Comments for Build and lead effective innovation teams: balancing acts

Arthur Etienne, Marie de Fooz, Sarah Liégeois, Benoit Muller, Romain Montesi

Smith, D. J. (2007). The politics of innovation: why innovations need a godfather. Technovation, 27(3), 95-104.

Key points A godfather is a respected and influential senior manager in his or her industry who can provide support and protection without being directly involved in a project. In large organisations and for radical innovations, godfathers are needed because these innovations can threaten the established hierarchy and middle managers tend to favour incremental innovations. Godfathers provide the vision, credibility and…
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Key points
A godfather is a respected and influential senior manager in his or her industry who can provide support and protection without being directly involved in a project. In large organisations and for radical innovations, godfathers are needed because these innovations can threaten the established hierarchy and middle managers tend to favour incremental innovations. Godfathers provide the vision, credibility and access to resources needed to carry out innovative projects.
Implications
Senior managers play a crucial role in the success of radical innovation projects by providing the vision and foresight to see the potential of a new product, service or process. These managers are able to inspire trust and support within their organisation, as well as providing the credibility needed to overcome internal barriers to innovation. However, radical innovation projects can be threatened by vested interests and conservative cultures, and therefore require senior managers who can create an innovation culture that encourages risk-taking, experimentation and creativity. Organisations must be prepared to challenge their cultures and vested interests to drive innovation and transform their business.
Senior managers play an important role in supporting innovation in terms of vision and credibility. Furthermore, their role is crucial in protecting innovative projects from a hostile culture in the organisation. The existence of a godfather system is therefore important for companies that want to encourage innovation. Moreover, the culture of the organisation can have a significant impact on innovation and a conservative culture can stifle innovation. Thus, the godfather must have access to the resources necessary to promote innovation and counter any possible resistance within the organisation.
Limitations
According to the remarks we’ve got aŌer the presentaƟon, here are 2 new limitaƟons:
1) Seeking the support and protecƟon of a “Godfather” within the industry may not be well
received by the rest of the company. If you seek help from a senior execuƟve who is in a
higher posiƟon than the person to whom you are accountable for your project, that same
person may not appreciate it, and this could cause problems for future projects.
2) The “Godfather” gives protecƟon and credibility to the innovaƟon project due to his
experience and seniority. However, if the project fails, it is the credibility of that same
“Godfather” will suffer from it, and he might not be able to take that role again.
Further references
Nelson, B. (2009). Innovation Leaders : How Senior Executives Stimulate, Steer, and Sustain Innovation by Jean-Philippe Deschamps. Journal of Product Innovation Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5885.2009.00348.x
Golder, P. N. (2000). Insights from senior executives about innovation in international markets. The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 17(5), 326-340. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0737-6782(00)00053-9

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Juline Decroix, Clara Jacobi, Max Parvais, Hugo Tibesar, Maxime Verhulst

Kollmann, T., Stöckmann, C., Meves, Y., & Kensbock, J. M. (2017). When members of entrepreneurial teams differ: linking diversity in individual-level entrepreneurial orientation to team performance. Small Business Economics, 48(4), 843-859.

Key insights: Prior research has mainly focused on the differences in entrepreneurial orientation between organizations or teams. This article highlights the effects of diversity in individual entrepreneurial orientation (iEO) within teams. While diversity in orientation and perspective within a team can make valuable contributions, it does not always have a positive influence on innovation and team performance. Performance is negatively…
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Key insights: Prior research has mainly focused on the differences in entrepreneurial orientation between organizations or teams. This article highlights the effects of diversity in individual entrepreneurial orientation (iEO) within teams. While diversity in orientation and perspective within a team can make valuable contributions, it does not always have a positive influence on innovation and team performance. Performance is negatively affected by diversity in proactiveness (forward-looking perspective, taking initiative), creating challenges in efficient teamwork. Further, significant differences in risk-taking can lead to relationship conflicts, as risk-taking behavior may be considered as irrational and trigger relation-ship conflicts. Lastly, diversity in terms of innovativeness (adaptors/exploiters vs. explorers/innovators) positively effects team performance. Adapters want to improve existing solutions and make them more efficient, while innovators introduce new, unexpected ideas and thus do things differently.
Implications: The first implication we derived is about the composition of teams based on deep-level characteristics. When composing a team, managers tend to only look at a perfect composition of observable characteristics. Instead, he/she should spend some time evaluating especially iEO. This is possible through longer interviews going beyond superficial questions and case studies, but disclose risk-taking, proactiveness and innovativeness. Secondly, entrepreneurial teams should have a mix of “explora-tive” and “exploitative” thinkers. By having a diversity of perspectives, teams are better equipped to handle innovation challenges, as an adopter’s weakness can be compensated by an innovator’s strength and vice versa. Lastly, there are new requirements for leaders of entrepreneurial teams. For example, this implies having conflict solving mechanisms put in place and actively raise awareness about the benefits of having these diversities.
Limitations: The first limitation is related to finding innovative solutions under time pressure. Selecting team members based on their iEO may not always be possible, especially in urgent situations. In such cases, managers have to base their team composition on the availability of personnel, even if their preferences differ (e.g. COVID vaccines). Furthermore, the paper implies that a balance of explorative and exploitative thinkers increases the team performance. In our opinion, this is not applicable for organiza-tions or teams with a clear orientation towards one way of innovating. In teams with exploitative objectives, explorative thinkers might feel limited in their creativity, while exploitative thinkers might not feel able to reach radical innovation goals. This can cause intra- and interpersonal conflicts and thus hinder the innovation effectiveness. Lastly, the “War for Talent” on the employee market might hinder the manager’s availability for composing the ideal team. This can lead to a gap between availability and preferences. Managers must make a trade-off: Will they reject a person with the right expertise and experience in their team, just because his/her risk-aversion might not fit in the team?
Further References:
– Büschgens, T., Bausch, A., & Balkin, D. B. (2013). Organizational culture and innovation: A meta‐analytic review. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30(4), 763-781.
– Nederveen Pieterse, A., Van Knippenberg, D., & Van Dierendonck, D. (2013). Cultural diversity and team performance: The role of team member goal orientation. Academy of Management Journal, 56(3), 782-804.

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Collard Odile, Deruyck Sarah, Jamin Pierre, Moussaoui Manal, Ndombasi Tryphène, Ndumbi Ngenda Chloé, Porretti Joaquin

(Article) Leonard, D., & Straus, S. (1997) Putting your company’s whole brain to work. Harvard Business Review 75, 110-122.

This article is about implementing the whole brain of your company. To be able to process correctly, you must: 1) Understand and start with yourself: When you identify your own style, you better understand how your preferences unconsciously shape your leadership style and communication patterns. As a manager, people need to be aware that their automatic reactions initially stifled the very…
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This article is about implementing the whole brain of your company. To be able to process correctly, you must:
1) Understand and start with yourself: When you identify your own style, you better understand how your preferences unconsciously shape your leadership style and communication patterns. As a manager, people need to be aware that their automatic reactions initially stifled the very creativity they sought in their employees.
2) If you want an innovative organization, you need to hire, work with, and promote people who make you uncomfortable. Such homogeneity allows for efficient operations – and limited approaches to problems or opportunities.
3) Manage the team: Some simple but effective techniques can help. Keep in mind the common goal of the group, make your operating guidelines explicit, set an agenda that allows time for divergent discussions and convergent discussions.

A good manager must go beyond personal preferences. He must hire people who will form a whole brain, the right side AND the left side for better innovation. However, the confrontation between these different types of people can often create conflict. Managers should therefore find ways to create harmony by 1) using tools to define the personality type of each employee and 2) organising trainings and seminars to enable employees with different personalities to understand each other. Secondly, keeping the goal in mind and making employees understand that each person is useful and has something to contribute to the team can improve the innovation process. Furthermore, it is important for a company to have mixed teams so that maximum creativity can emerge to foster innovation. This is not so easy, as human beings tend to apply for jobs related to their preferences, which can create an imbalance. With specific tools, advice can be given to reduce mistakes and help managers create effective teams. Finally, using the right message format within the company can be crucial for collaboration between different members. Therefore, managers need to recognise their personality with their employees and meet them halfway to foster motivation and creativity.

We have identified some limitations The first thing about personality tests is that they are not always accurate. Personality tests may not be able to capture the full range of human personality, which is complex. Furthermore, if HR conducts personality tests during the hiring process, they need to ensure that they are appropriate. In addition, some candidates may lie during the process. Furthermore, regarding the creative abrasion process, according to a study conducted by Skilton and Dooley in 2010, repeated collaborations have a negative effect on creative abrasion, as the team has a stable mental model that negatively influences the idea generation process. To remedy this problem, the manager must (1) introduce a completely different newcomer to the team (someone who has no relationship with the current team and who has different skills from the team member he/she is replacing) (2) assign a completely different project to the team, using new technologies. This will challenge existing mental models. (Skilton & Dooley, 2010.) Another limitation would be that the manager does not understand his own personality, which would imply that even if he hires different personality types, he will not know how to deal with them as he will not realise how subjective he is to other personalities and behaviours.

Finally, 2 interesting articles that provide additional information about the topic would be:
1) Sirén, C., He, V. F., Wesemann, H., Jonassen, Z., Grichnik, D., & Krogh, G. (2020). Leader Emergence in Nascent Venture Teams: The Critical Roles of Individual Emotion Regulation and Team Emotions. Journal of Management Studies, 57(5), 931–961.
https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12563
2) Essen, H. J., Leede, J., & Bondarouk, T. (2022). Innovation energy: The stimulus converting employees’ innovation properties into innovative work behaviour. Creativity and Innovation Management.

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Gil Decottignies, Arthur Dercq, Clotilde Delhaye, Louise Della Faille, Emilie Peltier, Laura Waty.

Amabile, T.M. (1998). How to kill creativity, Harvard Business Review, (September/October), 77-87.

In the business world, creativity means much more than originality. This aspect of a business is often neglected by managers. In reality, this concept consists of 3 main components: imagination, expertise and motivation. On one side, managers tend to kill creativity by placing people based on the urgency of the situation and not on the match between the task and…
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In the business world, creativity means much more than originality. This aspect of a business is often neglected by managers. In reality, this concept consists of 3 main components: imagination, expertise and motivation. On one side, managers tend to kill creativity by placing people based on the urgency of the situation and not on the match between the task and the employee’s abilities. On the other side, work environment and creativity are narrowly linked and 5 categories are needed to enhance creativity among employees (freedom, resources, teamwork, supervisory encouragement, and finally organizational support).
As a result, it is very important that managers consider the 3 components of the creativity definition. First, managers should stimulate employees to obtain expertise because a person is more likely to achieve creative success if he has long periods of experimentation. That avoid managers leave too big a gap between the employees’ missions and their expertise capacities. To increase the expertise capacity, managers can stimulate employees to exchange ideas by making them work together. Then, managers should also improve the employees’ creative thinking by exposing them to various approaches to problem solving. For example, when trying to solve a complex problem, employees are forced to use their creativity to find a solution. Finally, managers should really pay good attention to the intrinsic motivation of their employees. They can do it by giving their teams clear objectives depending on what the company can afford or by leaving their employees the time for exploration and incubation periods. In addition, managers should pay attention to matching people with the right teams/assignments and therefore manage to get rich and detailed information about their employees in order to assign people to the right place.
However, in this context, managers can also meet some limitations. First, even if we can observe creativity in all departments of a company, every company does not have creative people in each of its departments. For example, you will perhaps have all the creative people of your company in only one or two departments such as marketing or innovation, and so those people will not have the competencies to help other departments such as supply chain or finance. Then, in theory, it seems easy to match people and tasks that motivate them, but in practice not really. In fact, managers cannot ask all the time when they need some employees from various departments to work on a project if they are motivated or not. This would be really time consuming and slow down the growth of the company. Finally, the 5 categories needed to enhance creativity are often really difficult to develop all together. For example, people are often afraid of big changes. As a result, if an employee presents new creative ideas to a manager but that involves a too big change, the manager will be on the defensive regarding this idea. Moreover, if the idea challenges the manager’s way of operating, he will undoubtedly find it difficult to accept. Therefore, supervisory encouragement and organizational support are not always easy to obtain.

Further references

1. Burnett, C., & Cabra, J. (2017, 29 juin). References : Ingredients of Creativity : Originality and More. Taylor and Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/10400419.2017.1302776?scroll=top

2. Zhang, W., Jiang, Y., & Li Sun, S. (2019, 2 mai). Openness to Experience and Team Creativity : Effects of Knowledge Sharing and Transformational Leadership. Taylor & Francis. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2019.1577649

3. Ouedraogo, N. O. L. M. (2017, 2 février). Antecedents Of Employee Creativity And Organisational Innovation : An Empirical Study. Ideas. https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/ijimxx/v21y2017i07ns1363919617500608.html

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Silas Braun​, David Charlier,​ Sofian Gourari​, Julian Kotz,​ Luís Medeiros and​ Torben Röttger​

Amabile, T. M., & Khaire, M. (2008). Creativity and the Role of the Leader. Harvard Business Review, 86(10).

Group 1 – Executive Summary for Creativity and the Role of the Leader The article “Creativity and the Role of the Leader” by Amabile & Khaire makes a few key statements regarding the management of the creative process. Instead of managing creativity, CEOs should manage for creativity. Creativity cannot be managed with a traditional management approach. It is the manager’s…
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Group 1 – Executive Summary for Creativity and the Role of the Leader

The article “Creativity and the Role of the Leader” by Amabile & Khaire makes a few key statements regarding the management of the creative process. Instead of managing creativity, CEOs should manage for creativity. Creativity cannot be managed with a traditional management approach. It is the manager’s responsibility to select and find the correct and best environment to foster the creative process. The creative process demands diversity, little bureaucracy, and failure-acceptance. If the team is more diverse and has people with different backgrounds, fields of study and insights, there are considerably more chances of achieving new and creative outcomes that are outside the box. The creative process is a diverse and plural activity. It is not a one man show but a complex puzzle stemming from a plethora of contributions. Having a team of people thinking about solutions is superior to a solo mission, because one person will think inside their idea boundaries and will not leave their mental underlying assumptions.

This leads to three essential insights for managers to consider. They should tap into the knowledge of employees at all ranks as employees working in processes or with the product are an important source of creativity that should be leveraged to foster innovative solutions. While efficiency is essential for a functioning business, it should not be focussed on too much in the early stages of the creative process. In the beginning of an innovation project, managers should let employees follow different paths that could lead to a solution and thus, not be focused on efficiency. Efficiency is needed to bring the readily developed product to market. The judgement of innovation projects requires diverse filtering mechanisms. This means that the decision committee that approves or denies a project should be and allow diversity in respect to the academic, geographic and personal background. Such an approach assures that the different mental models are leveraged when deciding which innovation opportunity to pursue.

However, the article also has some limitations. Managers should not follow the key findings or implications if their employees or team are too diverse. Too many different people hold too many different opinions, beliefs, and goals. Once a leader must take all these different approaches into account, the whole process of creativity and enabling innovation would slow down. This leads to rigid and inflexible corporate structures and processes that make it impossible to ensure the agility that is necessary today. A second constraint in this context concerns the incentive system and the filtering mechanism for creativity. It is crucial to consider the different personalities of the employees with their different preferences and basic values. If a team has too many different participants, the organization and incentive of that team can become unmanageable. Therefore, the trade-off between different perspectives, strategies and the company’s goals must be considered. At last, a third limitation that can be outlined is the companies’ financial ability to fail, as larger companies have more financial resources than small and medium companies. They can allow themselves to fail more with a less catastrophic outcome. Therefore, there is a limitation for smaller companies to the second key insight: High risk and failure acceptance. Large companies have a higher ability to stomach failure with financial resources backing up their creative process. Companies with little financial means should always consider what can go wrong if the creative idea does not pan out as planned. However, it is important to note that bigger companies also have more to lose in terms of money and reputation if a big problem occurs. That could lead to more losses than for its smaller counterpart for the same issue.

Further readings:

Sattayaraksa, T., & Boon-itt, S. (2018). The roles of CEO transformational leadership and organizational factors on product innovation performance. European Journal of Innovation Management, 21(2), 227-249.

van Assen, M. F. (2020). Empowering leadership and contextual ambidexterity – The mediating role of committed leadership for continuous improvement. European Management Journal, 38(3), 435-449.

Liu, H., Bracht, E., Zhang, X. A., Bradley, B., & van Dick, R. (2021). Creativity in non‐routine jobs: The role of transformational leadership and organizational identification. Creativity and Innovation Management, 30(1), 129-143.

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Jardinet Maxime, Josse Nathan, Kuyper Marie and Walot Calvin

Talke, K., Salomo, S., & Rost, K. (2010). How top management team diversity affects innovativeness and performance via the strategic choice to focus on innovation fields. Research Policy, 39(7), 907-918

Upper Echelon Theory is based on a theory that analyzes the dispositions of decision-makers within an organization to understand how companies operate and why they operate the way they do. It has been shown that the effects of management diversity on performance depend on different moderators. Second, different aspects of diversity can lead to different performance outcomes. Finally, the…
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Upper Echelon Theory is based on a theory that analyzes the dispositions of decision-makers within an organization to understand how companies operate and why they operate the way they do.

It has been shown that the effects of management diversity on performance depend on different moderators. Second, different aspects of diversity can lead to different performance outcomes. Finally, the relationship between diversity and TMT performance is indirect rather than direct.

Innovation Fields are defined as projects that come from different business units and divisions. This contributes to a continuous flow of important innovations, even from brand new companies. This is in contrast to innovation activities that focus only on single products or companies. By concentrating on areas of innovation, companies can gain expertise in new and emerging business areas.

Top managers with different backgrounds, functions, industries and organizations need to combine with very different visions and they also need to have more constructive task conflicts that encourage thoughtful strategic choices regarding their company’s innovation strategy. These areas can be specified on the basis of different specification criteria, such as technology, market and internal company aspects.

To set up such areas, top managers need to recognize and find links and opportunities between different projects. They will also have to decide on all the resources they are going to invest in these projects, be it human, financial or time resources, allocated to each domain.

We can now ask ourselves the question: What should managers or policy makers do more or differently to better manage innovation. To answer this question, we can look at several managerial implications.

First, as mentioned in the text, the upper echelons perspective, which consists of how the background characteristics of the top management team can predict organizational characteristics, can be somehow tricky to implement for managers. Upper echelons is one key to an organizational success. To manage this issue and for the company to success, the teams at the top are instrumental in defining the organization over time. TMT must set their values, competencies, ethics and unique characteristics which will reflect throughout the organization.

It is also said that companies must focus on innovation fields, where the projects originate from different business units and divisions. So how can we create more synergies among the projects of each innovation field? Having a cross-group approach is thus very important for TMTs. For that, the organization must be made of teams with individuals that have different experience, age, gender, skills… Having a diversified organization can help to innovate better. A second tip could be to keep every individual and team goal aligned with the company objectives. Teams should understand the connection between their efforts and the overall goals of their employers.

In theory, innovative firms would want to have as much diversity in their TMTs in a way that this would allow the companies to have a clear competitive advantage. But this is often not the case because in practice, we see that individuals with certain characteristics (males, economists, older persons) are more likely to be considered as potential TMT candidates. Therefore, firms must reconsider predominant perceptions of ideal TMT candidate profiles. It is something already happening in some firms who are institutionalizing positions, an example is having a head of diversity.

However, there are limitations to these implications.

First, it is true that having TMTs with different characters can lead to more ideas and potentially more sources of innovation. However, this may be a brake on innovation. Indeed, for a new innovative project to be implemented, each department often has to accept the project; but if an idea proposed by the head of a section is not followed by the others because it is too different from his mentality and ideas, the project will never succeed.

Second, “The organization must be made of teams with individuals that have different experience, age, gender, skills…” is an area for improvement. But there are limits to this advice. For example, it might be beneficial to hire more women, but it appears that they apply less than men for top management positions. This problem is generally due to the fact that women are less likely to apply if they think that they do not meet the qualification.

If you wish to go further, here are new articles that you can consult.

Khaire, T. A. (2008, October). Creativity and the Role of the Leader. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2008/10/creativity-and-the-role-of-the-leader

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, M. M. (2013, December). How Diversity Can Drive Innovation. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

Wegge, J., & Schmidt, K. H. (2009). The impact of age diversity in teams on group performance, innovation and health. Handbook of Managerial Behavior and Occupational Health, pp. 79-93.

The first source will focus on the importance of the role of business leaders in the development of creativity and so on the innovation. The second will show how the diversity of employees within a company can have an impact on innovation. The third goes further by stating the disadvantages of diversifying teams.

References :

Debra L, & James Campbell Q. (2013). Organizational Behaviour. South-Western Cengage Learning, 8, 334-336, En ligne https://books.google.be/books

Pavel, N. (2018). Cross-Functional Team: What is it and How to Make it Work. Retrieved from: https://kanbanize.com/blog/cross-functional-teams/

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Dehon Benjamin, Demoulin Sylvain, Goffin Clément, Jonet Claire, Poncelet Antoine

Cooney, T. M. (2005). What is an entrepreneurial team? International Small Business Journal, 23(3), 226-236.

Workshop 01 In the company, a question always debates: "what is an entrepreneurial team? Many researches showed that a team was realized around a person and that the entrepreneur saw himself as a hero like for example Steve Jobs. However, our article provides us with a completely different definition of what an entrepreneurial enterprise is to know, "two or more…
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Workshop 01

In the company, a question always debates: “what is an entrepreneurial team? Many researches showed that a team was realized around a person and that the entrepreneur saw himself as a hero like for example Steve Jobs. However, our article provides us with a completely different definition of what an entrepreneurial enterprise is to know, “two or more people who have a significant financial interest and actively participate in the development of the business.” So, to form a business team, all members must be actively involved, have ambitious financial interests and respect a certain team dynamic.
The concept of a business team has several managerial implications. First of all, when developing a business plan, it is very important for the team to answer who, what, why and for whom before starting the project. Then, a team of entrepreneurs is not fixed during their life and can evolve over time. Due to the dynamic nature of a company, people can arrive during the project and others can leave at any time. There is therefore some flexibility as to the number of members within the team and when to join and / or leave this team. Afterwards and in connection with the previous point, it is therefore necessary that the composition of a team of entrepreneurs must be well balanced. The skills of each member of the team must be diverse to avoid conflicts between people with skills in the same field. Therefore, a team of entrepreneurs must possess a variety of financial, experiential, mental and emotional resources.
Moreover, the concept of entrepreneurial team is bound to certain limits. Firstly, enterprise teams will not have the same effects in sectors where the individual himself will be much more important, such as the craft sector where the individual does everything himself. Secondly, in small and non-innovative firms, it will be difficult to set up an entrepreneurial team because of the number of employees, but also because it is useless to create one for this kind of company. And finally, to build a business team, team members must have financial interests. However, in non-profit organizations, the goal is not lucrative, that would mean that the concept of entrepreneurial team does not apply for this kind of company?

Further references:
– Mol, E., Khapova, S. N., & Elfring, T. (2015). Entrepreneurial team cognition: A review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17(2), 232-255.

This article first provides a definition of cognition in an entrepreneurial team and then shows how a team with better cognition than another can provide better results.

– Kollmann, T., Stöckmann, C., Meves, Y., & Kensbock, J. M. (2017). When members of entrepreneurial teams differ: Linking diversity in individual-level entrepreneurial orientation to team performance. Small Business Economics, 48(4), 843-859.

This article focuses on the different entrepreneurial ways of acting of the team members and shows that these various methods of action have a significant impact on the team’s performance.

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BROGNION Valentine, LEBFEVRE Mathilde, MARTIN Maurice, SOTTIAUX Alicia, VANDEPUT Virgile

Deschamps, J. P. (2005). Different leadership skills for different innovation strategies. Strategy & Leadership, 33(5), 31-38.

This paper identifies two types of innovation leaders, the front-end and the back-end. The first ones are more curious, they think out-of-the box and they have a certain level of failure and risks tolerance. The seconds are more focus on rigor, discipline in planning and execution. Then, it also presents two types of innovations: the bottom-up innovations (coming from employees…
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This paper identifies two types of innovation leaders, the front-end and the back-end. The first ones are more curious, they think out-of-the box and they have a certain level of failure and risks tolerance. The seconds are more focus on rigor, discipline in planning and execution. Then, it also presents two types of innovations: the bottom-up innovations (coming from employees around organizational culture, taking risks, experimenting, sharing information and learning from failures) and the top-down innovations (when decisions come from the top managers and need to be execute by employees). The last point concerns the differentiation between four innovations dimensions. The totally new product category or service offering requires a strong commitment from the leaders in charge of it, the new/improved customer solution or customer system needs to be coached by a manager with a deep-understanding of the market, with a certain sensitivity and charisma. The totally new business model or system business is a powerful way to enhance a business. It needs a pragmatic architect-type leader. The new/improved product, process or service offering category is the most practiced and is the only one generally proceeded in bottom-up mode. The leader needs to be demanding yet supportive.

We can pull two implications from this paper. The first means the companies need to plan innovation and know exactly the way they are going to innovate (strategy) in order to define what are the best people to drive this innovation. It can be done by developing the human resource system, being able to identify people with the right set of skills that will fit the strategy. Then, innovation has many steps through its whole process and every processes require different sets of skills capabilities from the “leader” of the innovation. That’s why it has to be driven by a dedicated team without hierarchical level.

We outlined some limitations in this paper. To be able to recruit appropriate people to innovate, companies need to identify potential workers having the required skills. Even if some tests such as MBTI or Enneagram exist, it is very hard to have an objective identification of these. Then, we think that firms don’t always require the same type of people even if they follow the same strategy. Depending on the location, industry or size of the company, the skills needed to innovate can be differents. On the one hand the text suggests to have a better balance between top-down and bottom-up innovation, and on the other hand it only outlines one situation out of four where a bottom-up innovation can majoritarly be done. It shows the difficulties to develop these types of innovation even if we hear more and more its importance in this process. Finally, the text teach who are the right people to hire depending on four strategies. However innovation is way broader than this. That’s why to go a bit further it can be interesting to develop other situations and see the type of leaders required to deal with it.

To go further:

Herstad, S. J., Sandven, T., & Ebersberger, B. (2015). Recruitment, knowledge integration and modes of innovation. Research Policy, 44(1), 138-153.

Hotho, S., & Champion, K. (2011). Small businesses in the new creative industries: innovation as a people management challenge. Management Decision, 49(1), 29-54.

Saari, E., Lehtonen, M., & Toivonen, M. (2015). Making bottom-up and top-down processes meet in public innovation. The Service Industries Journal, 35(6), 325-344.

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Students

Bass, B. M. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, 18(3), 19-31.

1. Key insights Many types of leadership behaviours can be observed, 44 according to the text. Among those various types, 2 main traits have come out: organizing work and showing consideration. After a focus is made on two kinds of leaderships. A transactional leader is based on the rewards for the good performance, and efforts done by the employees. However, when employees…
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1. Key insights
Many types of leadership behaviours can be observed, 44 according to the text. Among those various types, 2 main traits have come out: organizing work and showing consideration.
After a focus is made on two kinds of leaderships. A transactional leader is based on the rewards for the good performance, and efforts done by the employees. However, when employees de not achieve the expected goals, the leader will take corrective actions towards the concerned employees. So, the transactional leader operates only when the objectives are not met. This kind of leadership is a passive management and less effective than the transformational leadership.
Due to the bad consequences of this leadership on the organization and the employees, a new model of leadership is born: transformational leadership. These leaders are characterised by three main components. First, a charismatic behaviour that permits leaders to inspire their employees and motivate them. Moreover, employees identifying themselves with a charismatic leader have a high level of trust and respect. Second, they meet the emotional needs of employees and pay close attention to their personality by treating each employee individually. Finally, the leader must stimulate intellectually the employees through trainings to help them resolve problems and find rational solutions.
To conclude, transformational leaders create a better atmosphere and relationships with all people in the organization. Therefore, the employees are more motivated to do some extra effort and make better results in the company.
2. Managerial implications
-Training: Practical training that teaches people how to become transformational leaders.
EX: The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire & Workshops.
Limit: However, the personality of a manager will affect its ability to switch from a transactional leader to a transformational leader. Some might immediately acknowledge their errors in leadership. For others, a workshop might not be enough and these would need more time for it to sink in.
– Give importance, from the beginning, to new recruits: Many managers who were highly rated by their supervisors reported that they had been given challenging assignments by their initial supervisor.
-Managers should generate awareness and acceptance of the purpose and mission of the group. By encouraging employees to look beyond their self-interest. A Dashboard could help with this task.
3. General Limits
– Firms that are functioning in stable markets, with stable workforce and technology can afford to depend on a day-to-day leadership. Also, when there are clear rules and regulations for getting things done, and when they are clearly understood and accepted by the employees, leadership could be eliminated under some circumstances.
– Some people are used to receive very clear and precise indications from their manager about the task they have to do. That’s why, a good leader needs to discover the way each employee prefers to be motivated and adapt his leadership style to every single employee.
4. Others references
1) Smy, V., Shelton, K., Tombs, M. & Patrick, J. (2016). Perceived transformational leadership, instructor behaviors, and motivation to learn: a mediated model. Le travail humain, vol. 79, (2), 169-185. doi:10.3917/th.792.0169.
2) Deluga, R. J. (2010). The Effects of Transformational, Transactional, and Laissez Faire Leadership Characteristics on Subordinate Influencing Behavior. Basic and Applied Social Psychology. Vol. 11, 191-203.
3) Hayes, L. (2015). Transforming transformational leadership. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3sEybeRzZI.

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Nicolas Farmakidis, Samuel Hoarau, Louise Ledent, Loic van Damme

Hill, L. A., Brandeau, G., Truelove, E., & Lineback, K. (2014). Collective genius.

This paper explains that the role of a leader is to create a more innovative organization. An innovative leader needs to create a community inside the company. And for innovation to happen, the community has to be willing and able to innovate over time. The willingness comes from the mix between the purpose of the company, the shared values and…
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This paper explains that the role of a leader is to create a more innovative organization. An innovative leader needs to create a community inside the company. And for innovation to happen, the community has to be willing and able to innovate over time.
The willingness comes from the mix between the purpose of the company, the shared values and the rule of engagement. The purpose will drive the company in the right direction. It is about having a collective identity and what it means for the employees to be part of the company. The values shared by the group will influence its actions and allow the individuals to set priorities and make thoughtful choices. Four main values are embraced by most innovative organizations: bold ambition, responsibility to the community, collaboration and learning. Finally, the rule of engagement will keep all the members focused on what’s imperative and encourage activities that foster innovation. In practice, this is applied through the process to give everyone in the community a voice to influence the decisions and to allow everyone to question everything. These steps in the leadership approach allow to build a community. However, organization willingness is necessary but not sufficient for innovation to happen.
To foster innovation, a community also needs the ability to make it happen. And that ability is composed of a set of 3 specific capabilities: the creative abrasion, the creative agility and the creative resolution. First, the community needs creative abrasion. This means that ideas should be generated through debate thanks to the intellectual diversity and intellectual conflict. Second, the community should encourage creative agility for discovery-driven learning through experimentations and plan-adjustments. Finally, creative resolution is essential to integrate the different ideas in the decision making process.

In other words, the main idea of this paper is that leaders of innovation are creators of a context in which others make innovation happen. They let each individual take the role that put their skills on display and provide them with the experiences and the tools they need to both unleash and harness the individual genius. This hypothesis leads to some interesting managerial implications.
First, special workshops for the community’s individuals can be held in order to enhance their willingness. Indeed, through those workshop, employees will be remembered of the purpose, shared values and engagement rule. But the limit of those workshops is that it might lead to only incremental changes and not radical innovations. Furthermore, if some people have completely opposite positions, it might not lead to a compromise and rather slow down the decision making process.
Second, the leaders must give a higher autonomy to their team in order to enhance these individuals’ creative agility. However, the right balance must be found as too much autonomy might decrease the focus or even lead to products which aren’t answering any customer need.
Finally, leaders might consider to make different teams participate in different stages of a product process. This change in the work of process, by adding more insight views, might increase the product’s acceptance by the consumers. Still, the leaders need to consider the downside of the approach. Indeed, it might slow down the process of decision making and thus slow down the launch of the product. Thus, in rapidly evolving markets were the product launches must be as quick as possible, this is not advised.

— New sources identified–
• This book will give more in-depth information regarding the creative abrasion process, which is one of the tools to create and sustain knowledge flows.
Leonard-Barton, D. (1995). Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation. Havard Business School Press, Boston.
• This article will allow the students to make a link between the shared values, needed to enhance the willingness, and the intellectual diversity, needed to have an effective creative abrasion. Indeed, this study analyses whether or not different personal and contextual characteristics complement each order to enhance innovation.
Miron, E; Erez, M. & Naveh, E. (2004). Do personal characteristics and cultural values that promote innovation, quality, and efficiency compete or complement each other? Journal of organizational behavior, 25(2), 175-199.
• As explained, experimentation enhances innovation as it part of the creative agility process. This book explains that every company’s ability to innovate depends on the possibility to experiment in order to create new or improve existing products and services.
Thomke, S. (2003). Experimentation matters: unlocking the potential of new technologies for innovation. Harvard Business School Press, Boston.

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