Actions driving and legitimizing radical innovations in a large firm

Johansson Magnus (1) , Rani Jeanne Dang (2) , Rick Middel (3)

1 Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Université de Gothenburg, Suède
2 GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion
3 Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Université de Gothenburg, Suède

In a longitudinal real time case study over 14 months, we follow the process of radical innovation in an incumbent Swedish firm. Applying institutional theory and the concept of legitimacy, we try to shed new light on the firm process of developing and implementing radical ideas. We deconstruct the black box of individual actions undertaken in the process and trace the effect of these actions on the development and legitimacy for the radical idea. We find that when an idea lack top management support and the process of innovation are interrupted, lower level employees' action can have a defining impact of the survival. In the literature there is a perceived need for a consistent view on how to organize the bottom up processes of innovation within a firm. Emerging from the qualitative grounded analysis we thus formalize these actions undertaken in a radical innovation process.

Mots clés: Legitimacy; Radical Innovation; Actions

Domaines: Gestion et management

Johansson Magnus, Rani Jeanne Dang, Rick Middel. Actions driving and legitimizing radical innovations in a large firm. The Conference for Organisational Learning, Knowledge and Capabilities (OLKC), Apr 2012, Valencia, Spain. pp.3. ⟨halshs-00727515⟩