Title: Fostering innovation in teams: experimental study of the effectiveness of six measures

Authors: Philipp Ter Haar

Addresses: Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Cami de Vera, s/n, 46002 Valencia, Spain; University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, Ulmenliet 20, 21033 Hamburg, Germany

Abstract: Fostering innovativeness in every team of a company is essential to stay competitive today. However, little is known about the real effect of measures to improve a team's innovativeness. The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of such measures to support the human resource development. The study describes the results of a quasi-experiment with teams of a German company. A pretest-posttest control group design was used including the selection of organisational teams and the generation of measuring items and their purification by expert interviews. Findings suggest a statistically significant effect of the measures on innovativeness. The results can be used by HR managers to invest in and select effective measures to improve innovativeness of teams. The results of this quasi-experiment recommend successful measures and provide new perspectives on measuring innovativeness and extends existing frameworks for future investigations.

Keywords: quasi-experiment; innovation measuring; innovativeness; human resource management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2021.116397

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2021 Vol.25 No.3, pp.389 - 407

Received: 29 Oct 2018
Accepted: 06 Jun 2019
Published online: 22 Jul 2021 *

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