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Early-Career Engineers’ Perceptions of Support for Innovation at the Workplace - What Seems to Matter

Part of: Human Behaviour in Design and Design Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Patrick Simon ,
Tua A. Björklund  and
Sheri Sheppard
Patrick Simon
Affiliation:
School of Management, Technical University of Munich;
Tua A. Björklund*
Affiliation:
Design Factory, School of Engineering, Aalto University;
Sheri Sheppard
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, Stanford University
*
Contact: Björklund, Tua A., Aalto University, Design Factory, Finland, tua.bjorklund@aalto.fi

Abstract

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Previous research has shown the importance of contextual factors for increasing employee innovativeness, but to effectively support innovative behavior, we need to also understand what forms of support are perceived as meaningful by the employees themselves. The current study investigated the experiences of 35 early-career engineers in creating, championing and implementing new ideas at the workplace. They reported relatively few instances of support that had been experienced as helpful, and nearly all of these were related to either managerial or co-worker support. This support ranged from encouragement and positive feedback to tangible help in troubleshooting and finding resources, and, in the case of managers, providing sufficient autonomy and responsibility to enable the interviewees to pursue their ideas. Managerial support was most frequently reported by those working in self-described innovative positions, whereas co-worker support was more commonly reported by those working in self- described innovative environments. Formal processes and incentives were less likely to have been perceived as helpful than informal interactions with managers and co-workers.

Keywords

InnovationSupportProject managementColleaguesTraining
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 2019 , pp. 1753 - 1762
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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