Barriers to employee-driven innovation – A study of regional medium-sized bakery

: A study of regional medium-sized bakery

: Aaltonen Satu, Hytti Ulla

Publisher: IP Publishing Ltd

: London

: 2014

: International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation

: IJEI

: 15

: 3

: 159

: 168

: 10

: 2043-6882

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5367/ijei.2014.0157

Innovativeness and employee-driven innovations in particular
are important sources of competitiveness for small and medium-sized food
companies. The fierce competition in the food industry is forcing these
companies to increase their operational efficiency in order to compete
with the large companies in the market. This paper investigates barriers to
innovations in the bakery sector through a case study of a growth-oriented
regional bakery. The study contributes to new contextualized knowledge of
employee-driven innovation activity in small food production companies.
It provides a nuanced understanding of how the manufacturing context of
a bakery leads to specific constraints on innovative employee behaviour,
and of how the context and the human, organizational and physical resources
interact with employee-driven innovation activity.
Innovativeness and employee-driven innovations in particular
are important sources of competitiveness for small and medium-sized food
companies. The fierce competition in the food industry is forcing these
companies to increase their operational efficiency in order to compete
with the large companies in the market. This paper investigates barriers to
innovations in the bakery sector through a case study of a growth-oriented
regional bakery. The study contributes to new contextualized knowledge of
employee-driven innovation activity in small food production companies.
It provides a nuanced understanding of how the manufacturing context of
a bakery leads to specific constraints on innovative employee behaviour,
and of how the context and the human, organizational and physical resources
interact with employee-driven innovation activity.