Reinventing people management: a multiple case study on how organizations facilitate the adoption of management innovations

Abstract

Digitalization and developments in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are radically changing societies and work. While these current and upcoming changes hold great promise for the future, they are also challenging organizations in many ways, especially in regards to people management: As work becomes less bound to time, place, and long employment relationships, innovative management practices are necessary for maintaining competitiveness.

Although management innovation has increasingly gained attention among management researchers, a deeper understanding of their development and adoption in organizations is needed. Being potentially one of the most important sources of competitive advantage in today’s quickly changing environment, this study thus investigates the adoption of management innovations in organizations. My objective is to identify what factors influence the adoption of management innovations and how organizations actively facilitate the diffusion process and consequent adoption. The empirical part of this study was carried out as a qualitative, multiple-case study, and includes eight different cases: City of Vantaa, Debora, Fondia, Fonecta, Gofore, Heltti, Telia, and Vincit. I collected the data from both primary and secondary sources, using semi-structured interviews and documentation. The data was collected in connection to a project, which I conducted for HENRY ry’s Työn Tuuli –magazine during spring 2017.

The main findings of this study are two-fold. Firstly, the success and efficiency of management innovation adoption is influenced by two sets of factors; the existing organizational system and intra-organizational social capital both have an impact on organization’s readiness for change. While dissatisfaction with status quo increases employees’ willingness to adopt a new practice, low hierarchy, and strong interaction ties, shared cognition, and trust increase the capabilities to adopt management innovations and cope with the consequent change. However, the influence of these factors does not determine the success of the process if managers actively engage in behaviors that help to manage the factors’ impact. Especially employee involvement, active support, communication, and dialogue are effective ways of mitigating the negative influence and enforcing the positive impact of the factors. Furthermore, diverse use of digitalization and recruitment are crucial for long-term sustainment of the practices and also supporting the positive influence of the factors and facilitation activities.