Grassroots innovation success: the role of self-determination and leadership style

Innovation. It’s a do or die part of business today. But in the same way that disruption rarely comes head on, some of the most innovative ideas come from people whose desks aren’t in the C-suite. This is why many companies are creating grassroots innovation efforts.

Today we’re speaking with Elio Keko. 

Our conversation explores the research he and his colleagues have conducted into the conditions that are correlated with successful grassroots innovation efforts.

Topics include:

• How grassroots innovation differs from crowdsourcing or internal markets.
• What self-determination theory is and how it relates to innovation.
• The psychological drivers of self-determination.
• The risks of autonomy and how to mitigate them.
• How to avoid having your skills training efforts backfire.
• What kinds of KPIs you should be using with your innovation teams.
• Why hierarchical leadership’s bad rep vis-à-vis innovation might be off the mark.

Click here for the research article 

The Up Next podcast’s access to this content is courtesy of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, an international, double-blind peer-reviewed journal for marketing academics and practitioners. IJRM aims to contribute to the marketing discipline by providing high-quality, original research which advances marketing knowledge and techniques. As marketers increasingly draw on diverse and sophisticated methods, IJRM‘s target audience is comprised of marketing scholars, practitioners (e.g., marketing research and consulting professionals) and policymakers.

IJRM  aims to be at the forefront of the marketing field with a particular emphasis on bringing timely ideas to market. The journal embraces innovative research with the potential to spur future research and influence practice. Hence, it welcomes contributions in various aspects of marketing. The editors, while accepting a wide array of scholarly contributions from different disciplinary approaches, especially encourage research that is novel, visionary or path breaking. 

Elio Keko (interviewed guest) is an Associate Principal at MTI². Elio has been involved in innovation initiatives for several multinational companies and organizations including Michelin, SKF, Ghent University, Merck, Baloise, etc. 
 
He has also been highly involved in academies for Boehringer Ingelheim (marketing academy) , Novartis (marketing academy) and Aliaxis (innovation & marketing academy), bringing his expertise in areas such as digital marketing, market research and marketing innovation.

Elio has been involved in offering coaching and research to innovation teams on their way to bringing their ideas to market. He also co-authored several case studies with companies such as Komatsu Ltd., Babcock International and Rabobank.

He obtained his PhD at the Business Economics department of the Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. There Elio taught marketing strategy for five years. He is working in several high impact research topics, specializing in the effects of innovation on company performance, and studying the benefits of crowdsourcing and grassroots (employee-based) innovation.

Follow & Learn More:

International Journal of Research in Marketing

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Elio Keko (interviewee)

• Business website 
• LinkedIn 

Stefan Stremersch (corresponding author)

• Faculty page 
• LinkedIn 

Additional authors

Nuno Camacho:

• Faculty page 
• LinkedIn 

‪Stefan Wuyts

• Faculty page 
• LinkedIn 

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