Social collaboration for corporate innovation management
Creators: name: Leopold, Helmut
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2017
Subjects: Innovation management
Knowledge management
Organisation Studies
CSCW
expertise sharing
Creativity
Self-Organisation
Online Social Media
Social behaviour

description: This dissertation explores the potential of using social media to achieve
      a higher degree of effectiveness in innovation management in a corporate
      context. To date, the general discussion has mainly focused on certain
      aspects of social media, like for instance the mass-scale networking of
      users of different self-portrayal and interaction platforms such as
      Facebook, LinkedIn, or Xing, or the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ effect for
      large-scale idea platforms or as a marketing tool to reach target groups
      with dedicated messages.The scientific value of the presented PhD thesis
      lies in the targeted research of the prerequisites that are deemed
      necessary for the implementation of social media as an in-house
      communication platform in the context of corporate innovation management.
      Extensive experience has been gained by the author in the area of
      technology, product, and innovation management in numerous management
      positions. The barriers to effective innovation performance within firms
      which have been experienced and identified are the main motivation factors
      for this PhD thesis.The key research question is whether or not social
      media can enhance companies’ innovation expertise if these tools are
      applied as an in-house information and communication platform. Social
      media mechanisms are principally based on information sharing. In a
      corporate environment, however, shared information does not necessarily
      translate into equal benefits for all those involved. Such a mismatch
      could lead, according to the hypothesis of this work, to essential
      drawbacks for staff members, and consequently hinders an effective
      innovation processes.An essential problem, at least within the business
      world, is that the innovation process is generally viewed as a linear
      innovation-steering model and that it is often believed that the simple
      usage of IT-tools can solve intra-organisational communication issues and
      even is enough to get access to the always very personal expertise of
      employees. In addition the intertwined relationship of technology usage
      and social behaviour within firms is often underestimated. This doctoral
      thesis seeks to address the essential issues associated with modern
      knowledge management, innovation management and organisation management,
      especially in relation to computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), when
      implementing new online social media tools within firms. To provide
      empirical evidence of the identified phenomena, a mix of different
      empirical evaluation methods was applied in a dedicated research project
      within the real innovation context of AIT Austrian Institute of
      Technology, Austria´s largest applied research and technology organisation
      (RTO) devoted dedicated to innovation management as their prime focus of
      activity. These include the observations of the behaviour of scientists,
      especially during the project generation phase. Staff members´ behaviour
      of the AIT Digital Safety &amp; Security Department was subject to
      thorough observation, including the analysis of over 700 innovation
      projects, as well as structured interviews with the middle management and
      online questionnaires for all employees of the Department. Based on this
      multi-layer research design, the main reasons behind the identified
      innovation barriers were duly investigated. Thus, understanding the
      inherent resistance to innovation management processes is key to the
      effective design of communications tools and for their improved acceptance
      within a company. Based on these empirical results, the aforementioned
      hypothesis could be verified. A personal reluctance towards the wider open
      communication of half-baked ideas within the organisation in general and
      the management in particular is the rule rather than the exception in
      innovative processes. Without the establishment of a widely accepted
      “sharing culture” within organisations, social media will not be able to
      have an impact on improving the overall innovation performance of an
      organisation.To summarize, effective innovation management means: i)
      allowing scope for creativity through the possibility of bottom up freedom
      to engage and work for the staff members; ii) additionally ensure the
      possibility to steer innovation activities according to economic and
      compliance rules, which are usual in the business world; iii) to support
      the open information exchange with lowest administrative overhead and
      tools with highest usability; and finally most important iv) to develop a
      company culture which is based on open information sharing.