Читать книгу Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 - Группа авторов - Страница 28

A major obstacle in innovation within organizations is often the organization itself, especially its members. Indeed, as Kotter (2016) makes explicit, when faced with novelty, these members express fears and may not adhere to it, not because of the poor quality of the innovation itself, but because of power games, the refusal to have their routines disrupted or to lose their resources, etc. Royer (2002) shows that this phenomenon is all the more important when we are at the beginning of the innovation process, at the time of the idea, when decision-making is essentially socio-political. Indeed, tangible and measurable results are hardly conceivable, hence the significance of fears and doubts. Little by little, the decision becomes rational, because the innovation achieves its material dimension: the actors can experiment, test, discuss and measure it more. Although this state of affairs has been investigated by major authors such as Akrich et al. (1988a, 1988b) or Burgelman (1983), it is still relevant today. Indeed, the subject is not exhausted insofar as contemporary organizations are confronted with major changes, be they economic, social or environmental (Gay and Szostak 2019), as well as health crises. We note that all of this calls the classic status of the innovation champion, leader or manager as the bearer of innovation into question. For example, in some organizations, they are becoming collective and protean.

This is particularly the case in co-operatives defined as “mutual aid enterprises that are democratically owned and controlled by the people who use its services” (Briscoe and Ward 2000). These organizations of the Social and Solidarity Economy are, in fact, atypical, since, by construction, the “leader” is collective and is a consumer-owner. We can consider it as de facto “empowered”¹. In France, they include agricultural cooperatives, merchant cooperatives, SCOPs², SCICs³, certain banks and mutual insurance companies. The impact of these characteristics on innovation management is significant. In their study, Capelli et al. (2016) show, among other things, that consumer-members propose more new ideas, which are, moreover, more feasible, than non-member consumers. Moreover, the ideas of the first group are considered more innovative and of a higher quality than those of the second group. Although this work deserves to be continued, we can highlight two conclusions. First, new statuses of idea bearers are emerging: it is no longer just a question of internal members, a manager or a leader, it can occupy several statuses simultaneously, which, in the classic format of the organization, are not compatible (owner and consumer). Second, their involvement seems more significant, potentially resulting in less reluctance in the face of novelty and easier appropriation, even though the facts show that there is very often an ideology (organic vs. traditional food; local vs. non-local), which may also explain why certain ideas echoing this ideology are more easily appropriated.

That said, they remain men and women, subject to questioning in the face of change. And the appropriation of innovation can be difficult, to the point of making it impossible. It is also important to think about how this appropriation will take place. For example, making the innovation one’s own may involve discursive strategies (convincing through rhetorical arguments) (Suddaby and Greenwood 2005) or mobilizing employees themselves in the decision-making process (Defélix et al. 2015). Another modality consists of integrating it into already existing practices, in order to limit the effect of novelty (Gay and Szostak 2019). This is how companies develop design thinking, not only to develop innovations, but also to engage the members of the organization in the search for insights and the collection and selection of new ideas. Others exploit prototyping practices to materialize ideas and make them tangible to facilitate discussions. In the end, ownership of innovation by members of the organization is a sine qua non for innovation, echoing Churchill, to reach for the moon. Another condition to consider concerns a final actor: the owners of the innovation, who have allocated resources to the development of the innovation.