Case E

Case E is successfully implemented and will be discussed from the perspective of the support structure’s team member. An interview with the support team member as well as a Lego Serious Play with the idea owner, support team member and business owner were conducted.

4.2.5.1 Findings

A front-line employee who worked for the company wanted a product on a new device for the daily work and discovered that this would be also a business for the company.

The employee did an early prototype, developed the functionality and tested the device with colleagues. Six months later, a demonstrator was ready, developed by the front-line employee him-/herself.

The support structure arranged the possibility to pitch the idea to the top manage-ment, but it did not get accepted. The momentum was not there. But then, one month

later, a competitor entered the market with a similar product, and then the interest within the company was raised. The member of the support structure took over and began to champion the idea, but re-packaged it: from a product innovation towards a process innovation (to be able to develop the product in the same time as the competi-tor did). A similar product was available in the company on another platform, therefore a sales channel already existed. However, doubts from marketing whether the team can develop the product within the short period of time made it impossible to utilize the channel.

Re-packaging of the idea was a crucial activity to gain a sponsor: the sponsor was more interested whether the company can make it to develop the product within the short time rather than the result. Customers asked for the product, however sales did not collaborate with the team until the feasibility of the innovation was proven.

The support structure member stayed with the innovation, even another person (from the sponsor’s department) got to be the business owner. The business side was not very emphasized and included only expected costs and returns. The main selling argument was emotional: to be able to work as fast as the competitor.

Burgelman’s (1980) process and activities can be also found in this project. The activ-ities of technical and need linking have been conducted (although late in the process) and product championing played a strong role. Important to note is that a fit to the fabric of the corporation was deliberately neglected, questioning the structural con-text and engaging in strategic behaviour. Bridging has been conducted to talk to as many people as possible to find a sponsor. Buffering has been conducted in the late stage of the concept, as with increasing popularity of the product other organisation members wanted to include other functions.

4.2.5.2 Analysis

Due to the lack of momentum, and the stop after the initial development as well as a longer championing phase, the process can be characterised as time-based pacing pro-cess (Liao et al. 2005). Emotions were important as the packaging of the idea decided over its success: by referring to the competitor, a feeling of competition was estab-lished.

There were three milestones: the first idea and prototype, to make the business tan-gible for others (Carter et al. 1996), the re-packaging of the idea to add an emotional

component and sell it to the right people through the network.

Due to the involvement of the support structure, the team was extremely well net-worked and was able to include the top management as well as marketing and sales.

But even with such a good network, and customers asking for the product, it was hard to convince the sales department to work together. The team consisted of business people and a user (the initial idea owner) and was confident to be able to succeed, and the sponsor focused on capability building (Keil et al. 2009) rather than the final product. Activities related to business development were conducted towards the project phase in order to implement the idea, while opportunity recognition and definition were conducted from the idea towards the concept.

Concerning Research Question 2, the case followed Burgelman (1980). From all the cases, it was the most predictive: the goal was defined, and activities were undertaken to reach the goal. However, the starting points were the means of the front-line employee and the team engaged in a very creative way of working, using design thinking (Brown 2008), and emphasized speed in the implementation phase.

Concerning Research Question 3, the support structure was actively involved in the innovation. Due to the active role of the support structure, networking, organising the stage for decision-making (such as the top management presentation) and methods, information and contacts were available. The idea was successfully implemented.

besides the Cases, ten interviews have been conducted, both formal and informal with persons involved in the innovation process. The interviews covered the innova-tive environment of the corporation, the role of the support structure, activities and the process of internal corporate venturing.

Valuable information was given by members of the support structure. An executive expert experienced in innovating within the corporate environment was interviewed multiple times. Further, other corporate entrepreneurs were interviewed. Findings from the case studies were included in the interviews and triangulated by these means.

Moreover, three co-creation Lego Serious Play workshops were conducted with members of the support structure (expert workshop with five participants) and two workshops with one member of the support structure and corporate entrepreneurs from the case studies. Further, the executive expert mentioned above participated.

The first workshop with corporate entrepreneurs had three participants. The second workshop had six participants.

Before the final workshop concept was decided, a pilot workshop with students was conducted. In the workshops, the overall innovation process in the case company, obstacles, success factors and stakeholders as well as characteristics of the innovation process were included. The groups mapped the innovation process from their perspec-tive, engaging in discussions and building a shared understanding of the process.

Further, scenarios based on the research findings were elaborated during the work-shops and thus the findings were triangulated.

The findings can be categorised in general findings, activities, support structure and channels for innovation, idea sources and the role of the corporate entrepreneur and process characteristics. All findings presented below have been triangulated and reflect the opinion of at least two persons involved in the process, collected through various means.

Although the categories are related to the research questions, they are not limited to them in order to be able to present crucial insights that will be applied to the research questions in Chapter 5.