Innovating our Common Future is the motto of the ISPIM 2021 conference in Berlin. With our Special Interest Group (SIG) track of activities (see here for an introduction to the SIG track), we join worldwide leading innovation professionals from research and advanced practice. Together with our colleagues from Borderstep we are hosting this event and contributed Values-Based and Sustainability-Oriented Innovation Management focus theme of the conference.
Changing customer and stakeholder values and normative frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations create new challenges and opportunities for innovation. We call for demonstrations of innovative approaches and solutions for key societal challenges on local, regional and global levels and how these can create our common innovation future. More on our Special Interest Group please find here.
We are pleased to announce an IJIM Special Issue on Managing Values for Innovation with Henning, Prof. Florian Luedeke-Freund and Prof. John Bessant, as guest editors. Innovation management researchers and practitioners increasingly attend to the role that values and normative orientations play for innovation and its management (Breuer & Lüdeke-Freund, 2017a, 2017b; Globocnik et al., 2020; Pedersen et al., 2018). In many cases, innovation cannot be well understood, designed or managed without recurring to the values of those involved (cf. Freeman & Auster, 2015). Newer streams of research, such as responsible, social and sustainable innovation, result from an explicit orientation towards values and normative orientations (e.g., Adams et al., 2016; Lubberink et al., 2017; Owen et al., 2013). Values of privacy, equity, justice, safety and further issues humans deeply care about can serve as sources, levers, and orientation marks for innovation. Notions related to this ‘normative turn’ include responsible innovation, social innovation, sustainable innovation and purpose-driven business, just to name a few (e.g., Owen et al., 2013; Rey et al., 2017; Stilgoe et al., 2013). This special issue focuses on managing, for example, personal, organisational or cultural values in relation to innovation, within and across individual organisations (networks) (Breuer & Lüdeke-Freund, 2017a, 2017b). Large companies like IBM have successfully worked with employee values to refresh their innovation activities and to foster intrapreneurship. Young companies like the online search engine Ecosia established an innovation culture based on core values. And social mission-driven businesses like Aravind Eye Care Systems developed new business models to turn their founders’ values and visions into reality. Depending on how values are managed, i.e. explored, understood and applied as sources, levers and orientation marks for innovation, they open up or foreclose opportunities for innovation research and practice. However, reviewing the current literature reveals gaps in terms of empirical cases, applicable methods for researchers and practitioners and theoretical frameworks. Only few studies investigated, for example, the impact of values on financial or innovation performance, or found indicators for a positive relationship between organisational values, business model innovation and corporate financial performance (e.g., Globocnik et al., 2020; Manohar & Pandit, 2014; Pedersen et al., 2018). Accordingly, our knowledge about the normative turn in innovation research and management and the correspondingly emerging values-based view on innovation is still scarce. As a consequence, a common language and perspective for framing, analysing and communicating about how values can be managed for innovation is missing. Invited contributions We invite researchers from various fields such as innovation management, business and management studies, cultural studies, organisational psychology, sociology or ethnography. We are interested in, for example:
- Empirical studies: Cases of values-based innovation in practise and evidence-based assessment of their impact.
- Innovation research methods: Analytical and empirical methods to elaborate upon the role of values in business organisations and their innovation projects and management.
- Innovation facilitation methods: How to work with values in innovation management and entrepreneurial settings. Success factors and failure in the design of facilitation methods and assessment of their impacts.
- Theoretical contributions: Theoretical frameworks explaining in how far values motivate and guide innovation and its management.
- Phenomenology: How do values impact and direct innovation and its management within individual firms or across organisations? How do organisations operationalize global values such as safety or privacy in order to initiate, manage or evaluate product, service or business model innovations? How do they recognize and integrate different stakeholders’ values (e.g. customers, innovation teams, external stakeholders etc.) into innovation processes?
- Methodology: How can we empirically investigate converging or diverging values among entrepreneurs or stakeholders of an innovation process (e.g. customers, employees, managers, society)? How to study values on different analytical levels (e.g. individual, organisational, institutional, societal or global), including comparative and quantitative studies and the assessment of values’ impacts on innovation on these levels?
- Facilitation Methods: How can new methods such as gamification facilitate the values-based creation of new products, services, business models or networks? How to reframe existing methodologies and methods (e.g. from ethnography or scenario management) to leverage the potential of values for innovation?
- Theory: Which theoretical concepts from business ethics, organisational psychology, sociology or ethnology contribute to understanding the roles and impact of values on innovation management? How to estimate, manage and measure the diverse impacts of values-based innovation (incl. e.g. ecological, social, cultural and economic impacts).
- Full paper submission: between 1st July and 31st October 2020
- Initial review: December 2020
- Revised papers: March 2021
- Second review: June 2021
- Revised papers: September 2021
- Handing in papers for final review by IJIM and production: November 2021
Innovating in Times of Crisis is the motto of the upcoming ISPIM Virtual Conference. We are featuring a new Special Interest Group with a dedicated track on Values-Based and Sustainable Innovation with some of the worldwide leading innovation specialists from research and advanced practice. As co-hosts of the conference we also contribute Values-Based and Sustainability-Oriented Innovation Management as focal topics.
Changing customer and stakeholder values and normative frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations create new challenges and opportunities for innovation. We call for demonstrations of innovation approaches and solutions for key societal challenges on local, regional and global levels and how these can create our common innovation future.
20200522_CSI_Game_Instructions_ISPIM
A values-based approach to strategic stakeholder management ensures that the course of strategic decisions is not only determined by short-lived attitudes, interests and the best deal negotiators may get, but that it is driven by long-term objectives of diverse participants. Differentiating three forms of stakeholder management (defensive, integrative, overarching), we show how to clarify and develop stakeholder values and exemplifies how to adapt methods of stakeholder analysis and management.
At this years ISPIM 2019 conference in Florence we moderate a Hot Topic Discussion on Innovation Values and Culture, present a paper on the European GAMIFY project, engage in two gamified workshops.
A chapter in the book "Rethinking Strategic Management - Sustainable Strategizing for Positive Impact" by Henning Breuer and Florian Lüdeke-Freund points out new directions for strategic stakeholder management. This is the abstract: "Stakeholders have acquired an active and even pivotal role in strategic management decisions and collaboration formats due to ongoing substantial changes in the corporate world, impacting established management frameworks, concepts and methods. This chapter discusses some of these fundamental changes and demonstrates the impact of (missing) stakeholder engagement for the success of a strategy process. Based on the difference between interests and values a values-based reframing of the stakeholder concept and corresponding management methods is suggested and illustrated with exemplary cases. To support a values-based approach to stakeholder management, new conceptual distinctions and methodical implications are presented. Three forms of stakeholder management are proposed (defensive, integrative, overarching). Furthermore, this chapter shows how to clarify and develop stakeholder values (e.g. by means of ongoing values conversations) and exemplifies how to reframe and adapt methods of stakeholder analysis and management (e.g. as an element of values-based business modelling). A values-based approach to strategic stakeholder management ensures that the course of strategic decisions is not only determined by short-lived attitudes, interests and the best deal negotiators may get, but that it is driven by long-term objectives of diverse participants."
We contribute with two new articles to the new compendium published by Springer. A case study of Aravind Eye Care Systems analyses an outstanding successful case of values-based innovation in processes, products, services, business model and even networks reaching beyond the company. The book is so far published in German only.
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