Facilitated by Innovating Works at the University of Strathclyde
Title: Fostering Collaboration for Innovation
Date: Wednesday 08 June 2017
Location: MacDonald Holyrood Hotel, 81 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8AU.
Facilitated by Innovating Works at the University of Strathclyde
Title: Fostering Collaboration for Innovation
Date: Wednesday 08 June 2017
Location: MacDonald Holyrood Hotel, 81 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8AU.
Dr Colin Lindsay of the Innovating Works Team at Strathclyde Business School writes about fostering collaboration for innovation, and the latest exciting event in the Scottish Enterprise Workplace Innovation Masterclass Series.
How can Scottish businesses tap the added value of collaboration for innovation both within and beyond their workplaces? That's the key theme for the latest of our Scottish Enterprise Workplace Innovation Masterclasses, which took place in Edinburgh on Thursday 8th June. If you are an HR professional or business leader with an interest in supporting your employees to innovate. The programme for the event can be found here and the presentations can be found here.
There is increasing evidence that fostering the conditions for collaboration is important to driving innovation. Organisations that help their people to define common problems and develop joint solutions are often better able to tap a wider range of ideas and cope with the complexities of a rapidly changing business environment. Researchers have long sought to explore how businesses support 'co-creation' within the workplace and across their networks, because we know that the generation of new solutions is enhanced when different ideas are developed, combined, challenged and built upon. For example, international studies have found a relationship between collaboration within multi-skilled teams - involving continuous reflection and shared learning - and both innovative behaviour and organisational performance. Others have pointed to the crucial role of 'boundary spanning' across organisations and networks - the specific roles and skillsets that help to link different teams, job roles, and components of an organisation's networks.
These issues provide the starting point for our latest Scottish Enterprise Workplace Innovation Masterclass. We will be joined by two innovative business leaders and a leading international business researcher.Robert Carr, a Partner at Anderson Strathern, one of Scotland's leading law firms and current Scottish Legal Employer of the Year, will discuss how our uncertain times challenge businesses to become more connected and build 'adaptive capability'.
Robert Carr, a Partner at Anderson Strathern, one of Scotland's leading law firms and current Scottish Legal Employer of the Year, will discuss how our uncertain times challenge businesses to become more connected and build 'adaptive capability'.
Johanna Pystenen, HR Director at the leading Finnish IT firm, Vincit, will share her experiences of building collaborative teams and empowering employees to innovate - a journey that has led Vincit to be named Best SME Workplace in Europe by Great Place To Work.
Dr David De Geest of Hong Kong Polytechnic University will share his research on what works for companies in promoting 'boundary spanning' for creativity and innovation.