Managing internal ideation : A Case study at Bengt Dahlgren Stockholm AB

Sammanfattning: Internal ideation refers to getting the employees of a company to generate ideas for improvements and business development. Innovative companies have been working to capture their employees' creativity when it comes to innovation. In many cases, a company that is considered innovative depends on the employee's drive to continually improve and expand the company's offering. How to succeed in motivating and engaging employees at the company to create internal ideation proves to be difficult to tell. At the same time, what factors influence internal ideation and are their inter-relationships between the factors and their influence on the ideation. This study aims to answer these questions. This study consists of both qualitative and quantitative studies. A review of previous literature and six external interviews were conducted to identify the factors that influence internal ideation. The external interviews targeted companies that design idea management systems and companies that work with them. A case study was conducted at Bengt Dahlgren to understand how the various factors influence to ideation performance. The case study was performed through interviews and a survey. This study resulted in a framework describing factors influencing internal idea generation and their inter-relationships. The most important factors for internal idea generation were: Clear Vision, Resources, Responsibility, Access to Information, Communication, Interaction Arena, Culture, and Motivation. A regression analysis revealed the inter-relationships between these factors and their impact on various innovation performances. The investigation included three variables for innovation performance, the company's culture, the employees' ideation effort, and the quantity of ideas submitted. In this study, a recommendation was made for Bengt Dahlgren to utilize the factors to increase their internal idea generation.