Orchestration of employees' creativity: A phased approach

Abstract

Digital innovation is a promising but challenging way for established organizations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. A young research stream focuses on the development of innovations by means of employee involvement, which uses the knowledge and creativity of employees. Although it is clear that employees have been innovation drivers, studies on the roles of knowledge and creativity as foundations of employee-driven innovation are all but absent from the literature. Since not all individuals are equally creative, we investigate, through the analytical lens of the model of creativity and innovation, whether domain knowledge matters or if teams lacking domain knowledge can deliver satisfying results, too. The data collection is based on two design-thinking workshops including interviews, observations, and a survey with domain experts who evaluate the prototypes. Opposing to common assumptions of creativity techniques, domain knowledge is fundamental for developing digital innovations.