Fostering employee innovation: leveraging your "ground level" creative capital

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to argue for the importance of allowing operational or ground level employees to participate in the process of organizational innovation.Design methodology approach - The paper looks at various examples of employee innovation. It suggests five ways of enacting...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Development and learning in organizations 2010-06, Vol.24 (4), p.17-19
Main Authors: Self, Dennis R., Bandow, Diane, Schraeder, Mike
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active listening
Creative thinking
Creativity
Employee empowerment
Employee involvement
Employees
Empowerment
Failure
Ground level
Innovation
Innovations
Internet
Learning
Listening
Methodology
Organizational learning
Organizations
Product development
R&D
Research & development
Risk
Studies
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Summary:Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to argue for the importance of allowing operational or ground level employees to participate in the process of organizational innovation.Design methodology approach - The paper looks at various examples of employee innovation. It suggests five ways of enacting active empowerment of employees.Findings - Participation of operational or ground level employees in the innovation process can be facilitated through active empowerment. Active empowerment can be fostered through sharing accurate information, active listening, encouraging employees to take risks, using failure as a learning tool, and fostering mutual trust.Practical implications - Organizations can enhance the overall innovation process by empowering employees to participate in the process. This approach leverages creative resources that may, otherwise, remain untapped.Social implications - Leveraging employee innovation through active empowerment will not only enhance the overall organization, but will also encourage employee learning, thus collectively contributing to the workforce within society.Originality value - A discussion on the importance of allowing employees to participate in the process of innovation lead to the identification of five suggestions for enacting active empowerment.
ISSN:1477-7282
1758-6097
DOI:10.1108/14777281011056721