Open-I: How to motivate employees to participate in open innovation projects

Head of the project:

Dipl.-Psych. Anja Schiepe, Dipl.-Psych. Kaspar Schattke, Prof. Dr. Hugo M. Kehr

Project collaborators:

Dipl.-Kfm. Jörg Seeliger

Description of the project:

The general aim of the Open-I research project is to find out what encourages or discourages employees to initiate open innovation projects and how to foster their participation in such projects, particularly in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Open innovation means to identify, develop, spread and exploit radical innovations outside R&D departments, integrating different teams, divisions and departments within the companies.

To facilitate the participation of all company employees in open innovation, the Open-I team will design, develop and evaluate a social software tool, which can be implemented in large companies, as well as in SMBs. In this context, our project team is particularly interested in the motivational aspects of the software tool.

We will focus on three aspects. Firstly, we will examine how the task itself can enhance motivation, by focusing on flow experience as a special case of intrinsic motivation. Secondly, we will observe the effects of the corporate vision and the social software design on motivation. Finally, we will examine employee’s affective and cognitive preferences as well as their perceived abilities while using the social software tools.

The results of this project will be used to directly evaluate and improve the developed social software tools.

Promoted by:

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)