Lecture for NOVA University of Lisbon (31 October 2022)

1. Workplace innovation: Theory, research and
practice
Guest lecture for course “Masters in Digital Society”
NOVA University of Lisbon; NOVA School of Science and Technology | FCT NOVA
31 October 2022
Dr Peter Oeij / TNO, Netherlands, project manager BEYOND4.0
This project has
received funding
from the European
Union’s Horizon
2020 research and
innovation
programme under
grant agreement
No 822293.

2. Content of my lecture
- Who is Peter Oeij?
- First part:
- -what is workplace innovation
- Second part:
- -examples of research
- Third part:
- -developing and implementing workplace innovation ‘interventions’
- -role of digitalisation

3. 1. Who is Peter Oeij
-senior research scientist / consultant / project manager at TNO, Leiden
-project manager of BEYOND4.0 (www.beyond4-0.eu)
-historian/sociologist/psychologist
-Erasmus University / Open University of The Netherlands
-link to ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Oeij

4. - First part:
-what is workplace innovation?
-examples of research
- Literature:
- Putnik, K., Oeij, P., van der Torre, W., de Vroome, E. & Dhondt, S. (2019). Innovation adoption of employees in
logistics: Individual and organisational factors related to the actual use of innovation. International Journal of
Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, 16(3), 251-267.
- Putnik, K., Oeij, P., Dhondt, S., Van der Torre, W., De Vroome, E. and Preenen, P. (2019). Innovation adoption of
employees in the logistics sector in the Netherlands: The role of workplace innovation. European Journal of
Workplace Innovation, special issue ‘Socio-Technical Systems theory (STS) in manufacturing’, 2019, 4(2), 176-192.
- Oeij, P., Dhondt, S., Žiauberytė-Jakštienė, R., Corral, A., & Totterdill, P. (2016). Implementing Workplace
Innovation across Europe: why, how and what? Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast, 5(47), 195-
218.
- Oeij, P. R.A., Rus, D. and Pot F.D. (eds) (2017). Workplace Innovation: Theory, Research and Practice, Series
'Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being’. Springer: Cham (Switzerland); DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-
56333-6; ISBN 978-3-319-56332-9. [esp. Ch 5 on theory and Ch 10 on evidence]
- Oeij, P.R.A., Preenen, T.Y.P. & Dhondt, S. (2021). Workplace innovation as a process: Examples from Europe. In:
Adela McMurray, Nuttawuth Muenjohn & Chamindika Weerakoon (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace
Innovation across Developed and Developing Countries (pp. 199-221). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Oeij, P.R.A., Dhondt, S. & McMurray, A. (December 2021). Workplace innovation literature review: a converging
or diverging research field? A preparatory study for a research agenda. (TNO Report R12732). Leiden, the
Netherlands: TNO Healthy Living. https://ap.lc/LZHDo [free download]

5. 1. What is workplace innovation?

6. WPI = vision
based on a
conviction
Humanistic view
on labour,
management
and organisation
Employee
engagement
and employee
involvement
Not top
down but
bottom up
Workplace innovation = WPI
Decentralis-
ation not
centralisation
Social
dialogue
Modern manager
Minimal
division of
labour; ‘rich
jobs’

7. Managers understand they
need a integral / holistic
view on their organisation
Structure follows strategy,
And
Culture follows structure
[after Alfred Chandler, 1962]
structure
culture
strategy
Modern manager

8. 8
structure culture
strategy
Humanistic management
‘philosophy’:
Decentralise as much as
possible
Production system:
No unneeded division of
labour;
No unneeded bureaucracy;
No unneeded separation of
management tasks from
operations
Secure autonomy
in design of:
Departments; teams; jobs &
tasks
HR system:
Nurtures commitment
Type of leadership:
People centred
&
Bottom up
Organisational behaviour:
High employee involvement
& engagement
Outcome:
Good quality of working life
Good quality of organisational performance
More innovative capability
…structure follows strategy, culture follows structure…
Modern manager

9. Definition workplace innovation
(Oeij & Dhondt, 2017, p.66 in Oeij, Rus & Pot, eds.)

10. Examples workplace innovation (1)
(Oeij et al., 2015)

11. Examples workplace innovation (2)
(Oeij et al., 2015)

12. What to remind about workplace innovation
(Oeij, Dhondt, Pot & Totterdill, 2018, p. 55)
WPI: affects structure of
organisational design (root
causes)
WPI: background in modern
sociotechnics (prof. De Sitter)
Employee engagement can only
be realised when structural
conditions for good quality of
work are met (culture alone is
not enough)
Therefore WPI ≠ ‘just HR
measures’ (symptomatic
solutions)

13. Part 2
Two research examples of workplace innovation
A case study
about 51
companies
in EU
A survey of
managers in
logistics
Oeij et al, 2016, Implementing Workplace
Innovation across Europe: why, how and
what? Economic and Social Changes:
Facts, Trends, Forecast, 5(47), 195-218.

14. Which factors play an important role for
successful workplace innovation?
“Workplace innovation in European companies”, 2015
See the project:
-51 companies in 10 EU
member states [NL, GE,
UK, IE, LT, SP, GR, PL, BG,
DK]
-5 combinations of 7
variables lead to
‘substantial WPI’
-these can be seen as
strategies to improve
performance / quality of
work

15. Workplace Innovation Cases: 1,2,3,4…….. 51
Succesful
workplace
innovation
(substantial WPI)
Variable 1
Variable 2
Variable 3
Variable 4
Variable 5
Variable 6
Variable 7
Which combinations of ‘condition variables’ (‘configuration’)
will explain successful workplace innovation (‘outcome’)?
Applied technique: Qualitative Comparative Analysis

16. Factors that play an important role for successful
workplace innovation (Oeij ea, 2015, p. 31; Howald & Oeij, 2016, pp.5-6)
“Workplace innovation in European companies”, 2015
See the project:
-5 paths (strategies) out
of 128 remain
empirically valid
-there is not ‘one way’,
yet, at the same time
‘not anything goes’
-most succesful WPI
companies combine
structural and cultural
aspects [remember the examples]
-for practical advise it
means that companies
can choose from
several options

17. Factors that play an important role for successful
workplace innovation (Oeij ea, 2015, p. 31; Howald & Oeij, 2016, pp.5-6)
• Companies can choose their own fitting practices / solutions
• The division labour is either clear or very limited
• Employees behave innovative: they have an active role
• Employees have job autononomy and a participative role
• Companies can decide about their organisational model
• The initiators are sometimes bottom-up or top-down; and
sometimes driven by people motives or market motives
• The proces of implementation is sometimes participatory and
supported by employees and sometimes it is not
“Workplace innovation in European companies”, 2015
See the project:

18. Factors that play an important role for successful
workplace innovation (Oeij ea, 2015, p. 31; Howald & Oeij, 2016, pp.5-6)
• Companies can choose their own fitting practices / solutions
• The division labour is either clear or very limited
• Employees behave innovative: they have an active role
• Employees have job autononomy and a participative role
• Companies can decide about their organisational model
• The initiators are sometimes bottom-up or top-down; and
sometimes driven by people motives or market motives
• The proces of implementation is sometimes participatory and
supported by employees and sometimes it is not
“Workplace innovation in European companies”, 2015
Substantiaal
WPI (High
level of WPI-
mindedness)
See the project:

19. Next example…a survey study in logistics

20. Factors that play an important role in the adoption
of innovation by employees in logistics (Putnik ea, 2019)
-survey 110 managers in logistics
-combination of theory of planned
behaviour, technology acceptance
theory, workplace innovation
concept
-WPI = Job autonomy, team voice,
involvement in decisions

21. Factors that play an important role in the adoption
of innovation by employees in logistics (Putnik ea, 2019)

22. Factors that play an important role in the adoption
of innovation by employees in logistics (Putnik ea, 2019)
-workplace innovation is a driver
of renewal, as it seems to help
employees to accept innovations
they deem useful and easy to use
-innovative behaviour is a relevant
indirect factor
-innovation adoption appears to
be determined by both
organisational and individual
factors [remember the mix of ‘structural’ and ‘cultural’
elements].
-therefore: an integral approach is
best advisable: organisational
facilitation to involve employees,
ensure the innovation is uselful
and easy to apply, give employee
autonomy to express their opinion

23. Conclusion part 1 and 2:
• Workplace innovation can be useful for perfomance and better jobs, and adopting innovation
• Link organisational (structural) and behavioural (cultural) elements when designing an intervention
• Structural interventions are ‘conditional’; cultural interventions are combatting symptoms, not
causes; Human resource policies are often ‘symptomatic’.

24. - Part 3:
-How to develop and implement workplace innovation
- Literature:
-Karanika-Murray, M., & Oeij, P.R.A. (2017). The role of work and organisational psychology for workplace
innovation practice: From short-sightedness to eagle view? In European Work and Organisational
Psychology in Practice. Special Issue on Workplace Innovation, Vol. 1, 19-30.
-Dhondt, Steven, Totterdill, Peter, Boermans, Sylvie & Žiauberytė-Jakštienė, Rita (2017). Five steps to
develop workplace innovation. In Oeij, P. R.A., Rus, D. and Pot F.D. (eds), Workplace Innovation: Theory,
Research and Practice (pp. 301-320). Series 'Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being’.
Springer: Cham (Switzerland); DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56333-6; ISBN 978-3-319-56332-9.
-Oeij, Peter R.A., Torre, Wouter van der, Vaas, Fietje, Dhondt, Steven (2019). Understanding social
innovation as an innovation process: Applying the innovation journey model. Journal of Business
Research, 101 (August), 243-254.
-Oeij, P.R.A., Preenen, T.Y.P. & Dhondt, S. (2021). Workplace innovation as a process: Examples from
Europe. In: Adela McMurray, Nuttawuth Muenjohn & Chamindika Weerakoon (Eds.), The Palgrave
Handbook of Workplace Innovation across Developed and Developing Countries (pp. 199-221). London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
-Oeij, P.R.A., Preenen, P.Y.T., Van der Torre, W., Van der Meer, L., Van den Eerenbeemt, J. (2019).
Technological choice and workplace innovation: Towards efficient and humanised work. European Public
& Social Innovation Review, 4(1), 15-26.

25. Workplace innovation as an intervention
• It starts with a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved by an ‘intervention’ [requires solid
analysis]
• WPI says: it should positively affect both organisational performance (right
to exist) and quality of work (sustainable employability)
• It is about ‘content’
• An intervention in ‘structure’, ‘culture’ or mix of both
• WPI is not the same as technological intervention or ‘social’ intervention
• WPI is a means, not a goal in itself
• It is about ‘process’
• It engages and / or involves people
• It is much like a change process
• It uses talents of people and further develops those talents
• There is a complex interaction of ‘technology, organisation and people’ which makes
the process hard to predict and not fully controllable [the risk to fail is significant]

26. What do we observe in the logistics sector?
100%
80%
40%
10%
90%
From all companies 80%
started with an
innovation in the last 2
years
From those 80% only 40%
implemented the
innovation succesfully
From those 80% only 10%
also used workplace
innovation practices
From those 10% WPI-
minded companies 90%
implemented the
innovation succesfully!

27. What do we observe in the logistics sector?
100%
80%
40%
10%
90%
From all companies 80%
started with an
innovation in the last 2
years
From those 80% only 40%
implemented the
innovation succesfully
From those 80% only 10%
also used workplace
innovation practices
From those 10% WPI-
minded companies 90%
implemented the
innovation succesfully!
So workplace
innovation is
terrific!

28. It’s a matter of perception
“We don’t realize we are lagging behind”
It’s a matter of inspiration and know-how:
“We’re behind but puzzling what to do”
It’s a matter of effort:
“We are not really motivated to start"
It’s a matter of expertise to
implement:
“We tried, but we failed!”
Organisational resistance towards workplace innovation
12%: we experienced no effect
52%: no time, resources or motivation
24%: no idea how WPI can help us
12%: no belief in WPI
However, what is holding the companies in
logistics to implement workplace innovation?
(Putnik et al., 2019) 28

29. What is the secret to succesful WPI
implementation of the cases in the Eurofound
research? [Oeij ea, 2015]
• Mature employment relationships:
• 1.management, employees and works councils agree about why WPI should be
implemented [efficiency, competitive advantage, innovative capability]
• 2.management, employees and works councils agree about leverage factors
[employee involvement, top management commitment, powerful leadership]
• 3.management, employees and works councils agree about desired impacts
factors [employee engagement, longer term sustainability, high performance]

30. Initiative of
WPI:
economic goal
Target:
improved
economic
performance
Mediating role
for employees
& employee
reps
Design of WPI
practices
Implementation
of WPI
practices
Target:
improved
quality of work
& engagement
1 3
2
2
30
PATTERN OF IMPLEMENTING WPI-
PRACTICES (PROCESS MODEL)

31. To summarize
• Economic goals are initiated by management
• Employees are involved in designing and implementing the
intervention
• Quality of work goals become part of the design
• Key factor: dialogue about common interests for the longer term
(mature employment relationships)
• Remember WPI interventions: heterogeneity of ‘structural’ and
‘cultural’; at least 5 paths/strategies that are succesful

32. Conclusion Third part
• Workplace innovation interventions can be very different regards content, however link
organisational (structural) and behavioural (cultural) elements when designing an intervention
remains essential
• Link ‘necessary’ economic goals to ‘sufficient’ employee interest goals
• Not only the succesfull process of development and implementation of WPI benefits highly from the
engagement of employees, also the desired longer term goals, and the further / continuous quality
of constructive employment relations
• Companies ‘resisting to WPI-interventions’ can be helped if they can apply the knowledge that is
already available; it is likely that it works best if one first looks at economic performance objectives
and subsequently connects this to employee interest goals.

33. Role of digitalisation
• Risks
• too much focus on cost efficiency
• 'so-so innovation' [Acemoglu/Restrepo]
• displacement effect [Frey/Osborne]
• Opportunities
• augmentation of workers
• assign complex tasks to skilled
workers

34. Role of digitalisation
• Risks
• too much focus on cost efficiency
• 'so-so innovation' [Acemoglu/Restrepo]
• displacement effect [Frey/Osborne]
• What can be done to minimize the risks?:
• EU-commission > move from Industry4.0 to Industry5.0 (human-centred)
• Anticipatory design of AI > take into account autonomy of workers at forefront
• Apply modern sociotechnics to avoid bad quality of jobs [Kuipers et al., 2020]
• [workplace innovation and its interventions intend to support all this; BEYOND4.0 studies this topic]
• Opportunities
• augmentation of workers
• assign complex tasks to skilled workers [De
Sitter, Parker]

35. Additional References
-Dhondt, S. and P. Oeij. “Social innovation related to innovation in management studies”. In Theoretical approaches to social innovation – A critical literature review
(pp.122-150), edited by J. Howaldt, A. Butzin, D. Domanski and C. Kaletka. Dortmund: SI-Drive [EU Seventh Framework Programme], September 2014.
-Dhondt, S., Oeij, P.R.A., & Pot, F.D. (2021). Digital transformation of work: spillover effects of workplace innovation on social innovation. In J. Howaldt, C. Kaletka, & A.
Schröder (Eds.). A Research Agenda for Social Innovation (pp. 99-116). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
-Dworschak, B., Senderek, R., & Kopp, R. (Eds) (2021, Workplace Innovation and Leadership. EHP-Verlag Andreas Kohlhage; Gevelsberg (Germany)
-Howaldt, Jürgen and Oeij, Peter R.A. (Eds.) (2016). Workplace innovation – Social innovation: Shaping work organisation and working life. Special issue of World Review
of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable, Issue, 12, Vol. 1, pp. 1-129.
-Karanika-Murray, Maria & Oeij, Peter R.A. (2017). The role of work and organizational psychology for workplace innovation practice: From short-sightedness to eagle
view. EWOP in Practice, Special Issue on Workplace Innovation(1), 19-30.
-McMurray, A., Muenjohn, N. & Weerakoon, C. (Eds.) (2021), The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Innovation across Developed and Developing Countries.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
-Oeij, P., Dhondt, S., Pot, F., Totterdill, P. (2018). Workplace innovation as an important driver of social innovation. In: Howaldt, J., Kaletka, C., Schröder, A., Zirngiebl, M.
(eds), Atlas of Social Innovation – New Practices for a Better Future (pp. 54-57). Dortmund: Sozialforschungsstelle, TU Dortmund.
-Oeij, Peter, Hulsegge, Gerben, Preenen, Paul & Vaas, Fietje (2021), Leadership and innovation in logistics in the Netherlands: a leadership tool from a workplace
innovation perspective. In: Bernd Dworschak, Roman Senderek, Ralf Kopp (Eds), Workplace Innovation and Leadership (pp. 83-104). EHP-Verlag Andreas Kohlhage;
Gevelsberg (Germany).
-Oeij, P.R.A., Rus, D., Dhondt, S. & Van Hootegem, G. (Eds) (2019). Workplace innovation in the era of disruptive technologies. Special Issue of International Journal of
Technology Transfer and Commercialisation.16(3), 199-309. DOI: 10.1504/IJTTC.2019.10021355
-Oeij, P. R.A., Rus, D. and Pot F.D. (eds) (2017). Workplace Innovation: Theory, Research and Practice, Series 'Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being’.
Springer: Cham (Switzerland); DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56333-6; ISBN 978-3-319-56332-9.
-Oeij, P.R.A., Van der Torre, W., Vaas, S., & Dhondt, S. (2019). Understanding Social Innovation as an innovation process: Applying the Innovation Journey model. Journal
of Business Research, 101(8), 243-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.04.028
-Pot, F., Dhondt, S. & Oeij, P. (2012), Social innovation of work and employment. In: Franz, H-W. and Hochgerner, J. (Eds.), Challenge Social Innovation (pp. 261-274).
Berlin: Springer.
-Pot, F., Dhondt, S., Oeij, P., Rus, D., & Totterdill, P. (2019). Complementing digitalisation with workplace innovation. In: Howaldt, J., Kaletka, C., Schröder, A., Zirngiebl, M. (eds.), Atlas
of Social Innovation. 2nd Volume – A world of new practices (pp. 42-46). Oekoem Verlag, München (ISBN: 978-3-96238-157-8). Download free : www.socialinnovationatlas.net
[Available on request: peter.oeij@tno.nl]

36. Thank you for your attention!
• Peter Oeij [peter.oeij@tno.nl] www.beyond4-0.org
@Transform_H2020