change include culture change. The main research question is as follows:

Can the Idea Challenge be used as a tool to increase innovativeness of an organisation’s culture?

The following sub questions are answered in order to answer the main research question:

1. Does the Idea Challenge meet the characteristics of an effective cultural change intervention?

2. How does the Idea Challenge intervention affect innovative values?

3. How does the Idea Challenge intervention affect innovative behaviour performed within the scope of the intervention?

4. How does the Idea Challenge intervention affect innovative behaviour performed in the participants’ normal work?

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point of view. For sub questions two, three and four, an empirical multi case study is performed. In this study, Idea Challenge participants from two organisations that have started to perform one or more Idea Challenges in the past year have been interviewed and their experiences have been interpreted and analysed.

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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In this chapter the theoretical framework is set out. The context of the Idea Challenge method is explained by introducing the field of innovation, including the innovation process and the role virtual communities play in organisations and Idea Challenges. The next section focuses on organisational culture and changing organisational culture. It covers frameworks containing prescriptions for effective culture change and in order to answer the first sub research question the Idea Challenge is assessed in the light of one of these frameworks. Section three identifies elements of innovative cultures that will be used as a basis for the conceptual model, which is explained and depicted in the last section.

2.1 Innovation

This section sketches the theoretical context of the Idea Challenge intervention. The field of innovation is introduced first, followed by an explanation where Idea Challenges are meant to demonstrate value in the innovation process. Furthermore this section elaborates on virtual communities which form an important element in Idea Challenges.

2.1.1 Innovation and innovations

The word ‘innovation’ originally stems from the Latin word innovare, which means ‘to renew or change’. The term is used ambiguously and has been given unique spins in the fields of engineering, marketing, management and economics. Even within these fields scientists have used various definitions (Garcia & Calantone, 2002). Although stated long ago, the notion of Drucker (1985) that authors generally refer to either the outcome of an innovative process or to the innovative process itself still holds. The great variety of definitions used include the following:

“An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption” (Rogers, 1995, p. 11)

“Innovation is the successful exploitation of ideas” (DTI, 2004, p. 5)

“The first commercial application or production of a new process or product”

(Freeman & Soete, 1997)

“Innovation is a culture – almost a spiritual force – that exists in a company and drives value creation” (Buckler, 1997)

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as a process on one hand and an innovation – or innovations – on the other hand. Baregheh et

al. (2009) performed an extensive literature review on definitions in various disciplines and

proposed the following integrative definition of the organisational innovation process:

“[The] innovation [process] is the multi-stage process whereby organisations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace.”

This definition poses ideas as the starting point of the process and therefore particularly suits the context of this paper. A useful definition for the outcome of the innovation process is provided by Luecke & Katz (2003, p. 3):

"[An] innovation is the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services."

A clear distinction between the ‘innovation process’ and ‘innovation(s) as the outcome of the innovation process’ will be made in this paper by referring solely to the ‘innovation process’ versus ‘an innovation’ or ‘innovations’. Another term that needs to be differentiated is ‘innovativeness’. It is the capability of organisations to invent, develop and market or exploit better products or ways of working on a regular basis (Huizing, 2008). In this paper the term innovativeness is used as a (high-level) characteristic of organisational culture, meaning the culture has the characteristics that give it a potential of being more capable of producing, exploiting and commercialising on innovations.

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products or services – occasionally modified – to new target groups or newly segmented target groups.

Forms of innovation Types of innovation Product innovation Incremental innovation Service innovation Radical innovation Process innovation

Market innovation

TABLE 1: MOST COMMON DIFFERENTIATIONS MADE BETWEEN FORMS AND TYPES OF INNOVATION. BASED ON SMITH (2006), HUIZING (2008) AND FREEMAN & SOETE (1997)

One can also differentiate between innovations in terms of the degree of novelty associated with them. The most common distinction used is incremental vs. radical innovation. While some innovations are incremental improvements to existing designs, others can have a high degree of novelty to them making them highly disruptive and revolutionary (Freeman & Soete, 1997). Depending on the theme and question that underlie an Idea Challenge, the ideas that are gathered in the Idea Challenge can be of any form or type described here. For an overview, see table 1.

2.1.2 The innovation process

The innovation process is, as discussed above, a multi-stage process where ideas are transformed into new or improved commercialised (products or services) or embedded (processes) innovations. Various models for this process having three or more than ten defined phases exist, as they depict different abstraction levels or are tailored to specific contexts. At a high abstraction level the main four stages or phases are distinguished by Huizing (2008):

1. Idea generation: the collection of as many ideas as possible that could lead to new products, services or processes.

2. Idea selection: selecting ideas that are thought to have a chance the organisation is willing to invest in its development.

3. Development: development of the idea into a new product, service or process.

4. Diffusion: in this phase the product or new service is commercialised; or the new process is embedded into the organisation.

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prototyping and staff. This means the sooner the ideas that will not make it to commercialisation are eliminated, the lower costs for the innovation process will be. To reduce risk and save cost innovative organisations must therefore eliminate unpromising ideas as quickly as possible (Luecke & Katz, 2003). Ideas must be screened regularly to identify the most promising and feasible ones. A model to depict this elimination of ideas towards the end of the process is the innovation funnel, see figure 1. A relatively large number of ideas enter the innovation process. As the rigour of criteria increases with time, more and more ideas get eliminated (the funnel narrows) and in the end only a few ideas are commercialised or embedded.

FIGURE 1: THE IDEA FUNNEL, ADAPTED FROM LUECKE & KATZ (2003)

The idea funnel is a useful model for depicting the way many ideas are reduced to a smaller number that have the greatest chance of commercialised success. It does not depict what goes on inside the funnel. The stage-gate model developed by Cooper (1990) does. As the name implies, it divides the process into a predetermined set of stages and gates. Within each stage, a standardised set of activities is performed that produce a certain set of deliverables. Stages are separated by gates: decision points where the deliverables of the previous stage are screened using a given set of criteria. While ideas pass through the stages, more information is gathered and thus risk is reduced. At the same time criteria become more rigorous at every gate; leading to elimination of ideas further down the process, which saves costs.

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FIGURE 2: TYPICAL STAGE-GATE SYSTEM, ADAPTED FROM COOPER (1990) AND THE ACTIVITIES TARGETED BY THE IDEA CHALLENGE

It is the front-end of the innovation process the Idea Challenge aims to improve. It is stimulating idea generation by asking for ideas, capturing ideas and enriching them, initial screening, preliminary assessment and the second screening. The second screening is the end of the Idea Challenge, a selection of promising ideas is presented to an ‘Innovation Board’: a group of people with the mandate to decide whether or not the presented ideas get budget for the subsequent stage.

2.1.3 Virtual communities

Since the use of a virtual innovation community is an important part of the Idea Challenge intervention, an understanding of this type of virtual employee communities is needed. Communities exist both in real life and virtually. What virtual and real-life communities have in common is well described the definition of ‘community of practice’ by Wenger et al. (2002): groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic,

and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an on-going basis. The life and virtual community can be distinguished mainly by geography: a

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only for the reasons mentioned here, but also for social and entertainment purposes (e.g. Facebook, YouTube) and professional purposes (e.g. LinkedIn).

Within an organisational context, virtual communities link together cross-functional people that focus on the same particular set of business processes (Chow, Goodman, Rooney, & Wyble, 2007). Recognising the value of professional virtual communities for purposes such as knowledge management, many organisations are starting to support the development and growth of virtual communities to satisfy business needs and objectives (Gongla & Rizzuto, 2001).

As discussed, the IdeaNet software employed by Innovation Factory is the channel through which the main activities in the Idea Challenge are performed. By facilitating collaborative generation and enrichment ideas for potential innovations, the platform virtually links organisation members whom are willing to contribute to finding solutions to the challenge(s) their organisation faces.

2.2 Organisational culture and change

Literature on organisational culture and culture change is abundant. Authors disagree on whether or not organisational culture is manageable. The basic theory and perspectives on these subjects are elaborated upon and two available frameworks that prescribe elements for effective culture change are given. Finally, the Idea Challenge method is compared to one of these frameworks to assess if the Idea Challenge is likely to be an effective culture change intervention.

2.2.1 Organisational culture

Organisational culture has been defined in different ways in literature. Hofstede et al. (1990, p. 286) noted: most authors will probably agree on organisational culture being 1) holistic; 2) historically determined; 3) related to anthropological concepts; 4) socially constructed; 5) soft; and 6) difficult to change. Some of the definitions used contain the phrase: ‘the way

things are done around here’ (Drennan, 1992 in: Burnes, 2004). A more elaborate definition

that is useful for this paper is that of Eldridge and Crombie (1974): “The culture of an

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The first time authors argued organisational culture was linked to organisational excellence is traced back to the late 1960’s, but it lasted until the 1980’s for organisational culture to really draw attention of scholars (Burnes, 2004). Peters and Waterman (1982), Deal and Kennedy (1982) and Allen and Kraft (1982) are among the most cited authors. Peters and Waterman (1982) argued organisational culture is one of the primary determinants of organisational performance. Members of organisations benefit from organisational culture for it provides them with a sense of identity and enhances stability in the experienced social system. It does so by providing fixed patterns of handling and solving problems and unwritten and – often – unspoken guidelines for how to get along in the organisation (Cameron & Quinn, 1999; Keuning, 1998).

The elements of organisational culture that can be distinguished exist at different levels of awareness; Cummings and Worley (2008) define them as follows:

1. Basic assumptions. At the deepest level of cultural awareness are the taken-for-granted assumptions about how organisational problems should be solved. These basic assumptions tell members how to perceive, think, and feel about things. They are non–confrontable and non-debatable assumptions about relating to the environment and about human nature, human activity, and human relationships. 2. Values. The next higher level of awareness includes values about what ought to be

in organisations. Values tell members what is important in the organisation and what deserves their attention.

3. Norms. Just below the surface of cultural awareness are norms guiding how members should behave in particular situations. These represent unwritten rules of behaviour. Norms generally are inferred from observing how members behave and interact with each other.

4. Artefacts. Artefacts are the highest level of cultural manifestation. They are the visible symbols of the deeper levels culture, such as norms, values, and basic assumptions. Artefacts include members’ behaviours, clothing, and language; and the organisation’s structures, systems, procedures, and physical aspects, such as décor, space arrangements, and noise levels.

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found in small entrepreneurial organisations and is associated with a web structure with one or more powerful figures at the centre. A role culture is appropriate to bureaucracies and organisations with mechanistic, rigid structures and narrow jobs. Rules and procedures are essential and organisation members stick rigidly to their job description. On the contrary a

task culture is more focused on the task at hand and getting the job done; and is therefore

more job- or project-orientated. Position and authority are less important than the individual contribution to the task at hand. Task cultures are appropriate to organically structured organisations where flexibility and teamwork are encouraged. Finally, the type that is most rare is the person culture. Herein the individual and his or her wishes are central. To support this, the organisation only has a minimalistic structure of which the main purpose is to assist those individuals who choose to work together.

Focussing more on risk-taking and feedback time, Deal and Kennedy (1982) identified four other basic types of organisational culture. Characterised by individualism, high risk-taking and rapid feedback and reward they first describe the tough-guy/macho culture. Second, there is the work-hard/play-hard culture, characterised by low risk taking, rapid feedback on performance and rapid reward. Furthermore, when feedback and rewards are slow and risk is high, the bet-the-company culture; and finally the process culture, which has slow feedback and low risk.

Another classification was developed by Quinn & McGrath (1985). They distinguish four types, based on risk-avoidance and the importance of hierarchy. The first is the market culture, which is characterised by organisation members being rational in decision-making and goal-oriented. Second, the adhocracy where organisation members are risk-oriented and charismatic leaders lead a value-driven organisation. There is the clan culture, where focus is on concern for others, consensus and participation. The last type is the hierarchy, where authority is hierarchical and rule-based, and stability and risk-avoidance are valued.

More recently, Hofstede (1994) provided a model with six dimensions:

Process-oriented vs. results oriented. Organisations with process-oriented cultures are

more dominated by technical and bureaucratic routines; while in results oriented cultures the focus is on outcomes.

Job-oriented vs. employee oriented. In job-oriented cultures assumed responsibility is

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Professional vs. parochial units. In professional units, employees (usually higher

educated) identify primarily with their profession; in parochial units, employees identify with the organisation they work for.

Open vs. closed systems. This dimension concerns the degree to which the style of

internal and external communication is open or closed and to whether the organisation admits newcomers.

Tight vs. loose internal control. Tight control versus loose control concerns the degree

of formality in the organisation.

Pragmatic vs. normative way of dealing with the environment. When an organisation

deals with the environment in a more flexible way, it is more pragmatic. On the contrary, the normative way reflects an organisation that deals with the environment in a more structured an inflexible way.

These different culture typologies illustrate the many ways organisational cultures can be described and classified. Although these typologies help in understanding organisational cultures, these typologies do not give in-depth insight in values and behaviour related to innovativeness of an organisation’s culture. After the next section in which literature on changing organisational culture is discussed the Idea Challenge is assessed, literature that is more specific on innovative cultures is covered.

2.2.2 Changing culture

A particular pattern of values and assumptions that could once have been a strength of an organisation can turn out to be a liability in successfully implementing a new strategy (Cummings & Worley, 2008, p. 521). But if an organisation finds itself having a culture that no longer fits its current strategy, could it be transformed into one that is for example more receptive to and pro-active for innovation? Here arguments in favour and arguments against will be discussed, together with possible approaches and prescribed steps to undertake prescribed by authors that are in favour.

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things are done around here’ for granted. Thus, it must be time-consuming and difficult process to internalise new ‘habits’.

Cummings and Worley (2008) note, most authors arguing culture change is extremely difficult or impossible, typically focus more on the deeper elements of culture such as values and basic assumptions. Those advocating the possibility of changing culture, focus more on the surface elements: norms and artefacts. Since the latter are less deeply rooted, they may be better changeable than their deep counterparts. An illustration is the notion of Handy (1976) who states the goal of culture change is to change behaviours of organisation members, not to brainwash them.

So what approach needs to be taken to change an organisation’s culture? In his framework for change, Burnes (2004) provides an integrated overview of different views and approaches to change. One of the key topics in his books is the dichotomy between the planned approach to change and the emergent approach to change. A planned change approach assumes a stable end-situation and that change is directed from the top of the organisation. In his framework for change (Burnes, 2004, p. 325) he poses this approach is most suited for changing attitudes and behaviour at the group and individual level. Where the focus is culture change on the organisation level, the preferred approach is emergent change. This approach assumes change is a continuous process and not a linear one that can be directed from the top. In practice, many change initiatives contain elements of both of these approaches (Burnes, 2004).

The Idea Challenge intervention has many characteristics of a planned approach. For example, it has a planned end-situation: more and better ideas for innovations to deal with an organisational challenge. Furthermore the initiative is top-down – as the theme is set by senior management – and the initiative is limited in time. Although generally the intervention is targeted to the entire organisation, ultimately only a limited percentage of employees participates (generally below 5%). During the initiative this group is asked to share and collaboratively develop ideas in a certain way, which can be characterised as attempting to provoke behavioural change at the individual or group level. Because the Idea Challenge intervention matches many characteristics of a planned approach, this section will mainly focus on theory for culture change that is from a planned perspective.

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culture can then provide vision and direction for the culture change. But how to stimulate and implement – or ‘imbibe’ as Dombrowski (2007) names it – the desired cultural elements? According to Hofstede (1994) a standard recipe for successful culture change is lacking. Many context-specific variables influence the process of stimulating and implementing a culture.

Some authors did attempt to provide some guidance to improve effectiveness of planned culture change efforts. One of which was Dobson (1988), identified four steps to culture change from a survey among thousand large organisations in the UK (from Burnes, 2004):

1. Change recruitment, selection and redundancy policies to alter the composition of the workforce so that promotion and employment prospects are dependent on those concerned possessing or displaying the beliefs and values the organisation wishes to promote.

2. Reorganise the workforce to ensure that those employees and managers displaying the required traits occupy positions of influence.

3. Effectively communicate the new values. This is done using a variety of methods such as one-to-one interviews, briefing groups, quality circles, house journals, etc. However, the example of senior managers exhibiting the new beliefs and values is seen as particularly important.

4. Change systems, procedures and personnel policies especially those concerned with rewards and appraisal.

Based on a wide range of research Cummings and Worley (2008) prescribe six ‘practical’ steps for achieving cultural change:

1. Clear strategic vision. A clear vision of the firm’s new strategy and of the needed shared values and behaviours are the start for the change. This vision provides the purpose and direction for cultural change. The vision serves as a yardstick for defining the firm’s existing culture and for deciding whether proposed changes are consistent with the core values of the organisation.

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3. Model Culture at the highest levels. Senior executives communicate the new culture through their own actions. Their behaviours symbolise the kinds of values and behaviours being sought.

4. Modify the organisation to support organisational change. Supporting modifications to organisational structure, human resource systems, information and control systems. 5. Select and socialise newcomers and terminate deviants. Select and terminate people in

terms of their fit with the new culture, especially in key leadership positions. Socialise newly hired people into the new culture.

6. Develop ethical and legal sensitivity. Set realistic values for culture change and not promise what the organisation cannot deliver. Encourage input from throughout the organisation in setting cultural values. Providing mechanisms for member dissent and diversity, such as internal review procedures. Educate managers about the legal and ethical pitfalls inherent in cultural change and helping them develop guidelines for resolving such issues.

The two frameworks cover several similar mechanics, such as recruitment and selection and organisational modification. Both are rather planned in their nature, covering only top-down prescriptions and working towards a planned end-state. They however differ in their scope. The empirically founded framework of Dobson is rather people centred and appears to take the strategic context as given. Drawing on a broad range of work of others, Cummings and Worley have a wider scope and set the change in more a strategic context, which was also noted by Burnes (2004, p. 178). In order to answer sub question one, in the next section a theoretical assessment of the effectiveness of Idea Challenges for culture change will be performed. Since the need for a culture change for which Idea Challenges may be considered to be an option often is a strategic need, the framework of Cummings and Worley will be used to assess the effectiveness of the intervention from a theoretical point of view.

2.2.3 The Idea Challenge as a cultural change intervention

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the Idea Challenge as an intervention meant to change organisational culture, the degree to which the intervention complies with the prescriptions deducted from Cummings and Worley (see also table 2) is assessed. Where it is found that the practice of the intervention deviates from its own prescribed configuration this is mentioned. This section continues with a summary of the analysis. The complete analysis can be found in appendix 3.

Clear strategic vision. The basic differences between the framework steps and the Idea

Challenges intervention lie in the overall scoping of the intervention activities. In the framework this scope is prescribed in step 1: Clear strategic vision. The framework poses a vision of a firm’s new strategy and the needed shared values and behaviours as the start of the change, while in the Idea Challenge no new or revised strategy is formulated as part of the intervention. At the same time, changed shared values and behaviours are principally not goals by themselves but serve the purpose of maximising the explicit outcome of the intervention: more and better ideas. The part of the organisation that is targeted for changing their values and behaviour consists out of potential participants and participants, not the entire organisation.

Display of top management commitment. Step 2 prescribes cultural change should be

managed from the top of the organisation and this top should be strongly committed and create constant pressure for change. Idea Challenges are initiated by top management, they define the innovation domains and therefrom deduct the challenge themes. Active management of behaviour and demonstration of desired shared values and behaviour is done predominantly by the Challenge team members. When the final selection of ideas is presented and a selection is to be made, senior management is re-involved. During an Idea Challenge there is rather a pull for change than a pressure for change by senior management: senior management’s commitment is shown inspirational movies and quotes on the platform and other communication channels. This pull for change from the top however has a strong emphasis in the intervention.

Model culture at the highest levels. Senior executives should communicate the new culture

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participative principles underlying the intervention), by all of which wrong behaviour and values are modelled.

Modify the organisation to support organisational change. Changes to organisational

structure, human resource systems and information and control systems should be made to support the culture change. The IdeaNet software that is used for idea sharing and enrichment, communication and recognising valuable contributions serves as a platform to display innovative behaviour. Participant behaviour is actively monitored by the Challenge team and its members provoke and stimulate specific types innovative behaviour. At the same time, The Challenge may take important topics offline in brainstorming sessions after which they will put the results back online. An innovation board is installed that will oversee the innovation process and that will coordinate definition of domains, themes and the selection of ideas after the Challenge. The intervention does not account for changes to control systems or human resource systems such as employee evaluation.

Select and socialise newcomers. Step 5 prescribes in terms of their fit with the desired culture,

people should be selected and terminated. This especially applies to key leadership positions. Also, newly hired people should be socialised into the new culture. The Idea Challenge intervention deviates here because a new culture on the organisational level is not one of the goals of the intervention and it is not managed actively from the top. Also, participation is voluntary, which excludes selection, termination and socialisation of people as possibilities to drive culture change.

Develop ethical and legal sensitivity. The last step in the Cummings & Worley framework

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Prescribed steps for effective culture change

Degree of compliance Idea Challenge 1. Clear strategic vision

a. A clear vision of the firm’s new strategy and of the needed shared values and behaviours are the start of the change.

b. This vision provides the purpose and direction for cultural change.

c. The vision serves as a yardstick for defining the firm’s existing culture and for deciding whether proposed changes are consistent with the core values of the organisation.

Low Low Low

2. Display of top-management commitment

a. Cultural change is managed from the top of the organisation.

b. Senior executives and administrators are strongly committed to the new values and need to create constant pressures for change.

c. They must have the staying power to see the change through.

Low Medium Low

3. Model Culture at the highest levels

a. Senior executives communicate the new culture through their own actions. Their behaviours symbolise the kinds of values and behaviours being sought.

Low-Medium

4. Modify the organisation to support organisational change

a. Supporting modifications to organisational structure, human resource systems, information and control systems.

Medium

5. Select and socialise newcomers and terminate deviants

a. Select and terminate people in terms of their fit with the new culture, especially in key leadership positions. b. Socialise newly hired people into the new culture.

Medium Low

6. Develop ethical and legal sensitivity

a. Set realistic values for culture change and not promise what the organisation cannot deliver. b. Encourage input from throughout the organisation in setting cultural values.

c. Providing mechanisms for member dissent and diversity, such as internal review procedures.

d. Educate managers about the legal and ethical pitfalls inherent in cultural change and helping them develop guidelines for resolving such issues.

Medium Low Low Low

TABLE 2: BROKEN DOWN PRESCRIPTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE CULTURE CHANGE, AFTER: GUIDELINES TO CHANGING CULTURES (CUMMINGS & WORLEY 2008) AND DEGREE OF IDEA CHALLENGE INTERVENTION COMPLIANCE.

Overall, the Idea Challenge intervention complies with these prescribed steps for effective culture change to a low degree. To what can be argued to be very important first steps in a culture change intervention: formulating a clear strategic vision, the intervention only complies with to a low degree. Out of fourteen prescribed steps in total, one prescription is complied with to a high degree and three prescriptions to a medium degree. One prescription varies between medium to low degree depending on the client case. The remaining nine prescriptions are complied with to a low degree. Although no weight is assigned to indicate the relative importance of the prescriptions, it appears safe to conclude the Idea Challenge in theory appears not to be an effective intervention for culture change.

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In the previous section theory on organisational culture change has been discussed, including different typologies for organisational culture. These typologies provide insufficient guidance for specific innovation-related values and behaviour. In this section two models that describe determinants of organisational innovativeness are explored, both include cultural determinants.

2.3.1 Elements of innovative cultures

The organisational capacity to produce innovations is determined by structural and process characteristics on the one hand, and by cultural characteristics on the other hand (Hurley & Hult, 1998). Structural and process characteristics that predict innovative capacity are for example the organisation’s age, the degree of differentiation and formalisation and organisation’s size and resources.

Authors like Hurley and Hult (1998) and Dombrowski et al. (2007) describe integrated frameworks for cultural and non-cultural characteristics that contribute to openness for new ideas and innovations. In their literature study, Hurley and Hult present an integrated conceptual framework of structural, process and cultural characteristics that contribute to organisational innovativeness. The eight cultural characteristics they have found to contribute to innovativeness are:

Market focus. The organisation is focused on the external environment by collecting

and assessing customer needs and preferences and market forces, which stimulates new ideas and the ability to respond to markets (also: Hult & Thomas, 1998).

Learning and development. Organisations are more likely to be infused with new ideas

when it has an emphasis on learning and development of individuals. It enhances creativity, the ability to notice novel opportunities, the capacity to understand new ideas and it aids in implementation by improving problem solving.

Status differential. Status differences cause pre-occupation with status, which inhibits

innovation. Less and smaller status differences therefore are beneficial to innovativeness.

Participative decision-making. Through increased involvement in decision-making,

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Support and collaboration. Employees perceive signals they are valued, which

encourages them to care about innovation for the good of the organisation. There is cross-fertilisation and cross-functional support of ideas, which nurtures and encourages innovative ideas. Support and collaboration also reduce fear and increase openness, which encourages new ideas and risk-taking.

Power sharing. Sharing of power facilitates communication and sharing of both

information and resources needed for implementation. There is low focus on turf, politics and status, which encourages people to innovate and aids momentum and acceptance of new ideas. Integrated problem solving through power sharing promotes innovation.

Communication. There is cross-functional sharing of perspectives and comprehensive

communication with (both internal and external) non-team individuals.

Tolerance for conflict and risk-taking. Conflict encourages innovation. Tolerance for

risk taking and new ideas promotes innovation. On the contrary, interdepartmental conflict hurts market responsiveness.

A similar study was performed more recently by Dombrowski et al. (Elements of Innovative Cultures, 2007). These authors argue that although innovative cultures are organisation-specific and differ from one organisation to the other, effective innovation strategies require the implementation of eight cultural elements. The multiple case study of 30 leading European and American innovative companies resulted in the identification of eight elements:

Innovative mission and vision statement. The organisation is effectively guided

through clear definition and communication of an innovative mission and vision statement.

Democratic, lateral communication. Organisation members are encouraged to

participate in decision-making and problem resolution. Information is shared, there is constructive conflict and organisation members feel empowered to take on additional roles.

Safe Spaces. The organisation, teams or units have consequence-free environments

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Flexibility. The organisation emphasises flexibility, whereby employees are exposed

to different aspects of a business. Employees are allowed to have fresh perspectives, ask questions, undermine assumptions, question protocol and their open-mindedness is valued. Usually these types of flexibility are stimulated through practices like functional and geographic job-rotation, job-swapping, encouragement of social network use inside and outside the organisation and cross-company gatherings.

Boundary spanning. There is effective communication across internal and external

boundaries. It is action driven by management decisions and closely related to organisational norms, context and cultures.

Collaboration. There is collaborative innovation: employees learn through sharing and

teaching among and across business units and alliances and communicate and solve problems collectively.

Incentives. Incentive schemes are put in place and effectively align behaviour that fits

the desired innovative culture.

Leadership. People with the personal and managerial skills to promote, advocate and

manage ideas to successful implementation or commercialisation are available. The organisation does not punish them for these activities because they disturb the status quo, but values their existence.

The authors argue that all eight cultural elements need to be included in innovation efforts: if some are lacking this will hinder innovation efforts. In addition to these cultural elements, substantial consideration should also be given to other organisational traits: industry domain; nature of competition and its own and other’s competitive advantages; the array of products and services offered by the organisation; organisational structure, roles and functions; mechanisms for innovation such as channels for embracing external knowledge sources; internal distribution of expert knowledge; roles of ICT tools in innovation; and of innovation types.

The characteristics described in these frameworks cover more or less the same topics. Though, a close look leads to conclude that both authors made varying differentiations, resulting in inconsistencies between constructs. Boundary spanning in the Dombrowski et al. framework is not covered in Hurley and Hult (1998). The boundary spanning description appears congruent with Hurley & Hult’s Market focus for most of the external side and

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statement in guiding the organisation is at a higher abstraction level than the other elements.

Also, Incentives is of a structural nature, and the same goes in part for Safe Spaces, Flexibility and Leadership.

The inconsistencies make reconciling the two models difficult. Overall, Hurley & Hult’s framework is most consistent in its differentiation and although elements may have a structural counterpart, it limits to only describing true cultural characteristics. Hurley & Hult’s framework is therefore used as a starting point in the identification of cultural characteristics for the conceptual model. The framework by Dombrowski et al. is used complementary to add further definition to these characteristics.

2.4 Conceptual model

Now that characteristics of innovative cultures have been discussed, the conceptual model can be constructed (see figure 3). The independent variable is the Idea Challenge intervention. It comprises a standardised configuration of activities and actors with assigned roles that are applied at Innovation Factory’s Idea Challenge client organisations. The Idea Challenge is depicted as a single variable, because the intervention’s effect as a whole is subject of this research. Also, it is believed the Idea Challenge elements cannot be seen in isolation because only together these elements make up the intervention. As other activities or initiatives outside Idea Challenges may be present in the organisation, the elements comprise the tool only to the extent they are a change or disruption to the ‘business-as-usual’-situation in the organisation.

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3. RESEARCH METHOD

In the previous section relevant literature was elaborated upon and the Idea Challenge intervention was assessed in a comparison between it’s characteristics and prescriptions for effective culture change found in literature. The remaining sub questions 2, 3 and 4 will be researched empirically in order to determine whether Idea Challenges affect organisational values and whether it has led to changes to the amount of performed innovative behaviour. The following section describes how data is gathered in order to answer these remaining questions. The section thereafter explains the methods used for analysis of the data.

3.1 Data gathering

In order to answer the remaining research questions, a combined quantitative-qualitative approach for data gathering is used. In a multi-case study, data is gathered retrospectively by means of interviews with Idea Challenge participants at two Innovation Factory clients. The decisions that have been made are explained in this section.

3.1.1 Retrospective multi-case study

The chosen method for this research is a multi-case study. The case study method is relevant for situations where ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ research questions need to be answered (Braster, 2000). Additionally, control over the situation is not possible; the researched effects on organisational values and behaviour are contemporary phenomena and these phenomena take place in real-life contexts. Under these conditions a case study is the preferred method (Yin, 2009; Braster, 2000). Two Idea Challenge programmes at Innovation Factory clients Heineken and PostNL (formerly TNT Post) will serve as research subjects, making this a multi-case study.

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that has no theme and where all ideas are welcomed. See table 3 for a concise overview of case characteristics and appendix 5 for a more elaborate description of the cases.

PostNL Leonardo

• Started first challenge: August 2010

• 8 Different Idea Challenges, of which 1 open Idea Challenge with retailers

• Idea Challenge themes: quality improvement, sales increase, corporate responsibility, various specific

product and service related challenges for new products or improvements. • Also 1 continuous non-themed Idea Challenge

• Number of Participants: 2000 (3,4% of approximately 58.000 employees) • Average number of ideas per Idea Challenge: 75

• Average number of enrichments (contributions to submitted ideas): 316 Heineken INEX Idea Contest

• One Idea Challenge during February and March 2011

• Idea Challenge theme: improving end-customer experience (broad theme) • Number of Participants: 1368 (2.1 % of total 65.730 employees)

• Number ideas: 1036

• Number of enrichments (contributions to submitted ideas): 988

TABLE 3: CHARACTERISTICS AND DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF IDEA CHALLENGE PROGRAMMES AT POSTNL AND HEINEKEN. SOURCES: HEINEKEN N.V., 2011, POSTNL, 2011 AND INNOVATION FACTORY DOCUMENTATION.

Although longitudinal data gathering would have been the preferred approach when researching the development of cultural characteristics over time, the decision has been made to gather data retrospectively. This pragmatic decision was made because at the time this research project commenced, only Heineken and PostNL were available and accessible to the researcher. Opting for new and at that time unconfirmed clients posed too much uncertainty to Innovation Factory with respect to a timely finalisation of this research.

3.1.2 Quantitative-qualitative interviews

When asked for experiences in retrospect, respondents may answer questions according to their current expectations of the past. This response error (Blumberg, Cooper, & Schindler, 2005) imposes internal validity risks (Braster, 2000). To mitigate this risk, the data will be collected by means of quantitative-qualitative interviews. During these interviews quantitative data is used first to determine if changes to variables have occurred. In the process of the interviews, qualitative information is used to obtain contextual information on causes for changes and to determine if the researcher and the respondent have a common understanding of the topic at hand. This approach will help to strip contextual factors from the effects studied and thus aid in determining if changes are actually attributable to Idea Challenges in the organisation.

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is ‘within scope’ of the Idea Challenge and ‘outside the scope’ of the Idea Challenge. Behaviour that is ‘in scope’ of the Idea Challenge means it performed during the intervention and it is serving the objectives of the Idea Challenge programme. This implies ‘in scope’ behaviour ends when participation in the Idea Challenge comes to an end. ‘Out of scope’ behaviour is behaviour outside the objectives of the Idea Challenge programme: it represents changes to innovative behaviour in the participants’ normal day-to-day work.

The performed interviews are semi-structured topic interviews. The innovative culture themes identified in chapter 2 served as topics, which formed the main structure of the interviews. Each theme was introduced with open questions to gather background information on the topic and to determine whether the researcher and the respondent had a common understanding of the topic at hand. On a 1 to 7 Likert-scale (from ‘completely disagree’ to ‘completely agree', where 4 was ‘neutral’), the respondent was then asked to score statements with respect to experienced organisational values and with respect to demonstrated behaviour related to the topic. For the experienced organisational values each item was scored for two moments in time: 1) before the respondent had heard about the Idea Challenge programme; and 2) at the current moment. For demonstrated behaviour related to the topic at hand, the respondents were asked to score three statements per item: 1) before the respondent had heard about the Idea Challenge or programme; 2) during participation in the Idea Challenge, but limited to behaviour performed in scope of the Idea Challenge; and 3) currently in normal

work. See the tables 4 and 5 for an example of a value item and a behaviour item the

respondents have been asked to score. Experienced organisational values

Prior to Idea Challenge

Currently

The organisation values individuals and their

ideas for improvements <1 to 7 score> <1 to 7 score>

Demonstrated behaviour

Prior to Idea Challenge

Within scope of

Idea Challenge Currently in normal work I regularly work on new ideas for improvements

(e.g. sharing and development of these ideas) <1 to 7 score> <1 to 7 score> <1 to 7 score>

TABLE 4 AND 5: EXAMPLE OF STATEMENTS AND SCORING.

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To further interpret the findings, so-called member-checks (Braster, 2000, p. 65) were performed: the researchers’ interpretations of the findings were presented and discussed with the respondent during the interview. This was done using the question-scheme that is depicted in Figure 4. Because of its repetition as the interviews progressed, over time the question ‘can you explain these scores?’ would suffice. The full list of values and behaviour items researched can be found in appendix 4.

FIGURE 4: MEMBER-CHECK QUESTION SCHEME USED FOR DETERMINING ATTRIBUTABILITY OF VARIABLE DEVELOPMENTS TO IDEA CHALLENGE INTERVENTION.

Pre-test. The interview was pre-tested with two participants from PostNL in order to improve

construct-validity and test the question scheme. The results and process of both interviews were discussed with the respondents. The test-interviews have led to a revision of themes identified from literature, of which some have been split up into separate themes. Also, the question scheme for the member-checks was optimised. The data from the test interviews has not been used, as the old theme structure was considered to differ too much from the new.

Videoconference. As some of the Heineken interviewees lived and worked abroad at

Heineken subsidiaries, these interviews have been performed via videoconference. All other interviews have been performed in person.

3.1.3 Interviewee selection

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to be a pragmatic limit for this research. The interviewees were selected on a theoretical basis (Braster, 2000, p. 91) for several substantive reasons. As discussed in the introduction section first of all, culture change is estimated to take multiple years. When this is taken together with the facts that Idea Challenges span only a maximum of two months and that the number of participants in Idea Challenges is generally no more than 5% of the total workforce, a significant impact on culture is not expected at the organisational level after one or several Idea Challenges. Organisation members whom have come in direct contact with Idea Challenges through participation that is average or above average are thought to have highest chances of experiencing changes to values and behaviour. In order to increase chances of finding effects, data is gathered from Idea Challenge participants with an average or above average number of ideas and enrichments (additions to ideas). As a result of these theoretical selection decisions, the selection of interviewees is not one of average participants. This means findings can be generalised to all Idea Challenge participants only to a limited degree, because the effects in the entire population of participants will likely be less prevalent. Additionally, findings cannot be generalised to the entire organisation, since at this level – for the reasons mentioned above – the effects are expected to be severely lower.

Second, it is thought the selections of interviewees should be broad and diverse in order to reflect the broad diversity of the total group of participants. Therefore the selections of interviewees were a mix of non-managers and managers, different functional areas (departments), subsidiaries and for the Heineken-case it is also a mix of different origin countries. The goal of researching a diverse mix of participants is solely to reflect the broadness and diversity of the total group of participants. The sample group is considered to be too small to study differences between sub groups. In chapter 5 recommendations for studying differences between subgroups will be given.

Third, in order to be able to give substantiated assessments of organisational changes, all selected interviewees had been working at the organisation for three years or longer.

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Each interviewee:

• Has been employed at the organisation for three years or longer

• Has contributed an average or above average number of ideas and enrichments • Was not a member of Idea Challenge programme team or Challenge team • Was willing to participate

The interviewee group (per case) consisted of: • At least two managers and two non-managers • Mix of different functional areas

• At least one participant from a subsidiary organisation

• Participants with different countries of origin (only applicable to the Heineken INEX case) TABLE 6: CRITERIA FOR INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANT SELECTION AND THE OVERALL SELECTION OF

PARTICIPANTS

Heineken INEX Idea Contest

Subsidiaries or corporate and country: Corporate (Netherlands): 2; Ariana (Bulgaria); Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma (Mexico); Ama Brewery (Nigeria); Heineken Romania (Romania)

Managers and non-managers: 2 Managers, 4 non-managers

Functional areas: Brand management: 2; marketing; packaging; product

management; research & development

Average number of ideas contributed: 6

Average number of enrichments contributed: 12 PostNL Leonardo

Subsidiaries or corporate and country: Corporate (Netherlands): 5; Cendris (Netherlands): 1

Managers and non-managers: Managers: 2; non-managers: 4

Functional areas: Account management: 2; Quality management: 2;

Strategy & development; Process optimisation

Average number of ideas contributed: 5

Average number of enrichments contributed: 12

TABLE 7: CHARACTERISTICS OF RESPONDENTS.

3.2 Data analysis

For interpreting the data on the two cases, the results are categorised in the same way as the three sub questions. This is 1) innovative values; 2) innovative behaviour within the scope of the Idea Challenges; and 3) innovative behaviour in the respondents’ normal work. To further structure the analysis, the categories as identified in the literature section and used in the conceptual model will serve as sub categories.

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3.2.1 Attribution of the effect strength

The first step in this analysis is the determination of how many of the respondents agree on the existence and direction of an effect. In other words: how many respondents indicate the Idea Challenge has an effect (in the same direction) on the variable at hand? This ‘permeation’ of the effect can concern either a positive or negative effect. For both cases that have been studied, the number of respondents was six. Permeation may thus vary from zero to six respondents. If for a variable none of the respondents indicate a change attributable to the Idea Challenge, permeation is zero and the conclusion for that variable will be that an effect does not exist. In case only one respondent indicated an effect, this degree of permeation is considered to be insufficient to draw a conclusion upon and will be regarded similar to no permeation and thus no effect. When two or more respondents indicate a change in the same direction, a direction and strength are attributed to the variable at hand. The strength of the effect attributed to the variable can vary from weak to very strong and is based on the number of respondents agreeing on the direction effect. In table 8 an overview is shown of the attributed strength.

Permeation of effect (number of respondents indicating change in same

direction) Attributed strength of effect

0 or 1 None

2 Weak

3 Moderate

4 Strong

5 or 6 Very strong

TABLE 8: STRENGTH ATTRIBUTED TO EFFECT OF IDEA CHALLENGE PARTICIPATION BASED ON PERMEATION OF EFFECT AMONG RESPONDENTS. 3.2.2 Possible conflicting results

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