Grassroots innovation
Grassroots Innovation is the voluntary generation and development of innovations by any member of an organization, regardless of function or seniority.[1]
It is considered a form of bottom-up innovation (see Top-down and bottom-up design), whereby innovation resides 'deep in the bowels' of an organization,[2] i.e., it is seen as a responsibility of all members of an organization.
Advantages[edit]
Grassroots innovation offers several benefits to companies:[3]
- Caters to employees' need for self-determination, boosting their intrinsic motivation
- Leverages the creativity of employees that would otherwise not contribute to innovation efforts
- Helps employees learn how to generate, mature and implement innovation ideas
- Stimulates networking and connections among employees who may not often work together
- Leverages cross-functional synergies and frontline knowledge to generate more customer-centric innovations
Risks[edit]
Grassroots innovation is, however, associated with two important risks:
- Higher autonomy means employees may drift from firm-wide goals
- High coordination costs, which means that without a careful process design, companies may become disappointed with the results[4]
- Hard to keep all ideators motivated and properly incentivized[5]
Other uses of the term[edit]
Researchers in the fields of sustainability and technology have used the term grassroots innovation to refer to "a network of activists and organizations generating novel bottom-up solutions for sustainable development and sustainable consumption; solutions that respond to the local situation and the interests and values of the communities involved",[6] or as innovations generated by economically disadvantaged people who find practical and creative solutions for the needs of people at the bottom of the pyramid.[7] These definitions are logically consistent with the definition above but refer to the society or community as the macro-unit of analysis, rather than a firm or organization. As such, they are a direct manifestation of the broader concept of grassroots movements in society.
References[edit]
- ^ Stremersch, Stefan; Camacho, Nuno; Keko, Elio; Wuyts, Stefan (2022). "Grassroots innovation success: The role of self-determination and leadership style". International Journal of Research in Marketing. 39 (2): 396–414. doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2021.10.003.
- ^ Tellis, Gerard (2013). Unrelenting Innovation: How to Create a Culture for Market Dominance. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-35240-3.
- ^ Stremersch et al. (2022), idem.
- ^ Birkinshaw, Julian; Bouqeut, Cyril; Barsoux, J.-L. (2010). "The 5 myths of innovation". MIT Sloan Management Review. 52: 42–50.
- ^ Baumann, Oliver; Stieglitz, Nils (2014). "Rewarding value-creating ideas in organizations: The power of low-powered incentives". Strategic Management Journal. 35 (3): 358–375. doi:10.1002/smj.2093.
- ^ Hossain, Mokter (2018). "Grassroots innovation: The state of the art and future perspectives" (PDF). Technology in Society. 39: 63–69. doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2018.06.008. S2CID 149887759.
- ^ Gupta, Shaphali (2020). "Understanding the feasibility and value of grassroots innovation". Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 48 (5): 941–965. doi:10.1007/s11747-019-00639-9. S2CID 255384933.