IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/ijimxx/v14y2010i06ns1363919610003033.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Personal Characteristics Of Innovators — An Empirical Study Of Roles In Innovation Management

Author

Listed:
  • MARTINA N. MANSFELD

    (Robert Bosch GmbH, Corporate Organizational, Development and Efficient Processes (C/HDO), Borsigstr. 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany)

  • KATHARINA HÖLZLE

    (Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

  • HANS GEORG GEMÜNDEN

    (Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

First and foremost, innovation is driven by people. These people have specific personal characteristics and fulfil designated roles in innovation management. We have conducted an empirical study among 190 employees in R&D departments of mature international firms from four different countries (Germany, U.S.A., Great Britain and Switzerland) currently working on innovation projects. Using multivariate analyses, we could identify personal characteristics associated with different roles people can take over the course of an innovation project. These roles are called expert, power, process or relationship promotor as well as champion. The identified personal characteristics exhibit a distinctive pattern in their combined occurrence for each role. Our results show a detailed picture of specific personal characteristics of individuals, so called innovators, necessary for successful innovation. Based on these findings, we derive recommendations for a targeted human resource acquisition and a better selection of employees for successful innovation teams.

Suggested Citation

  • Martina N. Mansfeld & Katharina Hölzle & Hans Georg Gemünden, 2010. "Personal Characteristics Of Innovators — An Empirical Study Of Roles In Innovation Management," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(06), pages 1129-1147.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:ijimxx:v:14:y:2010:i:06:n:s1363919610003033
    DOI: 10.1142/S1363919610003033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919610003033
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S1363919610003033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lashitew, Addisu A., 2023. "When businesses go digital: The role of CEO attributes in technology adoption and utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    2. Mohamed Zain & Norizan Kassim & Nasser Kadasah, 2017. "Isn’T It Now A Crucial Time For Saudi Arabian Firms To Be More Innovative And Competitive?," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(03), pages 1-22, April.
    3. Maximilian A. Maier & Alexander Brem, 2018. "What innovation managers really do: a multiple-case investigation into the informal role profiles of innovation managers," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1055-1080, October.
    4. de Jong, Jeroen P.J. & Rigtering, Coen & Spaans, Lara, 2023. "Heroes of diffusion: Making user innovations widely available," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(8).
    5. Fernandez-Vidal, Jorge & Antonio Perotti, Francesco & Gonzalez, Reyes & Gasco, Jose, 2022. "Managing digital transformation: The view from the top," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 29-41.
    6. Culasso, Francesca & Gavurova, Beata & Crocco, Edoardo & Giacosa, Elisa, 2023. "Empirical identification of the chief digital officer role: A latent Dirichlet allocation approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    7. Lotta Hassi & Satu Rekonen, 2018. "How Individual Characteristics Promote Experimentation In Innovation," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(04), pages 1-30, May.
    8. Andreas Braun & Laura Bockelmann, 2016. "An Individual Perspective On Open Innovation Capabilities In The Context Of Haute Cuisine," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(01), pages 1-24, January.
    9. Maximilian A. Maier & Peter Rück & Alexander Brem, 2017. "How to Integrate Suppliers into the Innovation Process? An Explorative Case of Champion Formalization in the Purchasing Department in Times of Open Innovation," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(06), pages 1-17, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:ijimxx:v:14:y:2010:i:06:n:s1363919610003033. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/ijim/ijim.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.