Idea Management in Practice- An Investigation of Idea Management Challenges in Manufacturing SME

Sammanfattning: The image of employees as an internal source of knowledge has grown as a result of the increasingly competitive business climate. An increased interest in employee ideas has led to more small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)engaging in idea management to promote innovation. Despite extensive research, many SMEs still struggle to structure and manage idea management in a successful way. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to identify which challenges cause this struggle and to propose recommendations on how these can be solved. With access to employees at all levels of a manufacturing SME, a total of 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed to understand prevailing circumstances. The result shows the main challenges inidea management for manufacturing SMEs, which involve organizational factors, undeveloped processes, and the inability to communicate. The findings indicate and present three different recommendations to overcome the identified challenges to improve idea management and promote innovation. Itis recommended that manufacturing SMEs takes these challenges and recommendations in consideration to foster idea management.