To control or not to control: How to organize employee-driven innovation

Nowadays organizations are increasingly understanding the relevance of employees for innovation. Innovative initiatives that involve larger groups of employees, despite their role and hierarchical position, are more and more diffused within companies. However, the literature on this topic is still at its infancy, especially considering those initiatives that are structured and organized by management. Using multiple case studies, performing 34 semistructured interviews in five different companies, we investigate how managers navigate alternative design choices when they organize employee-driven innovation (EDI). Our findings suggest companies adopt different structures to organize EDI (i.e., open, closed, and hybrid), depending on the desired goals they want to achieve (i.e., creating a community or producing innovation). In this paper, we provide a clustering of different EDI practices (i.e., community-nurturing practices, solution-based practices, and integrative practices), outlining how managers can configure different design choices (e.g., topic definition, team creation, ideas transfer, ideas filtering and evaluation, and task division and allocation) to drive employees' involvement and to produce innovation

A framework to characterize multi-actor sustainability-oriented innovations in the agri-food context

Sustainability oriented innovation (SOIs) are multi-faceted types of innovation which can address the challenges of the agri-food industry, tapping knowledge into a diverse set of stakeholders with their areas of expertise. There is currently a lack of conceptualization of all the relevant aspects to discriminate among different SOIs, also in terms of type of stakeholders involved and their roles in the innovation development process. We propose a conceptual framework based on three levels of analysis: process, value network and maturity of the innovation system to guide the characterization of SOIs. We obtain confirmatory evidence from 11 pilot projects in Europ

COLLABORATIVE SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL ARCHETYPES IN THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR

Farmers are put under pressure to produce more and higher quality food at a lower cost in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. However, farmers might struggle to benefit from implementing socially and environmentally sustainable practices. Collaborative sustainable business models (CSBMs) offer a promising avenue to overcome these struggles by developing a value creation and value delivery systems together with other value chain actors instead of by the farmer independently. Based on the analysis of the CSBMs of 290 sustainable agri-food start-ups and thirteen interviews, we identify six CSBM archetypes and twelve CSBM sub-archetypes. The developed archetypes provide practical guidance and stimulates thinking for practitioners who can mimic the archetypes within their own organizations and value chains. The practical relevance is highlighted by the use of the CSBM archetypes in twenty-six value chains in a Horizon2020 research project. In terms of theoretical relevance, this research adds a new perspective to (sustainable) business model literature and the archetypes can serve as a reference point for future research

Towards an integrated model to explain the factors affecting collaborative innovation processes – insights from the agrifood sector

This study explores the relevant factors to involve multiple actors who develop and implement new technologies to build sustainable agrifood systems. By examining 11 cases, we found that technological, organization, environmental, behavioural and interorganizational factors (all mentioned in current literature) as well as collaborative business models (not mentioned in current literature) affect such initiatives. Based on this, we propose an integrated model. The agrifood sector is one of the first sectors in which a collaborative transition unfolds. As other sectors are likely to undergo similar transitions in the near future, lessons learnt from the agrifood sector can guide these transitions

The impact of country culture on the adoption of new forms of work organization

Purpose – This paper aims at understanding the relationship between the adoption of new forms of work organizations (NFWOs) and measures of country impact, in terms of national culture and economic development. Design/methodology/approach – The adoption of NFWO practices is measured through data from the fourth edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey, while Hofstede’s measures are adopted for national culture, and gross national income (GNI) per capita is used as an economic development variable. Multivariate linear regression is applied to investigate relationships, using company size as a control variable. A cluster analysis is utilized to identify groups of countries with similar cultural characteristics and to highlight different patterns of adoption of NFWO practices. Findings – The authors show that it is possible to explain different patterns in the adoption of NFWO practices when considering company size and cultural variables. GNI is instead only significant for some practices and does not always positively influence the adoption of NFWO. On the other hand, cultural variables are linked to all the practices, but there is no dominant dimension to explain higher or lower NFWO adoption. Research limitations/implications – Results are limited because only Hofstede’s cultural variables are used and manufacturing performance is not considered. Therefore, it is not possible to discriminate between more or less successful NFWO variations. Practical implications – This paper provides managers with insights on how to take into account cultural variables when transferring organizational models to different countries. Originality/value – This paper contributes to previous studies showing the importance of including several contextual variables, country impact in particular, in the study of operations management

IMPAcT-RLS2: Indagine nazionale sulla salute e la sicurezza sul lavoro: il ruolo dei Rappresentanti dei Lavoratori per la Sicurezza

L’Indagine IMPAcT-RLS2 si inserisce nel più ampio programma di ricerca INSuLa2, la cui prima edizione, condotta nel 2014 e rivolta a tutti gli attori della prevenzione, ha approfondito aspetti della tutela della salute e sicurezza sul lavoro (SSL) secondo il punto di vista delle varie figure intervistate. La survey indirizzata ai Rappresentanti dei lavoratori per la sicurezza (RLS), focalizzata inizialmente su tre contesti regionali, è stata implementata grazie all’indagine IMPAcT-RLS, realizzata nel 2016, che ha coinvolto un campione di circa 2.100 soggetti, rappresentativo a livello nazionale, per dimensione aziendale e settore di attività economica. L’indagine ha evidenziato l’importanza di disporre di informazioni sempre più approfondite sul ruolo dei RLS e di monitorarne l’andamento nel tempo. Il presente studio ribadisce l’importanza di istituire rilevazioni periodiche e replicabili, finalizzate ad aumentare le conoscenze e la consapevolezza sui sistemi di prevenzione e promuovere interventi sempre più mirati per il miglioramento della tutela della SSL.The IMPAcT-RLS2 survey is part of a larger context of INSuLa2 research program; its first edition was conducted in 2014 and targeted to all prevention professionals, investigating occupational health and safety (OSH) protection issues perceived by the various professionals’ point of view. The survey addressed to Health and Safety Representatives (HS reps.), focused on three regional contexts, was further implemented in 2016 through the IMPAcT-RLS survey, which involved a sample representative at national level, by company size and economic activity sector consisting of about 2,100 subjects. The survey highlighted the importance of having ever more in-depth information on the role of HS reps. and monitoring their evolution over time. This study arises from the need to create periodic and replicable surveys, aimed at increasing knowledge and awareness of prevention systems and promoting increasingly targeted interventions for improving the protection of OS

Choosing project risk management techniques. A theoretical framework

The pressure for increasing quality while reducing time and costs places particular emphasis on managing risk in projects. To this end, several models and techniques have been developed in literature and applied in practice, so that there is a strong need for clarifying when and how each of them should be used. At the same time, knowledge about risk management is becoming of paramount importance to effectively deal with the complexity of projects. However, communication and knowledge creation are not easy tasks, especially when dealing with uncertainty, because decision-making is often fragmented and a comprehensive perspective on the goals, opportunities, and threats of a project is missing. With the purpose of providing guidelines for the selection of risk techniques taking into account the most relevant aspects characterising the managerial and operational scenario of a project, a theoretical framework to classify these techniques is proposed. Based on a literature review of the criteria to categorise risk techniques, three dimensions are defined: the phase of the risk management process, the phase of the project life cycle, and the corporate maturity towards risk. The taxonomy is then applied to a wide selection of risk techniques according to their documented applications. This work helps to integrate the risk management and the knowledge management processes. Future research efforts will be directed towards refining the framework and testing it in multiple industrie