What is it about?
Innovation is vital for companies, whether it is coming up with a new product or inventing a new way of doing things (like re-organising work). However, lots of innovations fail, and one of the reasons is that innovation creates tensions for employees who are working on the new product or process. This paper follows a group of employees on an innovation project to identify the different types of tensions they face, and to explore how they deal with these tensions through humour, self-effacing comments, and shared language.
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Why is it important?
Despite the fact that innovation is delivered by employees on the ground, most of the existing research focuses on the experiences of managers. By adopting the employee perspective this study fills a gap in the literature for academics. It will also help managers wanting to understand blockages in their innovation pipelines and those who are looking to build a culture of creativity in their teams and organisations.
Perspectives
This paper recounts a very happy 3 month period I spent following a theatre troupe. It is an unusual setting for a study on management, and I hope that readers will enjoy the unique backdrop of the rehearsal process as a way of learning about innovation tensions.
Dr Holly Patrick
Edinburgh Napier University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Nested tensions and smoothing tactics: An ethnographic examination of ambidexterity in a theatre, Management Learning, October 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1350507618800940.
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