The routinization of innovation research: a constructively critical review of the state‐of‐the‐science

TLDR

Facilitators of innovation at individual, group, and organizational levels have been reliably identified and validated process models of innovation have been developed. The authors propose five innovative pathways for future work: treating innovation as an independent variable, studying it across cultures, within a multi‑level framework, and applying meta‑analysis and triangulation. They illustrate this by proposing a distress‑related innovation model linking negatively connotated variables to innovation across individual, group, and organizational levels. Their content analysis of research from 1997–2002 reveals a routinization of innovation research, dominated by replication‑extension, cross‑sectional designs, and single‑level analysis. © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Abstract In this review we argue that facilitators of innovation at the individual, group, and organizational levels have been reliably identified, and that validated process models of innovation have been developed. However, a content analysis of selected research published between 1997 and 2002 suggests a routinization of innovation research, with a heavy focus on replication–extension, cross‐sectional designs, and a single level of analysis. We discuss five innovative pathways for future work: Study innovation as an independent variable, across cultures, within a multi‐level framework, and use meta‐analysis and triangulation. To illustrate we propose a ‘distress‐related innovation’ model of the relations between negatively connotated variables and innovation at the individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.