Projet ANR KINETIC (2012-2015)

Innovate under constraint: a study of the trajectory of innovation projects We study project teams, and aim at finding what drive their capacity to develop radical innovation in conditions of extremely tight resources and time. We combine real-world data from big companies (case studies) with data collected from quasi-experiment designs. Improve our understanding of how project teams develop radical innovations under time and resources pressure Innovation is crucial to both national and firm-level competitiveness. Prior research shows that any innovation team faces contradictory forces: "centrifugal" forces (those that drive the team to constantly search for new ideas and knowledge, at the risk of drifting and losing touch with the constraints and goals of the project) and "centripetal" forces (those that create cohesion and shared vision within the team, at the risk of fall short in terms of generating new ideas). The objective of the KINETIC project is to identify the leadership and organizational arrangements that facilitate such a balance and thereby permit radical innovation under time constraint. Combining the observation of "real-world" projects in companies (case studies, qualitative) with the analysis of projects in a controlled environment (quasi-experiment design, quantitative) • In-depth case studies of innovation projects in 2 big consumer-goods companies and 2 medium-size consulting companies. Qualitative analysis. Particular attention is paid to the « trajectories » of these projects (changes in objectives, team recompositions, identification of new sources of information, etc.) • Quasi-experiment design emulating real new product development projects with about 800 students located in 4 universities. Quantitative analysis (in particular social network analysis). We analyze more particularly interpersonal relationships (communication, trust, share cognition, conflicts, etc.), how they evolve over time and how they impact performance.