THE IMPACT OF TEAM GOAL ORIENTATION IN THE FUZZY FRONT END OF THE INNOVATION PROCESS

Peter Robbins, Colm O’gorman and Anne Sigismund Huff
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Peter Robbins: Irish Institute of Digital Business, Ireland†Dublin City University, Ireland
Colm O’gorman: #x2020;Dublin City University, Ireland
Anne Sigismund Huff: #x2020;Dublin City University, Ireland

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2021, vol. 25, issue 06, 1-30

Abstract: Many organisations face intense pressure to produce radical innovations. Consequently, innovation researchers have highlighted the need for incubating dedicated radical innovation capabilities. R&D teams are especially pivotal in generating these radical, highly-novel, original ideas at the front end of innovation (FEI). But such efforts end more often in failure than success. Organisational learning theorists have begun to draw on Goal Orientation theory as a motivational driver that might boost the success rate of teams working on such radical innovation projects. But, as yet, no fieldwork has been conducted on R&D teams to explore this promising theoretical model. In this paper, we use a case study of a corporate experiment comprising two innovation teams to investigate how situationally induced goal orientation in R&D teams might impact the radicality of innovation ideas. We find that a shared team Learning Goal orientation is associated with radical innovation and that a shared team Performance Goal orientation is associated with incremental innovation. This paper provides field-based evidence of the role of shared team goal orientation on FEI ideation outcomes. An implication of our findings for R&D managers faced with the difficulties of generating radical innovations from internal teams is that more attention should be paid to the situational cues that impact team FEI efforts, and in particular, a team’s goal orientation.

Keywords: Fuzzy front end of innovation (FEI); radical innovation; corporate R&D teams; learning goal orientation; performance goal orientation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1142/S1363919621500717

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