Search, Discovery and Organizational Innovation

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

This project proposes a study of how firms search for and discover opportunities to innovate. More specifically, the researchers seek to understand the role of employee motivation in this process. Building on behavioral research on individual-level innovativeness and search research on organizational-level innovation, they ask how intrinsically-motivated employees search for innovations, and how their process differs from that of extrinsically-motivated employees. The project will also examine whether differences in motivation can explain the occurrence of more radical innovations. Three topics are to be examined: 1. What are the characteristics and phases of the search and discovery process? 2. How and in what ways is motivation linked to the search and discovery process? 3. Can the search and discovery process be outsourced? Two detailed case studies, a field study and laboratory studies will be utilized to obtain important new multilevel, real-world evidence of the search and discovery process, in contrast to much past individual-level work on innovation which has been based primarily on laboratory studies. These extensions of existing theory will help to establish the role of individual and firm determinants of search and their interdependencies. This is the first study that examines individual search processes related to intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and resultant radicality of innovation. The study will also extend inquiry beyond problem-solving to other significant, but less-researched phases of the innovation search process, and provide evidence for how to select for and motivate people in teams that target different types of innovations.