InnoTracing: capturing the messiness of innovation and leadership (2013-2015)

Researchers: Dr. Ian Sutherland  (IEDC-Bled School of Management, Postgraduate Studies, Principal Research  Investigator), Dr. Birgit Penzenstadler (University of California Irvine USA  and Institut für Informatik, Germany), Dr. Hans Lundberg (School of Business  and Economics Linnaeus University, Sweden), Dr. Hagen Habicht (HHL Leipzig  Graduate School of Management, Germany), Mr. Paul Blažek (CyLEDGE, Austria), Funded  by the Peter Pribillla Foundation

Project focused on the complex, non-linear, recursive, unpredictable and largely tacit phenomena of leadership, creativity and innovation in the moment.

Despite decades of study, theorization and modelling, the moment-to-moment unfolding of these processes, the micro-heart of leadership, creativity and innovation, remains an unexplored black box. The “moments of significance” (MOS) – those turning and tipping points crucial to outcomes where leadership and innovation bloom or fade – remain to researchers and practitioners, invisible despite our sensing of their presence. The objective of the project InnoTracing was to develop a user-configurable software tool (InnoTrace) and a portfolio of new social science methodologies (InnoTracing) to make invisible MOS visible. The tool InnoTrace affords participants the ability to capture their individual perceptions of MOS through photograph, video, text and sound documentation options. Furthermore, the method InnoTracing makes this form of process analysis available for further use through sound methodological grounding in empirical social sciences.

The overall aim was to empower participants and researchers of leadership and innovation processes to contribute and learn from their perceptions of leadership and innovation from moment-to-moment.

Main research outputs:
Lundberg, H. Sutherland, I. Blažek, P., Penzenstadler, B. Habicht, H. (2015). The emergence of creativity, innovation and leadership in microlevel social interactions and how to research it. International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 5(4). 221-232.

Sutherland, I. Blažek, P., Penzenstadler, B., Lundberg, H., Habicht, H. (2014). InnoTracing: A framework to investigate the moment-to-moment unfolding of leadership, creativity and innovation. In Brunoe, T.D., Nielsen, K., Joergensen, K.A. & Taops, S.B. (Eds). Proceedings of the 7th World Conference on Mass Customization, Personalization and Co-Creation. Heidelberg: Springer. 275-285.

Accreditations of the School