Theoretical background: Internal Innovation Contests and the work environment

Abstract

In the introduction, the positioning of the innovation approach that is investigated in this thesis has been clarified as follows: “Innovation Contests are considered as a modern innovation technique that requires a tailored, broad-oriented organizational support for opening the innovation process within firm boundaries, therefore establishing both a firm internal social media platform and virtual community for consolidating innovation efforts” (Section 1.4, “A content-related positioning and delimitation”). Accordingly, this chapter (“Theoretical Background”) first depicts the meaning of intra-organizational innovation (section 2.1.1), the opportunities for support of intra-organizational innovation through the use of information and communication technologies (section 2.1.2) and the state of the art in research on the emerging topic of Innovation Contests (section 2.1.3).