Peter R.A. Oeij, Steven Dhondt and Jeff Gaspersz
This paper aims to investigate the principles of high reliability organisations (HROs), present in safety and crisis teams, as applied to innovation teams. Safety and crisis teams…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the principles of high reliability organisations (HROs), present in safety and crisis teams, as applied to innovation teams. Safety and crisis teams cannot fail, as failure leads to disaster and casualties. Innovation teams cannot fail either, as this harms the organisations’ competitiveness and effectiveness. Do HRO principles, rooted in mindful infrastructure, enable innovation resilience behaviour (IRB)?
Design/methodology/approach
A study of 18 innovation projects performed by project teams was carried out. A survey by team members/leaders of these teams was completed; team members/leaders of other projects were added to achieve a larger sample. Mindful infrastructure consists of team psychological safety, team learning, complexity leadership and team voice. The analyses assessed the teams’ mindful infrastructures as a causal condition enabling IRB.
Findings
Applying qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), the findings indicate that mindful infrastructure enables team IRB, which is a set of team behaviours indicating their resilience when encountering critical incidents. Teams apply different “paths” to IRB.
Research limitations/implications
The exploratory study’s generalizability is limited. The findings nonetheless indicate the usefulness of non-linear techniques for understanding different roads to successful innovation processes.
Practical implications
HRO principles are applicable by non-HROs. These require investments in organisational learning.
Originality/value
HRO studies fail to account for the antecedents of HRO principles. This study groups these antecedents of team behaviour into a mindful infrastructure. QCA has not been applied within the domain of HROs before and only scarcely within the domain of innovation teams.
Details
Keywords
Peter R.A. Oeij, Tinka Van Vuuren, Steven Dhondt, Jeff Gaspersz and Ernest M.M. De Vroome
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether insights into high reliability organizations (HROs) are useful for innovation management teams. HRO teams can keep failure to a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether insights into high reliability organizations (HROs) are useful for innovation management teams. HRO teams can keep failure to a minimum level due to high alertness and resilience. Project teams working on innovation management could benefit from HRO principles and thus reduce their chances of failure.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey among in total 260 team members and team leaders of project teams in innovation management was conducted to study the relation between, on the one hand, organizational features of HROs (“mindful infrastructure”) and HRO principles (adjusted as “innovation resilience behaviour”, IRB), and on the other hand, between mindful infrastructure and IRB and project outcomes.
Findings
From the results it could be concluded that mindful infrastructure associates with IRB, and that IRB has a mediating role in the relation between mindful infrastructure and project outcomes. Innovation management project teams can thus learn from the practice of HRO teams.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, HRO-thinking has not been applied to team behaviour in innovation management. A fruitful transfer of insights from the domain of safety and crisis management seems applicable to the domain of innovation.