A Study of Innovation champions' influence approach in the innovation process

Abstract

With the increasing emphasis on innovations, organizations are looking at options to move from the incremental orbit to the level of quantum innovations. To facilitate such a shift organizations appoint innovation champions (ICs) to speed up the innovation process or delay innovations that are not in synchronization with the organizational objectives. However, the social context of the IC provides the required impetus or inertia to the innovation process in a manner that is less transparent, intuitively integrative and adaptive. Case-studies of 3M suggest that within organizations there are social implications occurring out of intended or unintended actions and lead to appropriate or inappropriate consequences. Therefore, facilitation of the innovation is a political process, and has its roots in the social interactions of the IC and the innovation process stakeholders.

The political nature of the innovation process and the influence role of the IC have been variously described in terms of the interplay of organizational signaling,Innovation stage and the stakeholder’s context; and a theory is yet to be developed which analyzes this interplay in a comprehensive manner. A temporal human agency perspective suggests that stakeholder actions are influenced by their ability to recall the past, respond to the present and imagine the immediate future. This research investigated how an IC facilitated the innovation process within the socio-political context of the organization.

Consistent with the aim of theory building, we have followed a qualitative research design with interviews and observations for data collection. Using an explanatory approach, this research develops a theoretical account of how the IC and other innovation process stakeholders engaged with different innovation process situations and explores the context of their influence. Five longitudinal and retrospective innovations were traced over four months in the organization by conducting semistructured interviews and directed document analysis. Thirty six innovation stakeholders, in various roles including the IC role, informed the research data collection. Data analysis mainly followed a combination approach of Glaser (1992) and Strauss & Corbin (1998) and included three types of coding: descriptive, interpretive and pattern coding. The emerging data was used to develop a model of ICs’ influence approach during an innovation process.

The finding reveal that the ICs’ influence approach is impacted by their temporal and situational orientations. Innovation stakeholders carry different temporal and situational orientations and experiences, and therefore exhibit varied influence approaches even when engaging within the same organizational and technical environment. The innovation process stakeholders’ attach a perspective lens, as they undergo situational experiences, while making sense of the dilemma of benefits disadvantages with respect to the environment. Influence forces emerge, as the IC attempts to be effective in facilitating the innovation in the face of such stakeholder perceptions. Insights about the IC second guessing the influence approaches and heuristics of other stakeholders engaging in influence suggest that the approaches are difficult to envisage in advance. Therefore, the interpretation of the social processes by the IC, drive the perceived predictability of the other innovation stakeholders influence approaches and the basis for their choice of heuristics. The emergent model highlights the need to understand the diversity of individual response to situations as well as shared meanings across individuals.

ICs encounter uncertainty associated with the innovation during the innovation acceptance decision making, which is the initial phase of the influence process. This uncertainty is experienced due to a lack of clarity of the organizational position on the innovation and the ICs inability to discriminate between the relevant and less-relevant information in the environment. The uncertainty associated with the innovation is compounded by the incomplete understandings of the stakeholder social ties, an inability to predict stakeholder actions, and the lack of knowledge of the stakeholder response options and response choice.

In the second phase of the influence process, the innovation champions experience an influence imperative arising out of a sense of violation of employeeengagement, planned reaction to the uncertainty associated with the innovation and employee-engagement violation in order to derive equity, and an emergent influence conflict. This imperative is exercised in the form of informational, individual-oriented, negotiated and supportive influence.

The emergent model highlights the critical role of the ICs’ influence heursitics and the IC perceived influence heuristics of the other innovation stakeholders while conceptualizing influence approaches to facilitate the innovation process. Data analysis reveals situation specific influence heuristics. Practitioners must recognize that such individual heuristics guide the influence approaches employed by the IC in facilitating the innovation process. Academicians must emphasize the criticality of the immediate social context in the form of the social interactions, informal organization and the pervasive uncertainty. These findings represent a foundation for a further in-depth understanding of why and how the innovation champion exercises influence during the innovation process and its implication for the organization and the innovation process stakeholders. Additionally the findings provide for a more focused follow-up research aimed at exploring subtle influence approaches involving the meanings central to the organization.