Innovation incentive schemes to drive successful R&D projects in a corporate environment : the case of a metal refining industry

Abstract

In today´s industrial landscape, in order to experience significant corporate innovation, companies must be oriented to redefine their innovation efforts, rooting in innovative behavior among their workforce. The innovation process is the starting point, which must incorporate effective reward systems, from idea generation to market launch in order to accomplish such desired productivity growth and innovativeness. This thesis work examines the most prominent incentive schemes and motivational strategies currently used in research-intensive industries with an eye towards how they could be implemented to a Finnish front runner technology provider from the metal and mining sector. Through an internet questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, it has been identified the practicalities of incorporating those innovation rewards into the company´s innovation process and their effective arrangement across three motivational dimensions in a novel way for the current literature. The results offer the company new perspectives on the potential course of action to follow to improve its innovation process and restructure its reward programs in order to drive successful R&D projects. The innovation rewards that have been found unfeasible to incorporate in the context of the firm are portrayed in a suggestion model, which highlights the innovation challenges that similar technology providers must address in order to reap the organizational benefits of these reward systems. The study concludes by providing a framework proposal, an emergent grounded theory, that describes how to leverage corporate innovation strategies for a more effective R&D project execution in technology driven industries whose innovation activities primarily generates profits over the long term.