The Front End of Innovation: Organizing Search for Ideas
Jan van den Ende, Lars Frederiksen, Andrea Prencipe · Journal of Product Innovation Management · 2014
deas matter for innovation. Thus, large ?rms—such as Allianz, Ericsson, DHL, GE, and Shell—use idea management programs to fertilize, capture, mature, evaluate, and manage ideas from internal sources to intro- duce innovation (Fairbank and Williams, 2001; Frese, Teng, and Wijnen, 1999; Van Dijk and Van Den Ende, 2002). Senior researchers ensconced in their labs devel- oping new technologies, middle and product managers in production facilities, and employees undertaking administrative tasks—for example, secretarial work or ICT—are but a few examples of actors encouraged to participate in this quest to drive innovation. Firms not only search locally for good ideas, but increasingly they also seek to involve both external expert and hobbyist volunteers in their idea-generation processes, approach- ing them with a variety of tools, such as open calls, challenges, contests, and Internet-enabled communities (Alexy, Criscuolo, and Salter, 2009; Dahlander and Frederiksen, 2012). In today’s competitive environment, idea-generating activities have become increasingly important for the ?rms’ future competitive success.