Backstrom 2019

European Journal of Innovation Management
A mapping study of employee innovation: proposing a research agenda

Izabelle Bäckström, Lars Bengtsson,
Article information:
To cite this document:
Izabelle Bäckström, Lars Bengtsson, (2019) "A mapping study of employee innovation: proposing
a research agenda", European Journal of Innovation Management, https://doi.org/10.1108/
EJIM-05-2018-0101
Permanent link to this document:
https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-05-2018-0101
Downloaded by Iowa State University At 09:51 17 January 2019 (PT)
Downloaded on: 17 January 2019, At: 09:51 (PT)

References: this document contains references to 101 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 10 times since 2019*
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-
srm:178063 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald
for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission
guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as
well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and
services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for
digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1460-1060.htm
Mapping study
A mapping study of employee of employee
innovation: proposing a innovation
research agenda
Izabelle Bäckström and Lars Bengtsson
Department of Design Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Received 5 February 2018
Revised 25 May 2018
10 October 2018
Abstract Accepted 29 November 2018
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to systematically explore the current understanding of the role of
non-R&D and non-managerial employees in different phases and types of innovation, and to propose avenues
for future research.
Design/methodology/approach – By conducting a mapping study and applying a critical
discourse analysis, the phenomenon of “ordinary” employee innovation is explored across various fields,
such as human resource management, psychology, economics, strategy, marketing and technology
management. Proposals for future research are suggested based on the theoretical framework
of dynamic capability, with the aim of further integrating employee innovation in the innovation
management domain.
Findings – The findings illuminate five main themes that form the employee innovation discourse across
various academic disciplines, namely, employee innovative work behavior, firm innovation performance,
employee innovation processes, frontline service employees and management tools for employee innovation.
Originality/value – Unlike prior studies in the field of innovation management, this study specifically
focuses on the employees without innovation-specific functions in organizations, or “ordinary” employees.
Concerning the methodological lens of critical discourse analysis, the authors suggest forming the employee
innovation discourse in an inclusive manner. Based on the theoretical lens of dynamic capability, a research
agenda is proposed in which employee innovation research makes additional use of innovation processes and
types, and takes into account the interactive processes and strong empirical evidence for relevant
management tools.
Keywords Innovation management, Innovation process, Employee innovation,
Employee innovative behaviour, Innovation performance, Dynamic capability
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
In research focusing on employee participation in innovation, employees are a nexus of
creativity (cf. Amabile, 1996; Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004).
Nevertheless, recent studies suggest that employees not only generate creative ideas, but
are also key players in the processes of developing innovations and implementing them in
organizations, which often take place outside innovation-specific departments
(Høyrup, 2012; Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010; Smith et al., 2012). Employee participation in
innovation is a widely discussed phenomenon in the scholarly fields of human resource
management, psychology, economics, strategy, marketing and technology management.
Previous studies of employee innovation tend to scrutinize employees with specific
innovation functions within an organization, such as R&D workers (Smith et al., 2012).
However, recent innovation studies indicate that non-managerial and non-R&D
employees, which extant literature refers to as “ordinary” employees, represent
significant sources and drivers of innovation even though they are not assigned to
formal innovation tasks (cf. Høyrup, 2012; Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010; Smith et al., 2012). It is
suggested that they play an important role in daily improvements (Zacher and Wilden,
2014), incremental innovation (Sok and O’Cass, 2015) and radical business innovation
(Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010). However, only limited attention has so far been given European Journal of Innovation
Management
to this topic in the handbooks of innovation (Fagerberg et al., 2005) and innovation © Emerald Publishing Limited
1460-1060
management (Dodgson et al., 2014). Recent literature reviews of innovation management DOI 10.1108/EJIM-05-2018-0101
EJIM (Keupp et al., 2012) and open innovation (West and Bogers, 2017) note the intra-
organizational perspective; however, they do so without explicitly discussing the role of
ordinary employee innovation.
There are multiple reasons for the inclusion of ordinary employees in the sphere of
innovation management. In advanced economies, the competitive advantage of nations
(Schwab, 2017) and companies (Porter, 1995) is based on innovation capabilities, which
include the educational levels of employees and the enhancement of innovative cultures
(Schneider et al., 2010). A second reason is that the advanced economies are dominated
by the service sector. In comparison to the innovation process in manufacturing firms,
service-oriented organizations rely less on standing R&D-departments. Instead, they are
dependent on integrated development activities in temporary innovation projects
(Den Hertog et al., 2010). In this context, the individual employees are responsible for
customer interaction, which is a frequent and well-known source of innovation in marketing
and service management research (Coviello and Joseph, 2012). A third reason is the
development of information and communication technologies (ICT), which is, overall,

enabling a more distributed innovation process (Nambisan et al., 2017) and amplifying the
opportunity to systematically source innovative ideas from employees (Poetz and Schreier,
2012), as well as developing and selecting the ideas in iterative steps (Bengtsson and
Ryzhkova, 2013). Further, there are several research contributions pointing to employees as
crucial sources of innovation. These research contributions include surveys of innovation
sources in large firms in which employees are the most common innovation source
(Chesbrough and Brunswicker, 2014), case studies of employee-innovation jams and
competitions (Bjelland and Wood, 2008), skunk-work innovation projects by non-R&D
employees (Fosfuri and Rønde, 2009) and management principles of a productive innovation
culture (Steiber and Alänge, 2013).
The purpose of this mapping study is, therefore, to take stock of extant literature on
ordinary employee innovation and propose a research agenda. By applying a critical
discourse analysis as a methodological lens (Fairclough, 1995), light is shed on how the
employee innovation discourse is produced in existing literature and distributed across
various academic fields. Thus, this paper and its analysis represent the consumption of
the discourse (i.e. interpretation). This allows the authors to outline research implications
and avenues for future research based on the theoretical framework of dynamic capability
(Teece, 2007), which has been widely used in innovation management studies. Based on
the findings, the authors suggest forming the employee innovation discourse in an
inclusive manner by directing scholarly attention to the diversity of involvement of
non-managerial and non-R&D employees in the innovation management domain. Due to
the infancy of the research area, there have been few previous attempts, Smith et al. (2012)
being one exception, to systematically map and review this phenomenon. The second
section presents the theoretical framework and is followed by the third section, which
outlines the research methodology employed. Next, the fourth section reports the results
of the mapping study, followed by the proposed research agenda. Lastly, the fifth section
presents the concluding remarks.
Theoretical framework
Employees’ innovative behavior most commonly resonates with creative efforts
in the phase of idea generation (cf. Amabile, 1996). However, innovation is a concept
that goes beyond the initial creative idea phase (Smith et al., 2012). Innovation is
widely accepted as “the successful application of new ideas” (Dodgson et al., 2014, p. 5),
stressing that ideas need to be developed and put into use to have any larger economic and
social effects (Schumpeter, 1934). The OECD (2005, p. 46) proposes a characterization of
innovation that illuminates innovation as both a process and an outcome in
four major types of innovations: products, processes, marketing methods and Mapping study
organizational methods: of employee
An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), innovation
or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices,
workplace organisation or external relations.
Moreover, innovation management is an applied research field and draws on several
academic disciplines with no unified theory of innovation management (Dodgson et al.,
2014). Researchers in the field tend to apply theories from different academic disciplines
in innovation management studies. In this study, the authors focus on innovation
management as a purposeful and instrumental activity that leads us to apply theories in
strategic management. The theoretical framework of dynamic capability (Teece, 2007) has
been widely used in innovation management studies (Schilke et al., 2018) in order to
describe and analyze three key management challenges related to the innovation process,
namely, how to create innovation opportunities, how to select and develop innovation
candidates and how to capture value from the innovation. A key aspect of this framework
is the firm’s ability to reconstruct their ordinary resources and capabilities in order to
adapt to changing and uncertain business environments (Teece, 2007). Examples of such
dynamic capabilities in relation to the phenomenon of employee innovation include the
ability to integrate new technologies (e.g. ICT) in the firm’s processes, include external
crowdsourcing of innovation opportunities and integrate the co-development of
innovations with collaborative partners.
The dynamic capability framework is here adopted as a theoretical lens in order to
identify research gaps and implications for innovation management research related to the
current state of employee innovation research. The key research gaps and implications are,
therefore, related to the creation of innovation opportunities, the selection and development
of innovation candidates, the capturing of value from innovations, and the building of
capabilities across the innovation process.
Methodology
The methodology chosen for fulfilling the objective of taking stock of the employee
innovation research is inspired by the systematic mapping study (Petersen et al., 2008, 2015).
Akin to systematic literature reviews, systematic mapping studies are frequently adopted in
medical research and have recently spread to fields such as software engineering (Petersen
et al., 2008, 2015). The systematic mapping study provides a suitable methodological
starting point for exploring the production of the employee innovation discourse across
academic fields. Since employee innovation is a phenomenon still in its infancy (Smith et al.,
2012), there is a need to map the type of research and results available in different domains,
rather than establishing a state of evidence, as in the case of a systematic literature review
(Kitchenham et al., 2012; Petersen et al., 2008, 2015). Inspired by the guidelines of Petersen
et al. (2008, 2015), this study unfolds as follows.
Definition of research questions

This mapping study takes its departure from four broad research questions:
RQ1. Which journals publish research on employee innovation?
RQ2. How is employee innovation conceptualized in the published articles?
RQ3. What are the major research themes in employee innovation?
RQ4. Which are the research gaps in employee innovation as seen from an innovation
management perspective?
EJIM Selection of database
This study’s intention is to locate and analyze scholarly work on the topic of ordinary
employee innovation. Therefore, a wide range of academic journals from diverse fields was
considered. Starting in December 2015, the authors searched for academic journal papers in
the EBSCO Business Source Complete database, providing searchable cited references to
more than 1,300 journals.
Search strings used

The following search strings were used in order to determine the eligibility of articles for
inclusion in the study: employee* innovation*, employee* innovating and innovative
employee*. The terms were included in the title of the paper. Because of the wide range of
fields covering the phenomenon of employee innovation, the authors initially adopted a
narrow search strategy.
Inclusion/exclusion criteria
Only peer-reviewed journal articles were considered to ensure quality. Therefore, the
authors excluded other potential sources of information, such as commentaries, book
reviews, research reports, conference papers, working papers and so forth. After an initial
screening, duplicates were removed, as well as articles that were not written in English.
Filtration based on inclusion/exclusion criteria

Filtering yet another time, employee/s innovation, innovative employee/s and employee-
driven innovation were included in the keywords and/or abstract to avoid incidental
references to the topic. However, a separate treatment of innovation and employees was
considered if the articles somehow related to organizational innovation. Considering journal
articles published between 2000 and 2015, the search yielded 131 unique hits, of which 110
were journal articles and the remaining were editorials, published abstracts and book
chapters. After an additional screening of abstracts and keywords for relevance to the topic,
56 articles were finally selected for analysis. A substantial number of articles dealing
explicitly with R&D employees were excluded to align with the purpose of the mapping
study and to differentiate the results from Smith et al. (2012), which does not exclude these
employees in their literature review.
Coding procedure
The authors coded the papers in a number of ways. First, in order to determine how well
the papers utilized basic innovation concepts, the following categorization was adopted:
process stage (search, conversion, implementation), type of internal process (top-down,
interactive or bottom-up), type of innovation (incremental, substantial or radical) and
innovation type (product, process, marketing or organizational). In order to identify
dominant research streams, the authors coded the main level of analysis (employee or firm
level), empirical or conceptual papers, type of empirical context (manufacturing, service
and public sector), process studies, performance studies and finally, descriptive or
normative studies.
Condensing material
The selected articles (56) were published in 46 different academic journals (see Table AI),
ranging from journals in human relations management, technology/innovation
management, quality management, psychology, marketing/service management and
industrial relations to entrepreneurship. This indicates that employee innovation is a
phenomenon studied across several academic disciplines. While this can be a positive
feature in terms of researching the same phenomenon from various disciplines’ perspectives, Mapping study
it may also hinder potentially fruitful combinations of research and an accumulation of of employee
knowledge in the field. Admittedly, the employee innovation phenomenon seems to be innovation
growing in research interest, as seen in the distribution of publishing years in Figure 1.
Analyzing material
To be able to condense the coded material further to prepare for the map, a critical
discourse analysis (hereinafter CDA) was adopted according to Fairclough’s (1995)
structural framework, depicted in Figure 2. This methodological lens allows for an
analysis of the social context, in this case composed of the various fields covering the
phenomenon of employee innovation and the texts embedded in this space, which refers to
the 56 papers available for analysis. In the middle, discourses are dually mediating the
relation between the texts and the social context. This means that the social context
influences the discursive practices that shape texts, and simultaneously that the
35
30
25
2000 – 2003
20
2004 – 2007
15
2008 – 2011
10 2012 – 2015 Figure 1.
Number of published
5 articles on employee
innovation from 2000
0 to 2015
Number of publ articles
TEXT
DISCOURSE
Figure 2.
SOCIAL CONTEXT Fairclough’s three-
dimensional
framework of CDA
Source: Phillips et al. (2008)
EJIM discursive practices influence the social context itself. Thus, this lens allows for an
exploration of how the discourses are manifested in the texts available and how the
production and distribution of the same shape the social context, the academic field, in
which the texts are consumed (i.e. interpreted) (Figure 3).
Results
Production of discourse
A significant feature of the identified scholarly work on employee innovation is the
commonality to see ordinary employees as a locus of innovation and to move beyond the idea
generation phase. The employees acquire an in-depth and context-dependent knowledge of
operations, technologies in use, and customer responses. Therefore, they are in a position to
spot opportunities for innovation that managers or R&D staff might not be open to, while
simultaneously also being capable of developing and implementing the innovations
themselves (Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010; Smith et al., 2012). Some notable patterns are identified in
the production of the employee innovation discourse, particularly regarding innovation types,
innovation forms and innovation processes, which are depicted in Figure 4.
Human relations management

Technology/Innovation management
Employee innovative work behavior
Firm innovation performance

Quality
management
56 articles
Management Psychology
tools
Frontline
Employee innovation processes service
Figure 3.
employees
The CDA framework
applied to the
Entrepreneurship
employee Marketing/Service management
innovation discourse Industrial relations
Conceptualization of innovation in papers

45
41
40
36
35
Number of papers
30
25 24 23
20
14
15 13 13
10 9
5
Figure 4. 5
2
Distribution of papers 1 1
in the production 0
Internal process Innovation type Innovation process
of employee Top-down Interactive Bottom-up No type Prod Proc Org Mark No proc Creation Selection Value capture
innovation discourse
Note: Some papers are categorized in more than one category
There are noteworthy differences in how scholars produce the employee innovation Mapping study
discourse. Among the studies adopting a bottom-up view (e.g. Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010), of employee
there are papers with a more critical perspective on employee innovation. Zwick (2002) innovation
explores circumstances when employees are prone to resist innovations, for instance in
layoff situations, and Agut et al. (2009) find that overqualified employees tend to resist
workplace innovation. Another production of the employee innovation discourse is
top-down oriented (e.g. Birkinshaw and Duke, 2013), where the managers grant employees a
license to innovate, for example, through mechanisms such as job design (Birkinshaw and
Duke, 2013; Spiegelaere et al., 2012), decentralization (Bysted and Jespersen, 2014), rewards
and career opportunities (Zhou et al., 2011) and technological support (El-Ella et al., 2013).
Moreover, a more common production of the employee innovation discourse is interactively
oriented. Depicting the interplay between employees and managers, this production
illuminates employees in terms of innovation partners (Banerjee, 2013), new venture
developers supported by the firm (Krasteva et al., 2015) and empowerment-oriented
leadership (e.g. Hoch, 2013; Sok and O’Cass, 2015).

Concerning types of innovation (product, process, marketing and organizational), a
limited number of papers utilize these basic innovation concepts. The main emphasis in
these papers is put on new products and processes (e.g. Zwick, 2002; Yang and Konrad,
2011). Only the study by Andries and Czarnitzki (2014) separate employees in production,
marketing and procurement, and explore how they are associated with product or process
innovations. Regarding the innovation process, most papers do not recognize any process.
However, some papers focus on the creation of innovation opportunities, usually the
sourcing and sharing of ideas, while some papers focus on the selection and development
phase. Only one study (Krasteva et al., 2015) concerns value capture. Overall, studies that
differentiate between innovation types and process stages appear to be underutilized in the
context of employee innovation.
Distribution of discourse
When mapping the phenomenon, five main themes were identified in the distribution of the
employee innovation discourse (see Figure 5). Although partly overlapping, these five
themes represent how this discourse is currently formed across various academic fields. The
themes demonstrate important research progress in the field, but they also imply
limitations. When analyzing the research themes’ use of innovation types and processes,
and the key challenges according to the dynamic capability framework, a number of
research gaps are identified.
Number of papers in the five research themes

40 36
35
30
25
20
15 12
10 8 8
5
5
0
Research theme Figure 5.
1 2 3 4 5 Number of papers in
each research stream
Note: Some papers are categorized in two research streams
EJIM Theme 1: employee innovative work behavior
The first research theme deals with an explanation of what drives, motivates or shapes
employees’ involvement in innovation, i.e., antecedents or moderators of employee innovative
work behavior. In a majority of the studies, the dependent variable is employee innovative work
behavior. Many of these cross-sectional studies use a measure of innovative work behavior
introduced by Scott and Bruce (1994) or a related measure developed by Janssen (2005). The
Janssen measure covers mainly activities associated with the creation of innovation
opportunities, while Scott and Bruce (1994) also include activities concerning selection and
development. However, the Scott and Bruce (1994) and Janssen (2005) scales fail to recognize the
value capture phase, as well as the differentiation between the four major types of innovation,
indicating important research gaps.
Furthermore, a common research question in this research theme is how leadership
styles influence employee innovative behavior (e.g. De Jong and Den Hartog, 2007;
Hoch, 2013; Zacher and Wilden, 2014). HRM-related activities are also emphasized, such as
hiring, selecting and rewarding employees ( Jiang et al., 2012), and how various financial
incentives influence innovative behavior (Talukder, 2011; Wendelken, et al., 2014;
Zhou et al., 2011). A third type of influencer is how job autonomy (Bysted, 2013), such as
job standardization (Luoh et al., 2014), role clarity (Cadwallader et al., 2010),
decentralization of decision making (Bysted and Jespersen, 2014), participation
mechanisms (Talukder, 2011) and innovation-related resources (Pundt et al., 2010), or
lack thereof (Stock, 2015), affect innovative behavior. Overall, leader support,
HRM-support, and job autonomy demonstrate a positive influence on innovative work
behavior (Bysted and Hansen, 2015; Bysted and Jespersen, 2014; Lai et al., 2016;
Ortega-Egea et al., 2014; Pundt et al., 2010; Talukder, 2011; Wendelken et al., 2014).
In contrast, studies of organizations in distress and austerity show a negative effect on
innovative work behavior (Kiazad et al., 2014; Stock, 2015).
As most of these studies base their dependent variable on an aggregate measure of
employee innovative work behavior and on items related mostly to the creation of
innovation opportunities, and some on the selection and development of innovation
candidates, it is impossible to assess whether, for example, leader support is positive for
both the creation of opportunities and selection among the candidates. The dynamic
capabilities involved in the creation of innovation opportunities are normally quite different
from the selection and development of innovation candidates, as well as issues related to
value capture (Teece, 2007). This research theme has many important contributions and
insights when it comes to effectively tapping employees of their creative ideas. However, it
entails few insights regarding how to select and evaluate ideas aligned with the current set
of resources, capabilities and business models, and it provides no insights on value capture
from innovation.
Theme 2: firm innovation performance

The second theme addresses the consequences of employee innovation for firms’ innovation
performance or other firm-related outcomes. The performance measure is mostly the
introduction of product innovations and/or process innovations. HR-practices and
employee-involvement practices are commonly scrutinized ( Jiang et al., 2012; Walsworth
and Verma, 2007; Yang and Konrad, 2011), as are employee empowerment (Sok and O’Cass,
2015) and pay dispersion (Wang et al., 2015). Overall, these studies are similar to how the
texts in the previous theme shape the employee innovation discourse. They imply that
HR-practices, with the aim of reinforcing employees’ job autonomy and empowerment, are
positively related to firms’ product and process innovation performance. However, the study
by Andries and Czarnitzki (2014) stands out, as they investigate how CEOs’, managers’ and
non-managerial employees’ ideas in small firms contribute to new product sales and the
implementation of process innovations. With the separation of hierarchical roles, Mapping study
functional expertise and types of innovation, the innovation management implications are of employee
clearly demonstrated. innovation
Taken together, this theme illustrates contributions that encompass two innovation
types, product and process innovations. Moreover, it indirectly studies value capture from
innovations, as the performance variable is defined, for example, in terms of sales from the
innovation candidate. However, how the value capture is achieved, e.g., by intellectual
property protection, designed revenue mechanisms, minimized agency issues (Teece, 2007)
or other means, is not revealed in the studies.
Theme 3: employee innovation processes

The most limited distributed theme driving the employee innovation discourse is process
studies. Two of the process studies are conceptual (Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010; Smith et al., 2012),
and three are empirical (El-Ella et al., 2013; Gambarotto and Cammozzo, 2010; Karlsson and
Skålén, 2015). The conceptual papers define employee innovation as “deliberate changes to a
firm’s bundle of routines or parts thereof that have been ‘driven’ by ‘ordinary’ employees who
have no formal authority […] to be involved in such decisions” (Kesting and Ulhøi, 2010,
p. 225). El-Ella et al. (2013) and Gambarotto and Cammozzo (2010) report findings from a
number of case studies of firms and universities that have implemented new social media
technologies to capture employees’ ideas in order to enable development and implementation.
They find that implementation of the new technologies introduces new challenges, such as
information overload, which require new routines in the organization. The study by Karlsson
and Skålén (2015) is the only process-oriented study that adopts an elaborate innovation
process. They recognize five phases of innovation, namely, project formation, idea generation,
service design, testing and implementation. The findings indicate that employees’
involvement in innovation is most effective when they contribute early on in the
innovation process and when this involvement is active. In this way, they address the stages
in which the ordinary employees are explicitly participating and where the innovation
specifically originates from.
Theme 4: frontline service employees

Eight articles specifically focus on frontline employees in consumer service businesses, such
as the hospitality and retail industries. Cadwallader et al. (2010) study the implementation of
a new online computer system and find that the implementation process will benefit from
giving service employees greater task autonomy. While empowered employees affect the
service innovation behavior positively (Luoh et al., 2014; Sok and O’Cass, 2015), job
standardization in the hotel industry affects employees’ innovative behavior negatively
(Luoh et al., 2014). Moosa and Panurach (2008) propose tools to encourage frontline
employees to participate in the innovation process, from the concept and experiment stage
to local implementation and the company rollout stage. Umashankar et al. (2011) further
emphasize that customer service employees are a critical source of user-generated feedback,
and that firms responding with a fast redesign process of the service will save costs while
simultaneously satisfying the employees.
Overall, this research theme comes the closest to studying all three key challenges
and integrating them into one process, especially in Moosa and Panurach’s (2008) and
Karlsson and Skålen’s (2015) studies. The process of designing or redesigning a service, and
the implementation of that service by a frontline employee, encompass all of the key
challenges defined by the dynamic capability framework. In addition, the study by
Umashankar et al. (2011) regards employees as a source that can capture the customers’
and users’ feedback and ideas.
EJIM Theme 5: management tools
This theme concerns the use of specific employee innovation principles and tools to enhance the
management of employees’ innovation activities. Some of the tools broadly concern principles of
ethical leadership (Urhuogo and Williams, 2011), the HR process (Banerjee, 2013) and the total
quality management process (Tonnessen, 2005). These studies are not departing from the three
key challenges in the innovation process. Rather, their starting point of theorization is related to
other firm processes. In contrast, the studies on exemption or time-out from ordinary work
(Birkinshaw and Duke, 2013; Nijhof et al., 2002), employee suggestion systems (El-Ella et al., 2013;
Fairbank and Williams, 2001), and competitions and open forums (Birkinshaw and Duke, 2013)
are better aligned with the three key challenges of the dynamic capability framework. While
several of them are connected to the creation of innovation opportunities, some of them deal with
the selection and development challenges, such as the exemption from ordinary work program
(Birkinshaw and Duke, 2013; Nijhof et al., 2002). However, none of the tools seems to have any
empirical evidence concerning effectiveness or to which innovation types they can be applied.
Research agenda
Consumption of discourse
The mapping of extant employee innovation research has yielded a number of key insights.
When consuming the employee innovation discourse, it is clear that employees can contribute to
an organization’s innovation process, i.e., create innovation opportunities, select and develop
innovation candidates, and capture value from innovations. This is particularly evident in the
service and knowledge-intensive sectors. Herein, an innovative service may be the direct result of
a service encounter between the employee and the customer, which is then implemented by the
same employee in other service encounters. Several advances have also been made concerning
the knowledge of the nature of employee innovation (top-down, interactive and bottom-up
processes), antecedents of employees’ innovative behavior, contributions to firm innovations and
tools to enhance employee innovation. Notwithstanding the advances, the theoretical lens of
dynamic capability suggests some shortcomings and significant research implications.
A significant shortcoming is that most studies focus mainly on tapping the employees of
their creative innovation opportunities and black boxing the rest of the innovation process,
hence, not utilizing common ways to define innovations or differentiate between types of
innovation. A majority of the mapped studies adopt either an individual level or
organizational level perspective on employee innovation, but with very few examples
explicitly trying to link the interaction between the two. Moreover, only one study (Andries
and Czarnitzki, 2014) differentiates between employees in different functions/departments
and compares their involvement. Finally, the tools proposed by researchers to enhance
employee innovation do not seem to be based on empirical evidence of their effectiveness.
A research agenda for employee innovation

This mapping study reveals some ambiguities with respect to what the employee
innovation discourse entails. Clearly, the concept of employee innovation directs scholarly
attention to the employees’ contributions to innovation, regardless of what position they
hold in the organization. The innovative activities studied must go beyond creative efforts
and encapsulate activities related to the selection, development and value capture of
innovative ideas. In order to become relevant and important for innovation management
research, the authors suggest the following definition of employee innovation:
Employee innovation is the process connected to the implementation of a new or significantly
improved product (good or service), process, marketing method, or organizational method in
business practices, workplace organization, or external relations, involving non-managerial and
non-R&D employees in a management-supported, interactive, and/or spontaneous process.
This definition stresses employee innovation as a process connected to implemented ideas. Mapping study
This notion is crucial because the stage of implementation essentially assumes that the of employee
innovation is somehow successful and that it has been widely accepted as relevant by innovation
various actors in the organization. Yet, the innovation process is a trial-and-error activity in
which some ideas will not reach the point of implementation. Studies of these undesired
employee ideas may still contribute to significant knowledge of the innovation process
(cf. Sveiby et al., 2012). In fact, one key strength of the research theme dealing with
innovative work behavior is the highlighting of the boundary conditions for employee
innovation. This refers to situations where employee innovation will not work well,
e.g., organizations in austerity and distress (Kiazad et al., 2014; Stock, 2015). Thus, in order
to enable an inclusive discourse of employee innovation, the situations with ineffective
employee innovation, dismissal of undesired ideas and unanticipated outcomes of
innovation are all important to take into account.
Where do innovations come from?

A central question in innovation research is Where do innovations come from? Or, put
another way, Where did the innovation process start? We know from prior research that
R&D projects originate from both external sources, such as customers and suppliers, and
internal sources, such as production units (Cohen et al., 2002). Yet, how did the idea reach the
R&D unit in the first place? These issues have the potential to align with open innovation
research in which external relations are central (e.g. Chesbrough, 2006). The role of
employees in open innovation literature still seems unclear, as it receives less attention
compared to other actors, even though it is the most frequent source of innovative
knowledge (Chesbrough and Brunswicker, 2014). Additionally, employees are seldom
mentioned in reviews of open innovation research (e.g. West and Bogers, 2017). This may
not be surprising, given that internal employees embody a firm’s internal knowledge rather
than representing a source of external knowledge. However, extensive external relations are
common for many employees, for instance, frontline-service and sales employees. Therefore,
they can be regarded as indirect sources of open innovation, with roles that span beyond
their formally defined positions. The dynamic capability to source creative opportunities
from external sources via employees is a research area that so far only has been exploited by
the theme of frontline service employees. Hence, it commonly departs from an individual
service-employee perspective. From an innovation management perspective, the systematic
sourcing of creative opportunities from the sales force, procurement personnel, complaints
office, service and maintenance personnel, investor-relations personnel, or other personnel
groups with frequent customers’, suppliers’ or other external sources’ encounters, seems to
be a promising research avenue. In combination with the use of ICT tools to source
employees’ innovative ideas (El-Ella et al., 2013), this represents an even more interesting
research avenue that also connects to employee participation in digital innovation
management (Nambisan et al., 2017).
In what ways are ordinary employees involved in the different stages of the innovation process?
Many studies in innovation management research employ some kind of innovation process
based on evolutionary economics with variety, selection and retention phases or the closely
related dynamic capability framework (Dodgson et al., 2014). Following the example of
Karlsson and Skålén (2015), future studies could further explore the employees’ active
contribution in each stage of the innovation process. How do employees from different
departments participate in the innovation process? Another research opportunity, using
innovation stages, is to study the transitions between them. Should the employee who
generates an idea also be involved in the development and implementation of it? For
example, what happens with the employee ideas that are collected in suggestion schemes
EJIM when they transition to selection and development phases (Fairbank and Williams, 2001)?
Will social media and intranet innovation tools affect the movement to the development and
implementation phases (El-Ella et al., 2013)? What happens with undesired and unselected
ideas (Sveiby et al., 2012)?
Taken together, there is a potential for innovation research to engage in larger
scale empirical case studies with the aspiration to make distinctions between the different
types of innovation. Moreover, combining different types of innovation, such as
product and process, is another promising research avenue. Product and process
innovations often complement each other (Reichstein and Salter, 2006). Process
innovations make products more cost efficient, increase quality and add features to the
product (or service). IT employees and ICT-related process innovations, in the form of
digitalization of internal processes, may be fruitful research areas in this context
(cf. Nambisan et al., 2017). Digitalization of processes often creates innovation
opportunities by using the data from the processes to improve products and/or create
new products (Sorescu, 2017).
How can the management support employees’ innovative work behavior in creating
innovative opportunities, selection and development, and value capture?
The scope of employee innovation research includes top-down, interactive and pure
bottom-up processes. While Kesting and Ulhøi (2010) and Smith et al. (2012) shape the
employee innovation discourse according to a bottom-up perspective, they also
acknowledge the limitations of employee-driven bottom-up processes, as they might
become uncontrollable for managers. Therefore, spontaneous bottom-up employee
innovation processes is an interesting area for employee innovation research to further
explore, regardless of whether it is supported by managers. Studies along the lines of
Burgelman’s (1983) spontaneous strategy processes present an interesting avenue to
pursue here.
When developing the employee innovation discourse further, the greatest potential lies in
studies of interactive innovation processes. In order to make use of employees’ experiences,
knowledge and skills at their work place, the top management needs to create a supportive
environment for employees to innovate. At the same time, the ordinary employees’
innovative work might be considered less relevant by the management, as it may be
unaligned with the firm’s current business model. How can this interactive process, which
goes beyond the creative innovation opportunities stage, be managed by varying leadership
styles (Hoch, 2013); hiring, selecting and rewarding employees ( Jiang et al., 2012);
introducing financial incentives (Talukder, 2011); designing job autonomy (Luoh et al.,
2014); providing role clarity (Cadwallader et al., 2010); decentralizing decision making
(Bysted and Jespersen, 2014); facilitating communication and knowledge flows (Lai et al.,
2016); enabling participation mechanisms (Talukder, 2011); and supporting innovation-
related resources (Pundt et al., 2010)?
Nijhof et al.’s (2002) proposal of exempting idea generators and Birkinshaw and Duke’s
(2013) suggestions of expansive roles, competitions and open forums represent management
tools to enable employee innovation. Employee empowerment (Luoh et al., 2014), together
with sociability and strong ties to other employees, appears important for enhancing
employees’ innovative behavior (Kiazad et al., 2014). However, are they also effective tools
for all types of innovation (product, process, marketing and organizational)? To what extent
do these tools need to be complemented with other types of management support
mechanisms (routines, structures, incentives)?
As noted above, only one study (Krasteva et al., 2015) directly addresses the key
challenge of value capture. As with all other innovations, an employee-generated
innovation runs the risk of not capturing any, or very limited, value from the innovation,
as it might be copied quickly and improved upon by competitors. However, employee Mapping study
innovation also has unique risks of failing to capture value, especially in the of employee
knowledge-intensive sectors, when the employees feel a lack of support and rewards from innovation
the firms’ managers. Process innovations are often introduced to save labor but may also
open up opportunities for product innovations (Vivarelli, 2014). Hence, the employees
might not disclose innovative ideas, quit their job and start their own firms to exploit the
ideas themselves. How can similar situations be managed? Should autonomy be extended
to include the opportunity for employees to retain their job for a period, create their own
unit within the corporation, or should top management help the employees to start
their own company, with the firm as a part owner? These are all important research
questions for future studies.
Concluding remarks
This paper makes three main contributions. First, it maps existing employee innovation
research across multiple academic fields. By taking stock of the extant production of the
employee innovation discourse, the authors present five themes that form the discourse.
Second, in order to distribute the employee innovation discourse in the field of innovation
management, a definition of employee innovation is proposed. Third, by adopting a
dynamic capability framework to illuminate the research implications for the innovation
management domain, a research agenda is presented. The research agenda sheds new light
on innovation-related research questions, such as Where do innovations come from?;
In what ways are ordinary employees involved in the different stages of the innovation
process?; and How can the management support employees’ innovative work behavior in
the generation, development and implementation of ideas?
This study encompasses several limitations. First, we have followed a strict search
string to identify relevant articles. Articles that use words other than employee and
innovations (and variations of them) in titles have fallen outside the search. For instance,
papers under the label of high-involvement innovation (Tidd and Bessant, 2009; Bessant,
2003), which concerns the phenomenon of employee innovation, have not been included.
Second, the authors have not tried to establish the state of empirical evidence or best
practice. Rather, the purpose of this mapping study is to create an initial overview of the
employee innovation phenomenon across academic fields in order to identify
opportunities for future research based on a suggested integration in innovation
management literature at large.
References
Abstein, A. and Spieth, P. (2014), “Exploring HRM meta-features that foster employees’ innovative
work behaviour in times of increasing work-life conflict”, Creativity and Innovation
Management, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 211-225.
Agut, S., Peiró, J.M. and Grau, R. (2009), “The effect of overeducation on job content innovation and
career-enhancing strategies among young Spanish employees”, Journal of Career Development,
Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 159-182.
Amabile, T.M. (1996), Creativity in Context, Westview, Boulder, CO.
Andries, P. and Czarnitzki, D. (2014), “Small firm innovation performance and employee involvement”,
Small Business Economics, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 21-38.
Bammens, Y., Notelaers, G. and Van Gils, A. (2015), “Implications of family business employment for
employees’ innovative work involvement”, Family Business Review, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 123-144.
Banerjee, P.M. (2013), “Sustainable human capital: product innovation and employee partnerships in
technology firms”, Cross Cultural Management, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 216-234.
EJIM Bengtsson, L. and Ryzhkova, N. (2013), “Managing a strategic source of innovation: online users”,
International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 655-662.
Bessant, J. (2003), “Challenges in innovation management”, in Shavinina, L.V. (Ed.), The International
Handbook on Innovation, Elsevier Science, Oxford, pp. 761-774.
Birkinshaw, J. and Duke, L. (2013), “Employee-led innovation”, Business Strategy Review, Vol. 24 No. 2,
pp. 46-51.
Bjelland, O.M. and Wood, R.C. (2008), “An inside view of IBM’s ‘innovation Jam’ ”, MIT Sloan
Management Review, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 32-40.
Burgelman, R.A. (1983), “A process model of internal corporate venturing in the diversified
major firm”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 223-244.
Bysted, R. (2013), “Innovative employee behaviour: the moderating effects of mental involvement and
job satisfaction on contextual variables”, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 16
No. 3, pp. 268-284.
Bysted, R. and Hansen, J.R. (2015), “Comparing public and private sector employees’ innovative
behavior”, Public Management Review, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 698-717.

Bysted, R. and Jespersen, K.R. (2014), “Exploring managerial mechanisms that influence innovative
work behavior”, Public Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 217-241.
Cadwallader, S., Jarvis, C.B., Bitner, M.J. and Ostrom, A.L. (2010), “Frontline employee motivation to
participate in service innovation implementation”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 219-239.
Campbell-Allen, N., Houston, D. and Mann, R. (2008), “Best practices in New Zeeland organizations for
rewarding and recognizing employee innovations and achievements”, Total Quality
Management, Vol. 19 Nos 1-2, pp. 123-137.
Chen, X.-H., Zhao, K. and Liu, X. (2012), “Improving employees’ job satisfaction and innovation
performance using conflict management”, International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 23
No. 2, pp. 151-172.
Chesbrough, H.W. (2006), Open innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from
Technology, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA.
Chesbrough, H. and Brunswicker, S. (2014), “A fad or a phenomenon? The adoption of open innovation
practices in large firms”, Research-Technology Management, Vol. 57 No. 2, pp. 16-25.
Cohen, W.M., Nelson, R.R. and Walsh, J.P. (2002), “Links and impacts: the influence of public research
on industrial R&D”, Management science, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 1-23.
Coviello, N.E. and Joseph, R.M. (2012), “Creating major innovations with customers: insights from small
and young technology firms”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 76 No. 6, pp. 87-104.
De Jong, J.P.J. and Den Hartog, D.N. (2007), “How leaders influence employees’ innovative behavior”,
European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 41-64.
Den Hertog, P., Van der Aa, W. and De Jong, M.W. (2010), “Capabilities for managing service innovation:
towards a conceptual framework”, Journal of Service Management, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 490-514.
Dodgson, M., Gann, D.M. and Phillips, N. (2014), The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management,
OUP, Oxford.
El-Ella, N.A., Stoetzel, M., Bessant, J. and Pinkwart, A. (2013), “Accelerating high involvement”,
International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 1-22.
Fagerberg, J., Mowery, D.C. and Nelson, R.R. (2005), The Oxford Handbook of Innovation, OUP,
New York, NY.
Fairbank, J.F. and Williams, S.D. (2001), “Motivating creativity and enhancing innovation through
employee suggestion system technology”, Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 10 No. 2,
pp. 68-74.
Fairclough, N. (1995), Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language, Longman Group
Limited, London.
Fosfuri, A. and Rønde, T. (2009), “Leveraging resistance to change and the skunk works model of Mapping study
innovation”, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 72 No. 1, pp. 274-289. of employee
Gambarotto, F. and Cammozzo, A. (2010), “Dreams of silence”, Innovation Management, Policy & innovation
Practice, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 166-179.
Hoch, J.E. (2013), “Shared leadership and innovation”, Journal of Business Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 2,
pp. 159-174.
Holman, D., Totterdell, P., Axtell, C., Stride, C., Port, R., Svensson, R. and Zibarras, L. (2012),
“Job design and the employee innovation process”, Journal of Business Psychology, Vol. 27 No. 2,
pp. 177-191.
Høyrup, S. (2012), “Employee-driven innovation: a new phenomenon, concept and mode of
innovation”, in Høyrup, S., Bonnafous-Boucher, M., Hasse, C., Lotz, M.M. and Moller, K. (Eds),
Employee-Driven Innovation. A New Approach, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, pp. 3-33.
Janssen, O. (2005), “The joint impact of perceived influence and supervisor supportiveness on employee
innovative behaviour”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 78 No. 4,
pp. 573-579.
Jiang, J., Wang, S. and Zhao, S. (2012), “Does HRM facilitate employee creativity and organizational
innovation? A study of Chinese firms”, The International Journal of Human Resource
Kao, P.-J., Pai, P., Lin, T. and Zhong, J.Y. (2015), “How transformational leadership fuels employees’
service innovation behavior”, The Service Industries Journal, Vol. 35 Nos 7-8, pp. 448-466.
Karlsson, J. and Skålén, P. (2015), “Exploring front-line employee contributions to service innovation”,
European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49 Nos 9-10, pp. 1346-1365.
Kesting, P. and Ulhøi, J.P. (2010), “Employee-driven innovation: extending the license to foster
innovation”, Management Decision, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 65-84.
Keupp, M.M., Palmié, M. and Gassmann, O. (2012), “The strategic management of innovation: a
systematic review and paths for future research”, International Journal of Management Reviews,
Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 367-390.
Kiazad, K., Seibert, S.E. and Kraimer, M.L. (2014), “Psychological contract breach and
employee innovation”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 87 No. 3,
pp. 535-556.
Kitchenham, B., Brereton, P. and Budgen, D. (2012), “Mapping study completeness and reliability – a
case study”, 16th International Conference on Evaluation & Assessment in Software Engineering,
pp. 126-135.
Krasteva, S., Sharma, P. and Wagman, L. (2015), “The 80/20 rule: corporate support for innovation by
employees”, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 38, pp. 32-43.
Lai, J., Lui, S.S. and Tsang, E.W.K. (2016), “Intrafirm knowledge transfer and employee innovative
behavior”, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 90-103.
Luoh, H.-F., Tsaur, S.-H. and Tang, Y.-Y. (2014), “Empowering employees”, International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 1100-1117.
Moosa, N. and Panurach, P. (2008), “Encouraging front-line employees to rise to the innovation
challenge”, Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 4-9.
Nambisan, S., Lyytinen, K., Majchrzak, A. and Song, M. (2017), “Digital innovation
management: reinventing innovation management research in a digital world”, MIS
Quarterly, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 223-238.
Nijhof, A., Krabbendam, K. and Looise, J.C. (2002), “Innovation through exemptions”, Technovation,
Vol. 22 No. 11, pp. 675-683.
Nusair, N., Ababneh, R. and Bae, Y.K. (2012), “The impact of transformational leadership style on
innovation as perceived by public employees in Jordan”, International Journal of Commerce and
EJIM OECD (2005), Oslo Manual-Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data: Proposed
Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data, 3rd ed., Organisation for Economic
Cooporation and Development.
Oldham, G. and Cummings, A. (1996), “Employee creativity”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39
No. 3, pp. 607-634.
Ortega-Egea, M.T., Moreno, A.R. and Domínguez, M.C.H. (2014), “Determinants of innovative behavior
of employees”, Employee Relations, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 606-621.
Ostergaard, C.R., Timmermans, B. and Kristinsson, K. (2011), “Does a different view create something
new?”, Research Policy, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 500-509.
Petersen, K., Vakkalanka, S. and Kuzniarz, L. (2015), “Guidelines for conducting systematic
mapping studies in software engineering”, Information and Software Technology,
Vol. 64, pp. 1-18.
Petersen, K., Feldt, R., Mujtaba, S. and Mattsson, M. (2008), “Systematic mapping studies in software
engineering”, Proceedings 12th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in
Software Engineering.
Phillips, N., Sewell, G. and Jaynes, S. (2008), “Applying critical discourse analysis in strategic
management research”, Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 770-789.
Poetz, M.K. and Schreier, M. (2012), “The value of crowdsourcing”, Journal of Product Innovation
Porter, M.E. (1995), “The determinants and dynamics of national advantage”, Readings in International
Enterprise, Vol. 39, Routledge, London and New York, NY.
Pundt, A., Martins, E. and Nerdinger, F.W. (2010), “Innovative behavior and the reciprocal exchange
between employees and organizations”, German Journal of Research in Human Resource
Reichstein, T. and Salter, A. (2006), “Investigating the sources of process innovation
among UK manufacturing firms”, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 15 No. 4,
pp. 653-682.
Schilke, O., Hu, S. and Helfat, C.E. (2018), “Quo Vadis, dynamic capabilities?”, Academy of Management
Annals, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 390-439.
Schneider, L., Günther, J. and Brandenburg, B. (2010), “Innovation and skills from a sectoral
perspective”, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 185-202.
Schumpeter, J. (1934), The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Schwab, K. (2017), “The global competitiveness report 2017–2018”, World Economic Forum, Geneva.
Scott, S.G. and Bruce, R.A. (1994), “Determinants of innovative behavior”, Academy of Management
Journal, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 580-607.
Sergeeva, N. (2014), “Employees and the innovative idea contribution process”, International Journal of
Innovation Management, Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 1-22.
Shalley, C.E., Zhou, J. and Oldham, G.R. (2004), “The effects of personal and contextual characteristics
on creativity”, Journal of Management, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 933-958.
Smith, P., Ulhøi, J.P. and Kesting, P. (2012), “Mapping key antecedents of employee-innovations”,
International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 12 No. 3,
pp. 225-236.
Sok, P. and O’Cass, A. (2015), “Achieving service quality through service innovation exploration-
exploitation”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 137-149.
Sorescu, A. (2017), “Data-driven business model innovation”, Journal of Product Innovation
Spiegelaere, S.D., Van Gyes, G. and Van Hootegem, G. (2012), “Job design and innovative work
behavior”, Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 5-20.
Steiber, A. and Alänge, S. (2013), “A corporate system for continuous innovation: the Mapping study
case of Google Inc”, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, of employee
pp. 243-264.
innovation
Stock, R.M. (2015), “Is boreout a threat to frontline employees’ innovative work behavior?”, Journal of
Product Innovation Management, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 574-592.
Sveiby, K.-E., Gripenberg, P. and Segercrantz, B. (2012), Challenging the Innovation Paradigm,
Routledge, New York, NY.
Talukder, M. (2011), “Development of an enhanced model of innovation adoption by individual
employees”, Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 316-339.
Teece, D.J. (2007), “Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable)
enterprise performance”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 28 No. 13, pp. 1319-1350.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J. (2009), Managing Innovation. Integrating Technological, Market and
Organisational Change, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, Chichester.
Tonnessen, T. (2005), “Continuous innovation through company wide employee participation”,
The TQM Magazine, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 195-207.

Umashankar, N., Srinivasan, R. and Hindman, D. (2011), “Developing customer service innovations for
service employees”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 164-179.
Urhuogo, I. and Williams, V. (2011), “Leading innovation and change”, Journal of Business Studies
Quarterly, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 80-97.
Vivarelli, M. (2014), “Innovation, employment and skills in advanced and developing
countries: a survey of economic literature”, Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 48 No. 1,
pp. 123-154.
Walsworth, S. and Verma, A. (2007), “Globalization, human resource practices and innovation”,
Industrial Relations, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 222-240.
Wang, T., Zhao, B. and Thornhill, S. (2015), “Pay dispersion and organizational innovation”, Human
Relations, Vol. 68 No. 7, pp. 1155-1181.
Wendelken, A., Danzinger, F., Rau, C. and Moeslein, K.M. (2014), “Innovation without me”, R&D
West, J. and Bogers, M. (2017), “Open innovation: current status and research opportunities”,
Innovation, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 43-50.
Wongtada, N. and Rice, G. (2008), “Multidimensional latent traits of perceived organizational
innovation”, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 537-562.
Xerri, M.J. (2014), “Examining the relationship between organizational justice, job satisfaction and the
innovative behaviour of nursing employees”, International Journal of Innovation Management,
Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 1-22.
Xerri, M.J. and Brunetto, Y. (2011a), “The impact of the perceived usefulness of workplace
social networks upon the innovative behaviour of SME employees: a social
capital perspective”, International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 15 No. 5,
pp. 959-987.
Xerri, M.J. and Brunetto, Y. (2011b), “Fostering the innovative behaviour of SME employees”, Research
and Practice in Human Resource Management, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 43-59.
Xerri, M.J. and Brunetto, Y. (2013), “Fostering innovative behavior”, The International Journal of
Human Resource Management, Vol. 24 No. 16, pp. 3163-3177.
Yang, H.-L., Yang, G.G.L. and Wu, W.-P. (2006), “Employee demography moderate
involvement of decision making and adoption of management accounting innovations
for Chinese accountants”, The Journal of American Academy of Business, Vol. 9 No. 2,
pp. 338-343.
Yang, Y. and Konrad, A.M. (2011), “Diversity and organizational innovation”, Journal of Organizational
Behavior, Vol. 32 No. 8, pp. 1062-1083.
EJIM Yidong, T. and Xinxin, L. (2013), “How ethical leadership influence employees’ innovative work
behavior”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 116 No. 2, pp. 441-455.
Zacher, H. and Wilden, R.G. (2014), “A daily diary study on ambidextrous leadership and
self-reported employee innovation”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,
Vol. 87 No. 4, pp. 813-820.
Zhou, Y., Zhang, Y. and Montoro-Sánchez, A. (2011), “Utilitarianism or romanticism”, International
Journal of Manpower, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 81-98.
Zwick, T. (2002), “Employee resistance against innovations”, International Journal of Manpower,
Vol. 23 No. 6, pp. 542-552.
Further reading
Foss, L., Woll, K. and Moilanen, M. (2013), “Creativity and implementations of new ideas”, International
Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 298-322.
Hornsby, J.S., Kuratko, D.F., Shepherd, D.A. and Bott, J.P. (2009), “Managers’ corporate entrepreneurial
actions”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 236-247.

Koen, P.A., Bertels, H.M.J. and Kleinschmidt, E. (2014), “Managing the front end of innovation- part 1”,
Research-Technology Management, Vol. 57 No. 2, pp. 34-43.
Sawhney, M., Verona, G. and Prandelli, E. (2005), “Collaborating to create”, Journal of Interactive
Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 4-17.
van den Ende, J., Frederiksen, L. and Prencipe, A. (2014), “The front end of innovation”, Journal of
Product Innovation Management, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 482-487.
Zaltman, G., Duncan, R. and Holbeck, J. (1973), Innovations and Organizations, John Wiley & Sons,
New York, NY.
Corresponding author
Izabelle Bäckström can be contacted at: izabelle.backstrom@design.lth.se
Methodological
No. Author Research purpose(s) approach Main finding(s) Conceptualization
Appendix
1 Abstein and Explore HRM meta-features, and how HR Qualitative interviews HRM contributes to employees’ individual Top-down
Spieth (2014) systems influence employees work behavior while also diminishing feelings No type
engagement in innovation of work-life conflict No process
2 Agut et al. (2009) Investigate the relationship between Quantitative survey Negative relationships between Bottom-up
overeducation and extra-role behaviors overeducation and content innovation, No type
and career-enhancing strategies No process
3 Andries and Examine the extent to which a firm’s Quantitative survey CEO’s, managers’ and non-managerial Interactive
Czarnitzki (2014) CEO’s, managers’, and non-managerial employees’ ideas all contribute to Product
employees’ ideas enhance innovation innovation performance Process
performance No process
4 Bammens et al. Investigate the interrelationship between Quantitative survey Family business employment is positively related Interactive
(2015) family business employment and to employees’ innovative work involvement No type
employees’ innovative work involvement No process
5 Banerjee (2013) Proposes a six-stage model of sustainable Conceptual Model’s six stages: Top-down
human capital, reinforcing inputs (1) Pre-hiring process Product
and outputs, coined sustainable (2) On-boarding No process
human capital (3) Training and development
(4) External partnerships
(5) Mentoring
(6) Succession planning
6 Birkinshaw and A study of how employee engagement Conceptual paper Four enablers of employee-led innovation: Top-down
Duke (2013) help companies to innovate time out, expansive roles, competitions No type
and open forums No process
7 Bysted (2013) Investigates how job satisfaction and Quantitative survey Job satisfaction and IWB can be aligned in Top-down
mental involvement moderates environments that have innovation trust No type
innovative work behavior No process
8 Bysted and Investigate the stereotype that public Quantitative survey Complex patterns showing sector differences, Top-down
Hansen (2015) sector employees are less innovative as well as differences depending on job types No type
compared to private sector No process
(continued )
of employee
Mapping study
56 studies on
innovation
Table AI.
employee innovation
EJIM
Table AI.
Methodological
9 Bysted and Examine the effectiveness of managerial Quantitative survey Effectiveness of management mechanisms Top-down
Jespersen (2014) mechanisms that influence employee depends on managerial traits and organizational No type
innovative work behavior innovative objectives No process
10 Cadwallader Examine the role of motivation in Qualitative and Motivation at different levels has important Interactive
et al. (2010) engaging employee participation in quantitative interviews direct and indirect effects on frontline Product
service innovation implementation and survey employees’ strategy implementation Selection
11 Campbell-Allen Identify best practices for rewarding and Quantitative and R&R must be linked to the organization’s goals Top-down
et al. (2008) recognizing (R&R) employees for qualitative Survey and and culture. Clarity of expectations in terms of No type
achievements in innovative activities interviews employees understanding what is recognized, No process
why, by whom and when
12 Chen et al. (2012) Explore the mechanism through Quantitative survey Integrating conflict management behavior is Interactive
which conflict management behavior positively related to innovation performance, and No type
impacts job satisfaction and avoiding it is negatively related to innovation No process
innovation performance performance
13 De Jong and Den Inventory of leadership behaviors based Conceptual and 13 relevant leadership behaviors were identified Top down
Hartog (2007) on literature review and interviews qualitative likely to enhance idea generation and application No type
No process
14 El-Ella et al. Explore how employee participation in Qualitative interviews Social software and corporate social networks Interactive
(2013) innovation is implemented in practice offer opportunities for internal networking, No type
collaboration and co-creation of novel ideas and Creation
innovation Selection
15 Fairbank and Explore motivation of employees to Conceptual Employee suggestion systems motivate Top-down
Williams (2001) participate in a suggestion system employees to think creatively, to share ideas and No type
to enable conversion of ideas to innovations Creation
16 Gambarotto and Understand how employee voice/silence Case study Silence due to fear of sharing information and Bottom-up
Cammozzo are linked to organizational behaviors of knowledge among colleagues is more important No type
(2010) learning, experimenting and innovating than fear of top management Creation
Selection
(continued )
Methodological
17 Hoch (2013) Investigates relationship between shared Quantitative survey Shared and vertical leadership were positively Top-down
leadership and innovative behavior, and associated with teams’ level of innovative No type
antecedents of shared leadership behavior No process
18 Holman et al. Examine employee learning strategies in Quantitative survey Findings support the general idea that that Interactive
(2012) terms of how job design affects employee learning is a mechanism through which job No type
innovation process design affects outcomes No process
19 Jiang et al. (2012) Investigate the systematic relationship Quantitative Survey HRM practices of hiring and selecting, rewards, Interactive
between HRM practices, employee job design, and teamwork are positively related Product
creativity, and organizational innovation to employee creativity, whereas perform Organizational
appraisal and training were not Creation
20 Kao et al. (2015) Investigate motivational and social- Quantitative survey TFL positively influences employees’ perceived Top-down
political perspectives to see how TFL service innovation behavior No type
influences service innovation behavior of No process
frontline employees
21 Karlsson and Explore what, when, and how employees Qualitative interviews FLEs contribute with knowledge about Bottom-up
Skålén (2015) contribute to service innovation and observations customers, product and practice during five Product
phases of the service innovation process, and Creation
involvement ranges from active to passive Selection
22 Kesting and Identify underlying processes and core Conceptual paper Systematic overview of the grand structure of Bottom-up
Ulhøi (2010) drivers of EDI EDI and its drivers No type
Creation
Selection
23 Kiazad et al. Examine conditions under which Quantitative survey To promote constructive employee responses to Bottom-up
(2014) psychological contract breach, e.g. resource loss, organizations should find ways to No type
resource losses, relates to employees’ use increase employees’ social and psychological No process
of work-role innovation resources, e.g., mentoring programs, social events
24 Krasteva et al. Understanding the relationship between Mathematical modeling Innovative firms may favor balanced property Interactive
(2015) a firm’s support for innovation and rights to enable employees to be in control of the Product
employees’ choice of whether to innovate innovation output inside the firm Value capture
inside or outside focal firm
(continued )
of employee
Mapping study
innovation
Table AI.
EJIM
Table AI.
Methodological
25 Lai et al. (2016) Examine the distinct and synergistic Qualitative and Employees had the highest levels of innovative Top-down
effects of total and balanced knowledge quantitative interviews behavior when knowledge flows were high and No type
flows on employees’ innovative behavior and survey balanced at the same time No process
of an organizational unit
26 Luoh et al. (2014) Investigate the relationship between job Quantitative survey Job standardization has a negative effect on Top-down
standardization and employee innovative employees’ innovative behavior No type
behavior No process
27 Moosa and Argue that frontline employees are Conceptual and case Effort is locally managed and staffed. Provide Top-down
Panurach (2008) sources of innovation, and highlight the study tools to generate ideas based on challenges No type
need of giving them tools for identified, and forums to gather teams that Creation
participating in innovation develop the ideas further
28 Nijhof et al. Explore how employees who have Qualitative interviews Presents a method for how to exempt idea Top-down
(2002) promising ideas are exempted to focus on and observations generators No type
development and implementation of Creation
ideas Selection
29 Nusair et al. Examine the role of TFL on employee Quantitative survey TFL shows positive significant correlation with Top-down
(2012) innovation in Jordan innovation practices in the Jordan public sector No type
No process
30 Ortega-Egea Investigate how communication and Quantitative survey When communication flows exist, employees’ Top-down
et al. (2014) knowledge flows influence innovative orientation toward innovation is greater. No type
work contexts Knowledge transfer affects workers’ innovative No process
attitude positively
31 Pundt et al. Examine the impact of resources Quantitative survey Organizational support theory is relevant for Interactive
(2010) provided by the organization on explaining innovative behavior of employees No type
employees’ feelings of obligation to No process
reciprocate and behave innovatively
32 Schneider et al. Investigate how the role of formal Quantitative Differences are found in human capital Top-down
(2010) education, actual occupation and work endowment between sectors. Product
experience affect innovation performance Across and within sectors, no increase No process
in firms
(continued )
Methodological
33 Sergeeva (2014) Understanding conditions (contextual Quasi experimental Both contextual and individual characteristics Interactive
and individual characteristics) that affect intervention study are significant concerning employees willingness No type
employee willingness to put forward and to contribute ideas Creation
share innovative ideas
34 Sok and O’Cass Examine the role of employee Quantitative survey Empowering employees enhances the Interactive
(2015) empowerment in enhancing employees’ relationship between exploratory and Product
abilities to pursue combined and exploitative service innovation and No process
balanced service innovation service quality
35 Smith et al. Identify key antecedents of EDI Literature review Key antecedents are leader support, Bottom-up
(2012) autonomy, collaboration, and No type
organizational norms of exploration Creation
Selection
36 Spiegelaere et al. Investigate the distinction between job Quantitative survey Job challenges are job demands that can have Top-down
(2012) challenges and job hindrances, and positive employee outcomes. Job hindrances have No type
between blue- and white-collar workers negative relations with employee outcomes No process
37 Stock (2015) Examines a lack of resources at the Quantitative survey When service encounters become standardized, Bottom-up
service encounter in terms of job FLEs can suffer from crises of meaning at work, No type
boredom job boredom, and crises of growth No process
38 Talukder (2011) Understanding the factors influencing Quantitative survey With high organizational support, and when Interactive
individual employees’ acceptance of employees view an innovation as useful, they are No type
innovation in the workplace more likely to use it Selection
39 Tonnessen Argues for a lack of good approaches to Conceptual and case Proposes a framework for companies to improve Top-down
(2005) employee participation in innovation studies in an the innovative ability by systematically utilizing No type
processes. Focus on TQM and BPR action research program and organizing employee participation Creation
Selection
40 Umashankar Investigate how firms can use innovation Qualitative and Internal customer service innovations are Interactive
et al. (2011) as an internal marketing tool to benefit quantitative positioned as internal marketing tools that Marketing
service employees Interviews, enhance benefits to service employees Selection
observations,
(continued )
of employee
Mapping study
innovation
Table AI.
EJIM
Table AI.
Methodological
roundtable discussions
and survey
41 Urhuogo and Explore leadership issues of how Conceptual The concept of lifting employees where they Top-down
Williams (2011) employees may be supported through an stand is introduced. Identifies challenges of No type
innovation process leading and managing innovation No process
42 Walsworth and Explore relationships between Quantitative HR practices may increase the likelihood of Top-down
Verma (2007) internationally engaged innovation. Variable pay is less likely to lead to Product
workplace, innovation, and innovation whereas training is more likely to Process
human resource practices result in innovation Selection
43 Wang et al. Examine the impact of pay dispersion Quantitative survey Pay dispersion has an inverted U-shaped effect Interactive
(2015) on organizational innovation on employee participation which enhances Product
through employee behaviors innovation Process
Selection
44 Wendelken et al. Explore motivations of employees to Qualitative case study Overlaps and differences in motivations of Interactive
(2014) participate in organizational innovation participating and non-participating employees No type
communities Creation
45 Wongtada and Investigate the relationships between Quantitative Survey Workplace atmosphere and workplace Interactive
Rice (2008) individual employee creativity, innovative activity are highly correlated No type
workplace atmosphere, and workplace Creation
innovative activity
46 Xerri (2014) Investigates organizational justice, job Quantitative Survey Procedural justice and job satisfaction are Interactive
satisfaction and innovative behavior of positively related to innovative behavior No type
(nursing) employees No process
47 Xerri and Explore antecedents of employees’ Quantitative and Tie strength, trust and sociability are correlated Interactive
Brunetto (2011a) innovative behavior qualitative with an organization’s innovative culture No type
Survey and interviews No process
48 Xerri and Examine the impact of tie strength, Qualitative and The perceived usefulness of workplace social Interactive
Brunetto (2011b) sociability, and organizational culture on quantitative networks affect the innovative behavior of No type
perceived usefulness of workplace social Interviews and survey engineering SME employees No process
networks for problem solving
(continued )
Methodological
49 Xerri and Investigate nurses innovative behavior in Quantitative survey The reciprocity of employees in terms of support, Bottom-up
Brunetto (2013) terms of organizational commitment, time, resources and energy is captured by No type
organizational citizenship behavior, and affective commitment and organizational No process
innovative behavior citizenship behavior
50 Yang and Investigate how workplace diversity and Quantitative Survey High levels of employee involvement was Interactive
Konrad (2011) employee involvement affects associated with higher involvement levels among Product
organizational innovation racio-ethnic minorities, resulting in a stronger Process
association between diversity and innovation No process
51 Yang et al. (2006) Investigate the relationship between Quantitative Survey Position is related to decision-making Interactive
demographic variables and accountants’ involvement Organizational
role perception Selection
52 Yidong and Examine how ethical leadership Quantitative survey Perception of ethical leadership and group ethical Interactive
Xinxin (2013) influences employees’ innovative leadership are positively related to individual No type
work behavior innovative work behavior No process
53 Zacher and Investigate leaders’ daily opening and Quantitative Diary Daily self-reported innovative performance was Top-down
Wilden (2014) closing behaviors with employees’ daily study with online highest when both daily opening and closing No type
self-reported innovative performance surveys. behaviors were high No process
54 Zhou et al. (2011) Investigate the relationship between Quantitative survey Tangible extrinsic rewards encourage employees’ Interactive
human resource rewards management innovative behavior. Intrinsic rewards have No type
and innovative behaviors of employees effect on promoting innovative behavior No process
55 Zwick (2002) Explores when employees are prone to Quantitative survey Resistance against innovations more likely when Bottom-up
resist innovations benefits of investments are uncertain Product
Process
Selection
56 Ostergaard Investigate the relation between Quantitative survey Positive relation between diversity in education Top-down
et al. (2011) employee diversity and innovation and gender on the likelihood of introducing an Product
innovation No process
of employee
Mapping study
innovation
Table AI.

Backstrom 2019

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Backstrom 2019

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

European Journal of Innovation Management

A mapping study of employee innovation: proposing a research agenda

Downloaded on: 17 January 2019, At: 09:51 (PT)

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

development of information and communication technologies (ICT), which is, overall,

Definition of research questions

Search strings used

Filtration based on inclusion/exclusion criteria

Human relations management

Employee innovative work behavior

Firm innovation performance

Conceptualization of innovation in papers

leadership (e.g. Hoch, 2013; Sok and O’Cass, 2015).

Number of papers in the five research themes

Theme 2: firm innovation performance

Theme 3: employee innovation processes

Theme 4: frontline service employees

A research agenda for employee innovation

Where do innovations come from?

new products (Sorescu, 2017).

behavior”, Public Management Review, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 698-717.

The TQM Magazine, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 195-207.

actions”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 236-247.

You might also like