Practice-to-Research: Translating Company Phenomena into Empirical Research

Doing relevant and rigorous research often leads to a research-to-practice and practice-to-research gap, which both involved parties need to actively address and bridge. All parties involved face the challenges presented in the steps of identifying practice- and science-relevant research questions. This begins with the translation of these questions into a practice-feasible, but also empirically-based, research design and is followed by the retranslation of observations into scientific language to assess and interpret the observed phenomena. In this chapter, we report on our research approach to move from innovation practitioners’ narratives to a quantitative study design. We translate what we have learned from employees about innovation activities, behaviors, and structures, into a study design to measure employees’ innovative behaviors overall in a large quantitative study. The resulting empirical study assesses the link between employees’ Job Insecurity and Innovation Behavior as well as three assumed moderating effects (Organizational Support, Participative Decision-Making, Job Autonomy).