Slack Time and Innovation

The relationship between slack resources and innovation is complex, with the literature linking slack to both breakthrough innovations and resource misallocation. We reconcile these conflicting views by focusing on a novel mechanism: the role slack time plays in the endogenous allocation of time and effort to innovative projects. We develop a theoretical model that distinguishes between periods of high- (work weeks) versus low- (break weeks) opportunity costs of time. Low-opportunity cost time during break weeks may induce (1) lower quality ideas to be developed (a selection effect); (2) more effort to be applied for any given idea quality (an effort effect); and (3) an increase in the use of teams because scheduling is less constrained (a coordination effect). As a result, the effect of an increase in slack time on innovative outcomes is ambiguous, because the selection effect may induce more low-quality ideas, whereas the effort and coordination effect may lead to more high-quality, complex ideas. We test this framework using data on college breaks and on 165,410 Kickstarter projects across the United States. Consistent with our predictions, during university breaks, more projects are posted in the focal regions, and the increase is largest for projects of either very high or very low quality. Furthermore, projects posted during breaks are more complex, and involve larger teams with diverse skills. We discuss the implications for the design of policies on slack time

Informal slack in organisations: a qualitative analysis of innovative organisations.

This paper considers the relationship between organisational slack and innovation from a new perspective. Moving away from the traditional quantitative research approaches, semi-structured interviews and an activity theory framework are used to operationalize a qualitative view of how slack affects the innovation process. This reveals various kinds of formal and informal slack which are considered important by people involved with innovation in a variety of different organisations. In contrast with existing literatures emphasis on money as the purest form of slack, the data presented here suggest that time and other kinds of informal slack have important roles to play in the innovation process

Analysing the role of available organisational slack resources in affecting environmental performance. A structural equation modelling approach

PURPOSE: This paper aims to investigate the relationships between business slack resources and environmental performance and considers the possible effects that management commitment, corporate strategy to sustainability and innovation intensity can have on such interactions. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: We performed partial least squares path modeling regressions on a sample of 697 non-financial listed companies worldwide, considering a time frame of 13 years. FINDINGS: Operational and financial slack resources are both detrimental to environmental performance in the short term. Nevertheless, financial slack resources are useful to boost innovation that enhances environmental performance. Environmental performance improvement seems to be more a matter of managerial commitment and strategic approach towards sustainability, rather than the availability of slack resources. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Due to literature shortcomings on which effects slack resources can have on environmental performance, this paper sheds some light on the topic while also highlighting the role of management commitment, corporate sustainability strategy and innovation. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Managers should use financial slack resources in innovation activities to improve environmental performance. In doing so, they need to create retaining earnings to offset any costs using financial slack resources. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Adopting a holistic and net of endogeneity analytical perspective, this paper highlights some virtuous and critical interactions between the managerial commitment and strategic approach to sustainability, the availability of slack resources, innovation intensity and environmental performance to understand which aspects may foster or hinder the ecological transition of businesses

Human Capital and Innovation in Developing Countries:A Firm Level Study

In this paper we test whether human capital endowments of firms and additional practices of firms, such as formal training and employee slack time, have a positive relation with the innovative output of firms. This paper contributes to the literature about factors that influence innovation at the firm level and the literature about human capital and innovation at the national level. Furthermore, we study this relation in developing countries, while most studies about innovation have been done in developed countries. We test this relation in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda with data stemming from the Enterprise Surveys of the World Bank. Our results show that there exists a positive relation between human capital and innovation. In particular, the role of practices of firms such as offering formal training and employee slack time are conducive for innovative output

Crafting Firm Competencies to Improve Innovative Performance.

Recent interdisciplinary research suggests that customer and technological competencies have a direct, unconditional effect on firms' innovative performance. This study extends this stream of literature by considering the effect of organizational competencies. Results from a survey-research executed in the fast moving consumer goods industry suggest that firms that craft organizational competencies - such as improving team cohesiveness and providing slack time to foster creativity - do not directly improve their innovative performance. However, those firms that successfully combine customer, technological and organizational competencies will create more innovations that are new to the market.Innovation, Research and Development, Consumer Goods, Product Innovation, Production Management, Personnel Management, Capability Building

An Exploratory Study into Open Source Platform Adoption

Research on open source software has focused mainly on the motivations of open source programmers and the organization of open source projects [17] [19]. Some researchers portray open source as an extension of the earlier open systems movement [36]. While there has been some research on open-systems software adoption by corporate MIS organizations [4] the issue of open source adoption has received little attention. We use a series of interviews with MIS managers to develop a grounded theory of open source platform adoption. We contrast this to prior academic and popular reports about the adoption of open source

Setting priorities to inform assessment of care homes’ readiness to participate in healthcare innovation: a systematic mapping review and consensus process

© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedOrganisational context is known to impact on the successful implementation of healthcare initiatives in care homes. We undertook a systematic mapping review to examine whether researchers have considered organisational context when planning, conducting, and reporting the implementation of healthcare innovations in care homes. Review data were mapped against the Alberta Context Tool, which was designed to assess organizational context in care homes. The review included 56 papers. No studies involved a systematic assessment of organisational context prior to implementation, but many provided post hoc explanations of how organisational context affected the success or otherwise of the innovation. Factors identified to explain a lack of success included poor senior staff engagement, non-alignment with care home culture, limited staff capacity to engage, and low levels of participation from health professionals such as general practitioners (GPs). Thirty-five stakeholders participated in workshops to discuss findings and develop questions for assessing care home readiness to participate in innovations. Ten questions were developed to initiate conversations between innovators and care home staff to support research and implementation. This framework can help researchers initiate discussions about health-related innovation. This will begin to address the gap between implementation theory and practice.Peer reviewe

Team to Market (T2M): Creating High Performance Teams in the Digital Age

1. Teams are the essential means of product or service delivery and the fundamental building blocks of modern organisations. An effective team can produce results far outperforming a collection of even the most talented individuals when team members coalesce and jell into a single, well-functioning, fully-aligned organism. This report advances the notion of “Team to Market” (T2M) to help business leaders and knowledge workers understand, create and lead high performance teams in the digital age

When corporate social responsibility matters: An empirical investigation of contingencies

Rather than re-examine the question of whether doing good generally helps a company to do well, this study draws on contingency theory to empirically examine when doing good helps a company do as well as possible. Using panel data, we examine the effects of industry life cycle, munificence, and instability on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP). Our findings indicate that life cycle has a significant impact on the CSR-CFP relationship, as does industry instability. These findings suggest that CSR helps the bottom line considerably – if it is applied at the right time