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Thesis Proposal 

 

 

 

 

 

Employee ideation communities on  

internal social media 

December 2016 

 

 

 

Helle Eskesen Gode, PhD Student Department of Business Communication School of Business and Social Sciences Aarhus University 

Primary Supervisor:  Professor Winni Johansen Secondary supervisor:  Associate Professor Christa Thomsen 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. INTRODUCTION             4 

1.1 The formal part of the PhD project           4 

1.2 Interests and motivations for research in employee ideation communities on internal social media  4 

1.3 Overall goal of the PhD project           6 

2. LITERATURE REVIEW             7 

2.1 From open innovation to employee ideation communities on internal social media     7 

2.1.1 Open innovation research streams           8 

2.1.2 Open innovation and predominant underlying understandings       9 

2.1.3 Research gap            10 

2.1.4 Existing research within employee ideation communities on internal social media    10 

2.2 Research questions            11 

3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK          12 

3.1 Organizational communication (CCO)          12 

3.2 Organizational multivocality           13 

3.3 Overview of theoretical framework          14 

4. RESEARCH DESIGN             15 

4.1 Research position            15 

4.2 Methodology            16 

4.2.1 First study: explorative study          17 

4.2.1.1 Data collection            17 

4.2.1.2 Data analysis            19 

4.2.2. Second study: single case study          21 

4.2.2.1 Data collection            24 

4.2.2.2 Data analysis            27 

4.3 Delimitations and challenges          28 

5. OVERVIEW OF ARTICLES            29 

5.1 First article: Employee ideation communities on internal social media: Managers’     30 expectations and perceptions of contributions and challenges (work in progress) 

5.2 Second article: Second article: Employee ideation communities on internal social     30 media: translation of text into practices and conversations (Tentative outline) 

5.3 Third article: Employee ideation communities on internal social media: why employees   30 ideate and their expectations to employee ideation communities on internal social media  (Tentative outline) 

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6. A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS          31 

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY            32 

APPENDICES              38 

Appendix 1: overview of the research process        38 

Appendix 2: Overview of the study elements        40 

Appendix 3: CCI Conference on Corporate Communication Paper:       41 Employee communication in open innovation communities on internal social media –  the perspective of managers responsible for open innovation 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1. INTRODUCTION 

In this section, I will first introduce the formalities of this PhD project with a highlight on the cooperation 

agreement between Aarhus University and VIA University College. Next, I will briefly sum up my motivations 

and interest in doing research in employee ideation communities on internal social media, and finally I will 

introduce the overall goal of this PhD project. 

1.1 The formal part of the PhD project 

The purpose of this thesis proposal (TP) is to present the current state of the present PhD project, which 

researches employee ideation communities on internal social media. The PhD thesis is planned to have the 

form of an article based dissertation comprising three articles. Aarhus University (School of Business and 

Social Sciences) and VIA University College have entered a cooperation agreement where  I have been 

registered for a four year period (April 2015 – March 2019) in the Aarhus Graduate School of Business and 

Social Sciences within the program of Business Communication. During these four years, I must complete the 

PhD education as well as complete teaching activities at VIA University College. This is agreed in the 

following way: 25% of the four‐year period are dedicated teaching activities at VIA University College. The 

rest of the time (75%) is dedicated the PhD project and related activities at the Department of Business 

Communication, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, such as teaching, participation in 

PhD courses and conferences, and a research stay in a foreign university. Thus, the time scope of this PhD 

project is part time resulting in a PhD period of four years.  

1.2 Interests and motivations for research in employee ideation communities on internal social media 

In recent years, Denmark has experienced low productivity growth (cf. Erhvervs‐ og Vækstministeriet, 2016 – 

[Ministry of Business and Growth, Denmark]). As a response to this trend, there is an increasing 

governmental focus on innovation, on new technologies driving productivity growth, on differentiation and 

on competitive advantage. Simultaneously, more and more organizations are actively using social media for 

innovation in collaboration with external or internal stakeholders (Networked Business Factbook, 2013).  

Ideation is fundamental of innovation (van den Ende et al., 2015: 482;  Björk et al. 2011: 385), 

and ideation forms the process of the front‐end of innovation where ideas are generated, developed and 

then selected or rejected (Khurana and Rosenthal, 1998). Innovation is important for economic growth 

possibilities as innovation contributes to the competitiveness of organizations (Cantwell, 2005). I take a 

broad approach to innovation, and I consider innovation to be a new and value adding process or result. 

More specifically it is the ”[…] production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value‐added 

novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; 

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development of new methods of production; and establishment of new management systems. It is both a 

process and an outcome” (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010:1155).  

The management of innovation is subject to a change from focusing on the individual’s 

innovation contribution to innovation as a social and collaborative practice (Björk et al., 2011:430).  

Employee ideation is one way of exerting social and collaborative innovation. Employee ideation is an 

approach to ideation and innovation where organizations open up and invite employees, not only engineers 

or designers hired to do innovation, but also from all or selected organizational departments, such as 

marketing or sales, to generate ideas. Under these circumstances, employees are considered to be valuable 

sources of internal opportunities for innovation (Zejnilovic et al., 2012: 41; Björk et al., 2011:6 and 26). In 

fact, according to Linke and Zerfass (2011) employees constitute one of the most important sources for 

innovation. It is possible to relate this open employee ideation approach to the ideas behind the 

phenomenon of open innovation (Chesbrough, 2006) where organizations open up their organizational 

boundaries and use both internal and external sources for innovation. These sources are dispersed outside 

the company among others the customers, suppliers, and alliance partners, and within the company among 

employees across departments, geographies and hierarchies.  

Research exists in relation to strategies for ideation in online communities, brand 

communities and open innovation communities from an external customer perspective (Casaló et al., 2008; 

Kozinets, 2002; Bateman et al., 2011; Antikainen et al., 2010), and from an internal employee perspective 

(Bjelland and Wood, 2008; Björk et al. 2010; Stieger et al., 2012). However, few scholars have paid attention 

to the organizational communication perspective of employee ideation communities on internal social 

media. Treem and Leonardi (2012: 17) refers to a study that concludes that internal social media improved 

the transparency of the employee ideation process, and the diversity of employees commenting on the 

submitted ideas increased. However, organizational communication research is important in managing 

employee ideation communities on internal social media. First, employees have a close relationship to the 

organization in which they are working in (Frandsen and Johansen, 2011) which may influence their activity 

and communication in the ideation community. Second, employees are considered active communicators 

(Heide and Simonsson, 2011), and with their participation in the ideation communities on internal social 

media they are considered – or even expected ‐ to make a difference with their unique work experiences 

and knowledge (Stohl and Cheney, 2001). Third, the adoption of new technologies, such as internal social 

media, for ideation may question previous research within this area (van den Ende et al. 2015; Beretta 

2015). Finally, and from an organizational communication perspective it is emphasized that there is a need 

for more studies in the underexplored new context which is formed by the rise of the mass collaboration and 

the ”technology‐enabled large‐group problem solving” (Rice and Leonardi 2014:441).  

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Considering these trends in organizations of opening up the innovation process and 

supporting this process using internal social media, and considering that only few communication 

researchers have covered this field, I see a strong research opportunity in exploring organizational 

communication in relation to employee ideation communities on internal social media. From the point of 

view of the present PhD project, ideation is communication. In other words, communication is a practice 

that constitutes the employee ideation process. 

I have structured the rest of the TP as follows: First, the overall goal of the PhD project will be 

presented together with its contributions. A chapter with a brief literature review will follow starting with an 

open innovation approach that will construct the context in which employee ideation is situated. In the third 

chapter, the theoretical framework will be introduced, and it will be followed by a chapter on the research 

design comprising research position, methodology, data collection and analysis. Finally, I will briefly present 

the content and relations between the planned three articles of the PhD research, and conclude with some 

general remarks about this TP. In the three appendices it is possible to see the overview of the research 

process (appendix 1), the overview of the completed study elements (appendix 2), and to read the paper 

“Employee communication in open innovation communities on internal social media – the perspective of 

managers responsible for open innovation” (Gode, 2016). This paper was submitted to and presented at the 

Corporate Communication International Conference on Corporate Communication 2016, and will be further 

developed to turn into the first of the planned three articles. 

1.3 Overall goal of the PhD project 

The overall purpose of the PhD project is to study how employee ideation communities on internal social 

media translate from conversation to text and back again in the constitution of organization. Organizational 

members’ perceptions of and expectations to employee ideation communities on internal social media as 

well as how and why employees engage in this communicative practice will be studied in order to 

understand and explain the communicative constitution. 

I consider the contribution of my PhD project to be twofold: First, practitioners will gain 

access to new and deep knowledge about organizational communication in employee ideation communities 

on internal social media in organizations and about the potentials and challenges of organizational 

communication in relation to employee ideation communities on internal social media. Next, the research 

field within organizational communication will be developed with theoretical and empirical insights in 

employee ideation communities on internal social media. The organizational communication perspective will 

contribute to the field of employee ideation communities on internal social media with a view on employee 

ideation as a communicative practice. 

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2 LITERATURE REVIEW 

In the following section, I will first define what is understood by open innovation, then I will construct a brief 

overview of three selected research streams of the open innovation landscape, and finally I will present 

three selected underlying understandings within the open innovation research field that are relevant for the 

study of employee ideation communities on internal social media. 

2.1 From open innovation to employee ideation communities on internal social media 

Open innovation was the point of departure for my literature review within innovation. The purpose was to 

investigate if other researchers had already approached this research field from an organizational 

communication perspective, but also to confirm a research gap. During the review process, I realized that 

open innovation was a too broad approach to the object of my PhD research. As a consequence, open 

innovation was narrowed down, and the literature review then focused on employee ideation.  However, it 

still makes sense to include a brief open innovation literature review in this TP, as employee ideation 

communities on internal social media draw upon many of the same thoughts as I have found in the open 

innovation literature.  

Open innovation is defined by Chesbrough and Bogers (2014:17) as “a distributed innovation 

process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, using pecuniary 

and non‐pecuniary mechanisms in line with the organization’s business model”. The knowledge flows 

comprise both ideas flowing from the outside into the organization, emphasizing that external knowledge is 

as important as internal knowledge, but also allowing internal ideas not commercialized by the organization 

to go outside of the organization which means that spill‐overs are sold (Chesbrough 2006: 2). Open 

innovation intersects the field of knowledge creation, knowledge management and knowledge sharing, but 

only when the knowledge creation process is open (Nonaka, 2014:V). Open innovation differs from the 

closed innovation approach represented by e.g. Chandler (1977) of a deep vertical integration of R&D where 

organizations are self‐reliant and where the not invented here (NIH) syndrome is a barrier to the adoption 

and dissemination of ideas flowing across the boundaries of the organization. In this closed model, the 

knowledge is kept within the value chain of the organization. It is placed in a black box where the 

organization has paid a man of genius to innovate. Open innovation is about opening up this black box 

(Nonaka, 2014), and manage the knowledge flows across the boundaries of the organization so that these 

knowledge flows become part of the organization’s distributed innovation process. 

A variety of concepts and views upon open innovation exist in the research literature. In this 

TP, I will give a brief overview of three selected research streams within the open innovation landscape. 

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They have been selected, as I consider them relevant for the approach that I take towards employee 

ideation communities on internal social media.  

2.1.1 Open innovation research streams 

User Innovation 

Almost three decades ago, Von Hippel (1988) identified suppliers, customers, universities, competitors and 

other nations as external sources of useful knowledge for innovation. A research stream then emerged with 

an emphasis on user innovation (e.g. von Hippel 2005, Franke and Piller 2004, Füller et al., 2013). Users – 

both external companies and individual consumers ‐ of products or services are in this perspective 

considered to have unique insights about their needs, and they are able to contribute with solutions to those 

needs. Von Hippel sees this as a direction towards democratizing innovation (von Hippel 2005). When taking 

into account the user innovation approach, open innovation is not only firm‐centric in the sense that it has 

an emphasis on making the organizational boundaries more permeable. It also comprises a user‐centric 

aspect on innovation. In the same way, employees are considered to behave as users or customers. They 

may be able to share ideas or thoughts if it somehow can benefit their needs (Zejlnilovic et al 2012: 4). 

Idea capturing 

The next selected research stream within open innovation is the focus on the organization for capturing the 

knowledge flows or ideas. Different types of communities and networks have been studied such as user 

communities, where lead users share ideas in communities (e.g. Franke and Piller, 2004, von Hippel 2001), 

open innovation communities (e.g. Fleming and Waguespack, 2007), and other external networks (e.g. 

Vanhaverbeke and Cloodt, 2006, West and Lakhani, 2008). Different themes within these communities and 

networks are studied, such as open source software (e.g. West and Callagher, 2006), ideation contests (e.g. 

Piller and Walcher, 2006, and Adamszyk et al., 2012), crowdsourcing (e.g. Howe, 2006, Jeppesen and 

Lakhani, 2010), and co‐creation (e.g. Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004, Ramaswamy and Gouillart, 2010). 

Likewise, employees are organized in ideation communities on internal social media in order for the 

organizations to capture valuable employee insights. 

Network ties 

The third selected research stream within open innovation is the study of networks as a company’s 

resources that are difficult to imitate and thus creating a competitive advantage (Gulati et al., 2000). 

Different types of ties within networks are studied such as formal ties between organizations that are 

contractually agreed upon (e.g. Gulati, 1998), informal ties to capture unforeseen opportunities (e.g. Brown 

and Duguid, 2000), deep ties to foster trust (e.g. Nooteboom et al., 1997; Zaheer et al., 1998) and weak ties 

that lead to more information benefits (e.g. Granovetter, 1973). In the same way, organizations can use the 

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internal network of all distributed employees within different knowledge domains to create value in their 

innovation process. 

2.1.2 Open innovation and predominant underlying understandings 

Useful knowledge is distributed 

The open innovation research field is mainly built upon three underlying understandings. The first being that 

useful knowledge is widely distributed. This means that valuable ideas are dispersed and might as well come 

from outside the organization (Chesbrough, 2006:1), and not only from internal experts of the organization. 

In this relation it is not only R&D within an organization that can contribute with valuable information to the 

innovation process, knowledge external to the R&D department is considered as important as the internal 

knowledge. In fact, the crowds or large groups of people are considered smarter than few experts from R&D 

(Surowiecki, 2005). Likewise, within employee ideation, the idea is that valuable insights for innovation are 

dispersed among all employees in an organization. Therefore, all employees are considered valuable sources 

of innovation (Zejnilovic, 2012), and not only the employees hired to do innovation.  

Diversity is key 

The second underlying understanding within the open innovation literature and which employee ideation 

lean up against is that the value in open innovation is created using external network, communities and 

ecosystems (West and Lakhani, 2008; Von Hippel, 1988;  Fleming and Waguespack, 2007; Franke and Piller, 

2004). Diversity is in this perspective an important dimension, and weak ties are likely to expand the 

possibilities for new knowledge, information and experience (Granovetter, 1973). In the same way, 

organizations can use the internal network of all employees dispersed across geographies, hierarchies and 

departments within different knowledge domains to create value in their innovation process. In that way, 

the degree of diversity of the employee crowd determines how smart the crowd is (Stieger et al., 2012) as 

well as the quality of the submitted ideas (Beretta, 2015). 

Idea sharing in return for benefits 

The third underlying understanding is about motivations for contributing with ideas in the open innovation 

process. They can be based on expectancy theory where the presence of an intrinsic or extrinsic reward and 

the way to achieve that award is important (Lawler, 1971; von Hippel, 1988); Innovation benefits the 

innovator and there is no loss from sharing that benefit with others. E.g. customers or users often share their 

innovative ideas with their suppliers if it means improved products in the future (von Hippel, 1988). In the 

same way, employees are considered to behave as user innovators. They may be willing to freely share their 

ideas if a benefit is within reach (Zejlnilovic et al., 2012: 4). 

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2.1.3 Research gap 

Ideas are important for innovation and for creating new products, services or processes, and for enabling 

changes in an organization. Therefore, a continuous flow of ideas into the organization is crucial for the 

innovation process (van den Ende et al., 2015:482). Research within open innovation has primarily focused 

on the knowledge and ideas flowing from one organization to another (Vanhaverbeke, 2006:206). In that 

way, I consider the focus of open innovation to be on external networks and to emphasize on external 

relations with other organizations such as suppliers or customers in order to stimulate innovation. Employee 

ideation is inherently internal of the organization. Research exists about networks inside the organization 

and their role in acquiring external knowledge (Vanhaverbeke, 2006:207), but few studies look at the search 

for knowledge and ideas among the dispersed employee crowd. It may be beneficial for organizations to 

balance the external and internal search for ideas (Beretta, 2015). A high level of cognitive distance between 

the idea provider and the idea receiver may complicate the exploitation of an idea, and even though the 

openness creates diversity, it also increases the amount of coordination costs and cognitive efforts (van den 

Ende et al., 2015:484) within the organization. Therefore, it may make sense for some organizations to make 

a broad search for ideas among the employee crowd dispersed across departments, geographies and 

hierarchies. This internal employee ideation has been investigated by only few scholars, and a selection of 

these scholars will be presented in the following. 

2.1.4 Existing research within employee ideation communities on internal social media  

Research exists in the field of employee ideation using an internal web‐enabled idea management system 

(e.g. Beretta, 2015; Kijkuit and van den Ende, 2010; Freese et al., 1999; Björk and Magnusson, 2009; Björk et 

al., 2011). Bjelland and Wood (2008) have studied the challenges and contributions of IBM’s employee 

ideation process. Björk et al. (2010) studied the involvement of employees in the ideation process of 

organizations and these organizations ideation capabilities. Stieger et al. (2012) researched the use of 

employee internal crowd sourcing for engaging in strategy dialogues and thereby making strategic decisions 

more democratic. Björk et al. (2014) studied demand‐driven collaborative ideation with employees in order 

to focus on actual innovation needs. Van den Ende et al. (2015) discuss the challenges and tensions for 

organizing ideation for innovation with external stakeholders and internal employees. Beretta (2015) has 

investigated the use of idea management systems in organizations for employees’ idea generation. These 

studies mainly stems from an information systems approach or do not limit their research to internal social 

media. A web‐enabled idea management system may not have social media functions such as the possibility 

for like, comment, share or follow ideas, and these communicative features are crucial for my study as I 

study the communicative practice of the employee ideation communities on internal social media. 

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  Internal social media are “social media in organizations” (Treem and Leonardi, 2012), 

“enterprise social media” (Leonardi et al., 2013) or “intra‐organizational social media platforms” (Vuori and 

Okkonen, 2012). This study emphasizes that internal social media is accessible to only organizational 

members, and it is closed and not visible to external stakeholders (Madsen and Verhoeven 2016). Many 

web‐enabled idea management systems have integrated social media functions such as user profiles, like, 

comment, share, and follow features (Stieger et al., 2012). This is what in this research is named internal 

social media for employee ideation communities. Such internal social media platforms for employee ideation 

communities are among others offered by suppliers such as Nosco, Hype Enterprise, Chaordix, Ideanote or 

Imaginatik.  

 

2.2 Research questions 

Where my research will differ from these studies is that I will contribute to the field of employee ideation 

communities on internal social media with knowledge about the communicative practice of employee 

ideation communities on internal social media. I will in other words contribute with a view on employee 

ideation communities on internal social media as a communicative practice.  

As already mentioned, this PhD project aims to study how employee ideation communities on 

internal social media translate from conversation to text and back again in the constitution of organization. 

Organizational members’ perceptions of and expectations to employee ideation communities on internal 

social media as well as how and why employees engage in this communicative practice will be studied in 

order to understand and explain the communicative constitution. 

Based in the above mentioned research gap, the following three sub‐questions will be 

addressed:   

RQ1: What are managers’ expectations to employee ideation communities on internal social media, what are 

their perceptions of how this communicative practice contributes to fulfill these expectations, and what 

challenges do they perceive they meet? 

RQ2: How do employees communicate in an employee ideation community on internal social media, and how 

does this communicative practice constitute the ideation process of an organization? 

RQ3: Why do employees communicate in an employee ideation community on internal social media, and 

what are their expectations to this communicative practice? 

Managers’ and employees’ expectations to and perceptions of employee ideation 

communities on internal social media are crucial for and shape the ideation process and the potentials and 

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challenges of this communicative practice. I will answer the three above mentioned sub‐questions through 

two sets of theories (see chapter 3) and two empirical studies (see chapter 4) 

 

3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 

The PhD project is founded in the organizational communication paradigm and the CCO perspective. This 

perspective will be combined with theories of organizational multivocality. In the following sections, these 

research fields will briefly be introduced in relation to employee ideation communities on internal social 

media. An overview of the theoretical framework is illustrated in figure 1 at the end of this chapter.  

3.1 Organizational communication (CCO) 

The communicative approach of this research to employee ideation communities on internal social media is 

that communication is constitutive of organizing (CCO) (Putnam and Nicotera, 2009; Mumby and Stohl, 

1996). When employees communicate and interact in employee ideation communities on internal social 

media, it is constitutive of the innovation process. Organizational communication and the CCO perspective 

will in this project be applied as the meta‐theory and lens put on employee ideation communities on internal 

social media. 

  This project is informed by one branch of the CCO perspective which is the Montreal School 

and these scholars’ view on organizational communication as “the essential modality for organizing” (Taylor 

and Van Every, 2000). They critique another branch of the CCO perspective represented by McPhee and 

Zaug and the Four Flows Model (2000) for being too narrow when arguing that communication is one 

modality among other modalities that constitute organizing such as e.g. power. According to the Montreal 

School, power is enacted and expressed in communication and in that way, communication constitutes 

power (Aschraft et al., 2009:20). They suggest that communication is manifested in two dimensions or 

modalities that constitute the organization and they are the textual modality and the conversational 

modality. The organization’s “surface”, that is what is the “recurring, fairly stable and uneventful side of 

communication” (Aschraft et al., 2009:20), characterizes the organization represented by the textual 

modality, and the “lively and evolving co‐constructive side of communication” (Aschraft et al., 2009:20) is 

the “site” of the organization and represents the conversational dimension. Employee ideation communities 

on internal social media represent the surface of an organization and its textual modality when managers 

and employees talk about (e.g. identify and describe) this communicative practice. When employees do 

ideation in the employee ideation communities on internal social media, which I see as the conversational 

modality, the organization is accomplished and experienced. In that way, an organization is represented in 

its texts (e.g. employee ideation communities on internal social media) speaking in its name and through the 

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conversations (e.g. the ideation process that consists of employees posting ideas, likes and comments in the 

ideation community on internal social media) that again produces or reproduces the texts. It is in this 

conversation that the organization is accomplished and it is through these texts that it is recognized, in other 

words communication is the site (conversations) where organization surfaces (texts) (Aschraft et al., 

2009:21). Considering the model of organization as a dynamic of four translations (Brummans et al., 

2014:177) being 1) organization as a network of practices and conversations, 2) organization as a collective 

experience through distanciation, 3) organization as authoring through textualization, and 4) organization as 

representation and presentification, I see conversations as translated or transformed into text and text 

translated into conversations as an ongoing and iterative process. Therefore, I consider this model of 

organization as a dynamic of four translations as a way to explain the translation or the transformation of 

the communicative practice which is employees ideating in internal social media (that is conversation and 

distanciation, which is represented in the first and second translation) into the construction of the 

organization (employee ideation communities on internal social media) as authoring and represent/present 

(that is text, which is represented in the third and the fourth translations), which again is translated back into 

practices and conversations.  

3.2 Organizational multivocality  

My view on organizations as translations of conversations into text and of texts into conversations entails a 

view on organizational communication as more than one or two way communication or vertical or horizontal 

communication, but also as multidirectional and multivocal communication among organizational members 

interacting with each other (Madsen, 2016:23).  

  When employees ideate in the employee ideation communities on internal social media it can 

be viewed as a multivocal and multidirectional process that constructs or constitute the organizing. 

Contrasted with univocality, that refers to communication control and an organization speaking with one 

voice avoiding ambiguity in the messages and intended meanings, multivocality refers to a communication 

environment where organizational members freely can voice their different opinions and views and can 

contest others (Balmer, 2001).  Internal social media are considered to facilitate the participation in online 

dialogues thereby increasing the multivocality of the organizational communication environment. The 

increased multivocal communication is characterized by a culture where many and diverse voices are 

expressed (Huang et al., 2015). The combination of multivocality and internal social media is considered to 

be beneficial in the ideation process since internal social media provides a platform in which “different ideas, 

viewpoints and concerns are freely expressed, effectively exchanged, consulted and consolidated” (Balmer, 

2001). In line with Madsen (2016), I consider internal social media for employee ideation as a “multivocal 

communication arena” (Madsen, 2016:200), where employees can communicate and interact with their 

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posted ideas, comments or likes. This multivocal approach is useful for understanding and explaining 

organizational communication in an employee ideation community on internal social media and its 

constitutive role of organizing.   

3.5 Overview of theoretical framework 

 

Figure 1: Overview of theoretical framework – the model of Organization as a Dynamic of Four Translations 

combined with multivocality. 

As it appears from the above sections and as summarized in figure 1, organizational communication and the 

CCO perspective will be applied as the meta‐theory and lens put on employee ideation communities on 

internal social media. The CCO perspective and my view on organizations as translations of texts and 

conversations, entails a view on organizational communication as multidirectional and multivocal 

communication among organizational members interacting with each other in the multivocal 

communication arena. I see multivocality as influencing the translations of texts and the translations of 

conversations (the reason for why multivocality in figure 1 is inserted in the translation arrows). The 

multivocality may complicate the translations into texts and back into conversations. Tensions, paradoxes, 

contradictions, and ambiguity (Stohl and Cheney, 2001) may arise in the context of employee ideation 

communities on internal social media from the multivocality, and a consequence may be that the text or the 

organization is not constituted. The theoretical framework will contribute to shed a communicative light on 

employee ideation communities on internal social media as illustrated in figure 1. 

 

15  

4 RESEARCH DESIGN 

In the following section, I will present the preliminary research design of this PhD project. The research 

design consists of a logical plan for how I intend to connect the empirical data to the above mentioned 

research questions and finally to the conclusion of the research (Yin, 2014: 28). First, I will present my 

considerations about my position as a researcher. Then, I will introduce the applied methodology including 

data collection and data analysis and interpretation. Finally, I will discuss the challenges of this research 

design as well as the delimitations. 

4.1 Research position 

As it appears from the theoretical framework, the PhD project aims at a contribution to organizational 

communication and its constituting role in employee ideation communities on internal social media, and I 

consider my research to be positioned within the social‐constructivist paradigm (Moses and Knutsen, 2012). 

With a social‐constructivist lens on employee ideation communities on internal social media, this 

communicative practice can be viewed as a construction of organizational members’ environment through a 

process of social interaction (Gergen, 2009). When employees are part of an ideation community on an 

internal social media, they communicate and interact and in that way constitute organizing. The same goes 

for managers who through their communication and interaction construct the purpose, contributions and 

challenges of this communicative practice. In that way, the perspective of this PhD research project is that 

communication is constitutive of organizing (Putnam and Nicotera, 2009; Mumby and Stohl, 1996) and that 

employee and management communication in and about the ideation communities on internal social is 

constitutive of this practice. 

I subscribe to the moderate position of social‐constructivism (Wenneberg, 2000) and 

acknowledge that a proto‐reality exists. The focus is the social construction of the communicative practice, 

which is employee ideation communities on internal social media. I acknowledge that the physical world is 

material and concrete, and that the construction of the world or the reality is limited to the social world 

consisting of many realities that are socially constructed (Moses and Knutsen, 2007:200). In this PhD project, 

it means that the physical world such as the company buildings, the internal social media and the members 

of the organization are considered real, material and concrete, whereas employee and manager roles, 

ideation processes, communities, organizations, and innovation are considered to be socially constructed. 

From an ontological perspective, social‐constructivism determines the way the researcher 

think the world is (Moses and Knutsen, 2012), and this again influences the epistemological perspective of 

what can be known about the world. In that way, employee ideation and managers’ or employees’ view on 

this communicative practice is a product (or a construction) of their experiences and presuppositions. 

16  

Therefore, the world (employee ideation communities on internal social media) to be studied is not singular. 

Instead, there are multiple worlds, because different managers, different employees and the researcher 

perceive employee ideation communities on internal social media differently. Therefore, the epistemological 

perspective of what can be known about the research area depends on the different perceptions, and other 

researchers in the same or other organizations using employee ideation communities on internal social 

media might find other answers to the same research questions. This is in contrast to naturalism (Bryman, 

2016:24‐26) who considers research to be objective, and that through falsification truth can be obtained. To 

claim the truth is not the purpose of the present research. Several interpretations of the collected qualitative 

data exist as well as possible bias, e.g. managers’ or employees’ retrospective view or their conscious or 

unconscious wish to frame employee ideation communities on internal social media as a success or a value 

to (or a failure / of no value to) the organization. Under these circumstances, I will stick to the following:  

“[…] be honest and open about the way in which our contexts (and those of our subject matter) frame the 

way in which we come to understand” (Moses and Knutsen 2012:11). To address the challenge of multiple 

interpretations, relativism and bias, the research method and theories to be applied in this research will help 

to make my way, from asking the research questions to coming to a conclusion, credible and transparent. 

4.2 Methodology 

Two qualitative studies are going to answer the overall purpose of studying how employee 

ideation communities on internal social media translate from conversation to text and back again in the 

constitution of organization.  

 The first study consists of an explorative study, and the second study comprises an 

explanatory single case study. The explorative study (Stebbins, 2001) is conducted in order to discover the 

emerging research field of employee ideation communities on internal social media. The case study research 

is a preferred method when there is little research within a field (Eisenhardt, 1989), and the previous 

literature review indicated the small amount of research within employee ideation communities on internal 

social media. 

The research questions of this project require answers based on in‐depth studies that can 

provide information richness about employee ideation communities on internal social media. Therefore, the 

qualitative research approach has been selected for this research project, as qualitative research has a focus 

on in‐depth studies generating information richness (Neergaard, 2007: 11). However, this is to the detriment 

of generating statistic generalizations, which is the focus of quantitative research, but not the purpose of my 

study. Generalization in the present research is analytic generalization (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015). 

 

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4.2.1 First study: explorative study 

The explorative study has been selected because the overall goal and the subsequent research questions of 

this PhD project constitute a “new field of inquiry” (Stebbins 2001:5) within employee ideation communities 

on internal social media. Only few studies have researched employee ideation communities on internal 

social media from an organizational communication perspective. I conducted the explorative research to get 

an initial understanding of managers’ perception of and expectations to employee ideation communities on 

internal social media. Managers responsible for employee ideation on internal social media are among the 

first to have observed the contributions and challenges related to employee ideation communities on 

internal social media. They have this area as one of their key responsibilities, they have considerable 

experience within the field of ideation, and therefore they are able to reflect and share insights from this 

new field. This initial understanding has then helped me in shaping the following single case study. The 

approach that I take to the explorative study is mainly theory building (Thomas, 2011:112), since I have been 

open to new ideas and interpretations that emerged from the data collected. It is not that I started from 

scratch without any theory, but the data that emerged from the research indicated some central themes, 

that I could start to explain (build theory upon) (Thomas, 2011:115). 

4.2.1.1 Data collection 

Interviews were conducted in autumn 2015 with managers from 10 large (3,400‐23,000 employees) private 

and public organizations within different industries (see table 1).  

Organization  Industry  Number of employees (2015) 

Revenue (2015) (amounts in DKKm) 

Period of employee ideation communities on ISM 

A  Manufacturing  19,000  10,500  2010 ‐ 2011 

B  Manufacturing  20,000  9,500  2015 ‐ 2015 

C  Manufacturing  23,000  38,000  2010 ‐  

D  Manufacturing  18,000  25,000  2014 ‐  

E  Manufacturing  7,000  9,000  2008 ‐  

F  Manufacturing  14,000  36,000  2014 ‐ 

G  Manufacturing  14,000  18,000  2012 ‐  

H  Municipality  6,000  5,000  2012 ‐ 

I  IT solutions and consulting  3,000  5,000  2015 ‐ 

J  Manufacturing  6,000  14,000  2011 ‐ 

Table 1: Overview of organizations participating in the explorative study 

These organizations are some of the first organizations in Denmark to use this practice. Eight 

of them are currently using internal social media actively for employee ideation, whereas one organization 

ceased after a year mostly due to lack of employee activity on the internal social media. Another 

organization ran employee ideation on internal social media as a pilot project in autumn 2015, and still have 

not decided whether to implement it or not. 

18  

Through purposive sampling (Mason, 2002) participants who represent and have knowledge 

about employee ideation communities on internal social media have been selected. In total, 11 managers 

responsible for employee ideation communities on internal social media were interviewed (see table 2). 

Interviewee  Job Title  Educational background  Ideation Experience from earlier jobs 

Interview Duration 

Data Collection 

Interviewee A  Commercial Innovation Director 

Bachelor of Arts, English, History Political Science 

Yes  45 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee B  Head of Digital Innovation 

Master in Interaction Design and Multi Media 

Yes  90 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee C  Head of Business Innovation 

PhD, Control Engineering  Yes  90 minutes  Telephone Interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee D  Global Project Manager 

Management of Innovation and Business Development 

No  80 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee E  Innovation Program Manager 

MSc in Economics, Business Administration and Development 

No  90 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee F  Senior Manager, Open Innovation 

BA, Industrial Design  Yes  70 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee G  Innovation Manager 

Design Engineer  Yes  75 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee H1 

Social Department Director 

Executive Master (innovation, leader‐ship and strategy) 

Yes  75 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee H2 

Consultant  Innovation Management  Yes  75 minutes  Face‐to‐face interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee I  Innovation and Business Design Manager 

Master in International Marketing and Management 

No  45 minutes  Telephone Interview; Recorded;  

Interviewee J  Head of Innovation Development 

PhD, Biochemistry  Yes  70 minutes  Telephone Interview; Recorded;  

Table 2: Overview of interviewees 

All interviewees were responsible for employee ideation activities, although they were 

entitled in different ways and covering different functions such as commercial innovation director, head of 

digital innovation, head of business innovation, or innovation and business design manager. Common to all 

of them, they were experienced within innovation, and had career backgrounds and / or educations within 

areas such as innovation, business development, product development and online communities. In that way, 

they were assumed to have much knowledge about the researched topic. Seven interviews were carried out 

face‐to‐face, and three over telephone, each lasting from 45 to 90 minutes. All interviewees and findings 

were anonymized.  

The data was collected in the period from August 2015 to December 2015. The data collection 

is based on semi‐structured interviews (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015) conducted according to an interview 

19  

guide that focused on three themes: (1) Managers’ expectations to implementing employee ideation 

communities on internal social media; (2) Managers’ perceptions of the contributions of employee ideation 

communities on internal social media; (3) The challenges managers perceived they met to fulfill their 

expectations to employee ideation communities on internal social media. The literature review and the 

theoretical framework inspired the three themes of the interview guide, and helped to cover main areas and 

collect comparable data from all interviewees (Daymon and Holloway, 2011). At the same time, the 

interview guide allowed for flexibility and development of new or unexpected themes, as it consisted of two 

types of interview questions. The one set of questions were open ended in order to encourage the 

interviewees to tell about their views of the topic. This was important, as the analysis of the interviews 

focused on meaning where rich and nuanced descriptions in the answers are important. When answers 

required more elaboration, they were followed by interpretive questions in order to verify the 

interpretations (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015). The other set of questions were based on the critical incident 

questioning technique (Downs and Adrian, 2004), in order to make the managers use real examples when 

describing both the contributions and the challenges that they perceive in relation to employee ideation 

communities on internal social media. All the interviews were audio‐recorded. 

4.2.1.2 Data Analysis 

A thematic analysis of the interviews has been conducted, and it took place in two steps: First, the interviews 

were audio‐recorded, transcribed, and coded using Nvivo. Next, the meaning of the text units was 

condensed and interpreted (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015). The coding process in step 1 consisted of two 

cycles (Miles et al., 2014; Thomas, 2011:171). During the first coding cycle, first order codes were created. To 

create these first order codes, both deductive and inductive coding was applied as some of them were 

established prior to the data collection and based on the structure of the interview guide. Other first order 

codes emerged during the interviews. Descriptive or in vivo code labels were assigned to the first order 

codes. In the second cycle of coding, the first order codes were grouped into second order codes or pattern 

codes consisting of themes. In other words the first order codes were elaborated into higher‐order codes 

consisting of themes (Bryman, 2016:588). These themes were defined in order to create consistency over 

time (Miles et al., 2014). At the second step, that still needs to be conducted, these themes will be meaning 

condensed and interpreted (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015) in order to identify similarities, differences or 

patterns in the data material. (See example of first and second order coding and themes in table 3). 

20  

1st order coding 

(Descriptive or In Vivo) 

2nd order coding 

(Themes) 

Definition of the themes in the 2nd order 

coding 

Interview citations representing the themes 

Change the way employees  work  

Manage‐ment expect changes 

Management expect that employee ideation communities on internal social media will change the organizational culture, and the way employees and managers work. 

“It is a completely new way of working […] the ideas are submitted two to three days before deadline […] They [the employees] want to participate […] but they are probably most interested in submitting the idea and not necessarily interested in receiving comments from colleagues […] there is still this attitude about hiding the good idea […] one employee can get inspired by others to get ideas, and then it can be discussed who is the owner of this idea, and this is the mindset we must change […] (Interviewee B).  “It is a new way of working. Employees have to work together, many employees are involved, it is across functions. That is new.” (Interviewee D).   “[…] we are trying to change the way people work. And it really is that it is changing the way people work in the sense of it is more collaborative, it is more open.” (Interviewee F).   “This nervousness about exposing oneself is for Technicians or Engineers or other employees with high expertise difficult to change.[…].” (Interviewee G).   I think that it can bring the organization to a level where employees can say that innovation is permitted. It is permitted to have thoughts not only about the tasks that you are involved in right now. So in that way it states a new agenda as the employees can see that there is a tool for it, and that management support it […]”. (Interviewee I).  

Change the way managers work  

“[…] if managers are good and can play their cards right, and if the idea could be useful for their business, they can use [the platform] to promote an agenda themselves that they could not normally do. Managers are also bound by P&L, so they can do exploration in areas that they would not normally be allowed to on the back of the generosity of their own employee using free time that they would never normally do, because they have done so much for the idea.” (Interviewee C).   “The coaching of the idea submitter is actually a leadership to be able to.” (Interviewee G).  

Change the organi‐zational culture   

“It is a cultural transformation […]. But it is a slow process […]. (Interviewee B).   “We are very closed in our innovation approach, and this [internal social] media is a great way to break up with this approach.” (Interviewee D).  “We must think more community like. [..]. It is a large, cultural change for the whole organization that we also contribute to.” (Interviewee E).   “This is not something that happens in one or two years. This is a transition that takes place from here and out forever. But we were able to develop a basic toolbox that can enable the rest of the organization to adopt it at the rate that they are comfortable with adopting.” (Interviewee F).   “You do not just implement an idea culture just like that and within short period of time. This is still something that we work on improving.” (Interviewee G).   “It is a culture that needs to be built up”. (Interviewee I). 

Table 3: Example of first and second order coding and themes 

21  

4.2.2 Second study: Single case study 

Next, the case study has been selected, as case studies are considered to get the researcher closer to the 

”how” and the ”why” (Thomas 2011:4; Yin 2014:2). The purpose is to understand the “how” and the “why” 

of the communicative practice in relation to employee ideation communities on internal social media. With 

the case study, it is expected to obtain richer and more nuanced insights into employee ideation 

communities on internal social media, as this communicative practice will be studied in depth from many 

and diverse directions and from different kinds of information (Thomas, 2011:4 and 21). Case studies are 

good at “getting close to reality” (Flyvbjerg, 2001:132) all the while I acknowledge, that this “reality” is not a 

representative picture of all existing employee ideation communities on internal social media. However, 

with the case study, I will be in contact with the subject of study, which is employee ideation communities 

on internal social media. It is expected that this approach will contribute with a rich understanding of 

organizational communication in relation to employee ideation communities on internal social media. 

Moreover, the case study approach will provide the opportunity of being concrete and specific and less 

abstract and unclear (Thomas, 2011:7). I consider case studies appropriate and meaningful, since focus is on 

drawing rich and interconnected information from employee ideation communities on internal social media 

that is expected to provide unique insights from the analysis that I will conduct (Thomas, 2011: 44). 

In the single case study, focus is on a few central phenomena of employee ideation communities on internal 

social media that emerged from the explorative study. A single case study will then provide me with 

information richness of the subject (employee ideation communities on internal social media), as I will be 

able to dig deeper, to go into depth with the central phenomena and to look at a huge number of details 

(Thomas, 2011:139). The single case study is longitudinal in the sense that it will study communication in an 

employee ideation community on an internal social media from 2011 until 2017 (Thomas, 2011:155). The 

purpose of the single case study is explanatory (Thomas, 2001:101), as I seek to understand and explain 

central findings/themes from the explorative multiple case study. My explanations will be tentative and 

context‐specific, but I will be able to offer explanations based on rich and interconnected information from 

employee ideation communities on internal social media. The approach that I take to the explanatory single 

case study is mainly interpretive (Thomas, 2011:124). With the interpretive approach, I will interpret the 

data that I collect about employee ideation communities on internal social media. In that way, theory will 

also be developed, but this theory will be thought of as a temporary “thinking tool” specifically developed 

for the purposes of my study (Thomas, 2011:126).  

Novozymes has been selected for the single case study. This organization has been selected 

based on the initial findings in the explorative multiple case study, and the criteria used for this selection is 

intensity (Neergaard, 2007:28). Novozymes can be characterized as a key case (Thomas, 2011:77) or an 

22  

exemplary case (Yin, 2014) of employee ideation communities on internal social media. Using Novozymes as 

the case in the single case study will provide a rich description (Siggelkow, 2007) of employee ideation 

communities on internal social media, and it will illuminate and explicate this communicative practice in a 

context (Thomas, 2011: 59) of an organization, who since 2011 works strategically with employee ideation 

communities on internal social media.  

Novozymes is a global company with headquarter in Copenhagen, Denmark, and operating in 

North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific . The company is listed on Nasdaq 

Copenhagen, and included in the OMX Copenhagen 20 CAP index. Novozymes is the market leader in 

industrial enzymes. One third of their sale is within the household care industry, followed by industries 

within food and beverage, bioenergy, agriculture and pharma. 6,485 employees are dispersed on different 

locations in Denmark and globally (Novozymes, 2016b). In its 16 years of existence, Novozymes has launched 

100 new products, and the company reinvest approx. 14% of their revenue in research. In November 2016, 

Novozymes started the construction of an innovation campus to open in 2019. This new innovation campus 

in Denmark plans to engage 800 employees in science and business development (Novozymes, 2016a). 

Novozymes considers their leadership in innovation and technology as the driver for the company’s 

competitiveness and long‐term value creation. They will continue to invest in innovation (Novozymes, 

2016b:15) and to lead innovation is one of the four strategic focus areas of Novozymes (Novozymes, 2016b: 

2). Novozymes is recognized worldwide for its innovativeness, and recently the company has obtained 

prestigious rankings due to their innovative focus. Novozymes was rated no. 9 out of 50 companies on the 

Change the World list (Fortune Magazine, 2016) for addressing major social problems as a core part of their 

innovation and business strategy. Forbes (2016 a) ranked Novozymes no. 82 of 100 companies on the Most 

Innovative Companies 2016 list, and named its CEO, Peder Holk Nielsen, one of the 30 Global Game 

Changers together with among others Mark Zuckerberg, Cofounder and CEO, Facebook, and Elon Musk, 

Cofounder and CEO, Tesla Motors (Forbes, 2016b). Furthermore, in 2015, Science Magazine acknowledged 

Novozymes as the world’s best science employer because of its innovativeness, respect towards employees 

and its social responsibility (Powel, 2015), and Business Insider ranked its CEO as the no. 13 of the world’s 

top 100 business visionaries creating value for the world on The Business Insider 100: The Creators (The 

Business Insider, 2016). 

According to Head of Innovation Development at Novozymes (Novozymes interview, 2015), 

Novozymes consider open innovation as critical for the overall strategy in Novozymes called Partnering for 

Impact. Taking an external innovation collaborative approach, Novozymes cooperate and co‐create with 

others such as partners, customers, suppliers, NGOs, governments and citizens in external innovation 

projects to achieve value creation by technology. At Novozymes, they also facilitate internal front‐end 

innovation processes and activities, which are collaborative across the organizational silos and regional 

23  

entities of the company. In order to do that, they invite broadly across the organization, not only the food 

and beverage business units, but also other business units, employees on different levels, to engage in an 

employee ideation community on the Novozymes’ internal social media. The first step in this process is a kick 

off session where external experts are invited to give some external perspective, and there are also 

perspectives from the Novozymes employees. Employees from other regions join through video conference 

at these kick off meetings. Then the invited employees go to a two to three weeks online ideation campaign, 

where they share their thoughts and ideas on how to close the innovation gap and how to innovate, by 

suggesting online what it could be. The employee ideation process takes place on an online social ideation 

platform, in Novozymes called COLIN (Collaborative Online Ideation). Here employees can comment and like 

ideas, they can follow people and ideas. The ideation platform is linked to the email system, and employees 

can get email notifications when something happens. After the online ideation session, there is a selection 

process, where a screen team selects the best ideas and the best concepts. These ideas and concepts then 

go into maturation and turns into an R&D project. Since Novozymes started COLIN with employees in 2011, 

they have, as of November 2016, run a total of 54 online idea sessions, generating 2,260 ideas, 6,117 

comments and 2,568 likes. The like function was not available on the ideation platform before the end of 

2014 and the likes therefore only relate to 1,574 ideas. 

According to the perception of Novozymes’ Head of Innovation Development, the adoption of 

employee ideation communities on internal social media is about adding a digital layer to the already 

existing organizational culture in Novozymes of sharing ideas and thoughts in bigger crowds even if they are 

unfinished and not entirely proven, which mean that it can be sharing things in uncertainty. The new thing 

though according to the perception of the Head of Innovation Development is that the COLINs promote the 

collaborative discussions across organizational silos, regions, and levels of hierarchies on a large scale. 

Moreover, the Head of Innovation Development expects these COLINs to foster the empowerment of 

employees and to push responsibilities as far out in the organization as possible in order to engage all 

employees in open discussions about the Novozymes future. However, according to the perception of the 

Head of Innovation Development, they do not expect ideas generated in the COLINs to go directly for a 

patent. Mostly what employees discuss are already known knowledge bricks, but put together in a different 

sequence. “It is more about the re‐combinatorial aspect of innovation than going into solution mode finding 

the concept that actually is so new and so different and so actionable that you should find a patent. That is 

usually not happening in this early stage where you have these discussions online.” (Novozymes interview, 

2015) 

Based on above description of Novozymes and their approach to employee ideation 

communities on internal social media, I consider this company to be an appropriate and meaningful case for 

24  

my research as it can provide deep and rich insights into employee ideation communities on internal social 

media as a communicative practice. 

4.2.2.1 Data collection 

I have started to conduct the single case study in Novozymes in October 2016 and it is expected to end in 

spring 2017. The study will be divided into the following two data collection parts: The first part of the study 

will comprise ethnographic studies, netnography (Kozinets, 2010; Kozinets, 2015), in form of observations of 

the employee ideation community on the internal social media, and the second part will consist of 

interviews with employees and managers. The two data collection parts will be presented in more details in 

the following sections.  

The netnographic studies will comprise studies of the employee ideation process on 

Novozymes internal social media for employee ideation where participants’ (both employees and managers) 

communication will be studied (see screen dump 1 of an employee ideation thread related to one idea on 

Novozymes’ internal social media). The ideation thread example shows one submitted idea with the title 

“Cut off the _ acid residues of the _ cells with a _”. The example also shows who submitted the idea (Idea 

submitter), that the idea belongs to the “Innovate Animal Health” ideation campaign, and that the idea 

relates to the “Eimeria in broilers” category. Furthermore, the idea submitter has described the idea, the 

idea has received two likes, it has five followers and it has received seven comments. These comments stem 

from three different colleagues (first, second and third comment submitters), and the idea submitter 

comments on the comments of the first, second and the third comment submitters. Confidential terms in 

this ideation thread have been crossed out and employee faces and names anonymized. 

25  

 

 

Screen dump 1: employee ideation thread related to one submitted idea on Novozymes’ internal social 

media. 

Idea submitter 

Idea submitter 

1st comment submitter 

Idea submitter 

2nd comment submitter 

Idea submitter 

Idea submitter 

3rd comment submitter 

 

26  

 More specifically, a selection of the 54 online idea campaigns that have been initiated since 

2011, the starting year of employee ideation communities on internal social media at Novozymes, as well as 

the idea campaigns to be launched in the coming months, will be investigated. As of November 17, 2016,  

2,260 ideas, 6,117 comments and 2,568 likes have been posted. The netnographic studies will help to 

answer the questions about how the ideation process takes place in Novozymes, how employees ideate, and 

how this communication contributes to the ideation process. The netnographic studies are founded in 

Kozinets’ redefined netnography theory (Kozinets, 2015). What characterizes netnography and distinguishes 

it from digital etnography or digital anthropology is the “significant amounts of research data” (Kozinets, 

2015:79) that stem from the Internet such as social media or mobile applications. But netnography is not 

limited to observations conducted on the Internet. Interviews via email, web video or in person are also 

examples of netnographic studies when related to the observations from e.g. the social media, and when 

this data need to be grounded, emplaced and contextualized (Kozinets, 2015:79). Kozinets has reformulated 

the five phases process for conducting netnography (Kozinets, 2010:61) into a new 12‐phases process, and 

these 12 phases (introspection, investigation, information, initial interview, inspection, interaction, 

immersion, indexing, interpretation, iteration, instantiation and integration) (Kozinets, 2015:97) will guide 

the netnographic study conducted on Novozymes’ internal social media for employee ideation. Considering 

the ethical implications, I have obtain informed consent (Kozinets, 2015:140) from the Head of Innovation 

Development at Novozymes to conduct the observations on the Novozymes’ internal social media for 

employee ideation. However, I will do covert observations (Langer and Beckman, 2005) on the internal social 

media where I will not inform the employees about my observations. I still consider this position to be 

ethical based on Kozinets’ considerations about when informed consent is less required. It is less required in 

situations where research involvement is low, where research participants know that their online 

communication and interactions are public, where they are kept anonymous, and where online quotations 

cannot be identified. In the actual case, I only observe, I am not involved in the ideation process and do not 

communicate or interact in the employee ideation community. The participants of the online ideation know 

that their communication and interaction is public within the organization, and I will keep their participation 

anonymous. I therefore think that my research will not cause any harm to the participants. I have chosen the 

covert research position as some employees might choose not to submit ideas and communicate and 

interact in the employee ideation community, if I conducted overt research and asked for informed consent 

of each participant in the employee ideation community. I consider my participation in Novozymes’ internal 

social media for employee ideation to be minimal. I have gained access to the Novozymes’ internal social 

media, so that I can observe the employee ideation (communication and interaction) without interacting in 

the employee ideation. In other words, my participation can be considered to be at the lurker level, where 

27  

lurker is defined as “the active observer who learns about a site through initially watching and reading.” 

(Kozinets, 2010: 34). 

I will use the OneNote tool to capture the employee communication and interaction going on 

in Novozymes COLINs. More specifically, I will capture the communication threads (se example 1) that occur 

in relation to the submitted ideas and save these threads in pdf documents that subsequently can be 

imported in NVivo for coding.  

In February and in March 2017, I will conduct in‐depth semi‐structured interviews (part two) 

with employees, managers and other central persons in the employee ideation process in order to follow up 

on my observations in the netnographic studies. Moreover, the interviews will help me in answering the 

questions about the interviewees’ perception of the ideation process on internal social media and their 

expectations to the contributions of this communicative practice as well as answering questions about 

expectation settings among managers and employees in relation to employee ideation communities on 

internal social media. I expect to interview 10‐12 employees, managers and other central persons, and the 

interviewees will be selected purposively (Neergaard, 2007) based on their activity in Novozymes’ employee 

ideation communities on internal social media. 

 4.2.2.2 Data analysis 

As it appears from the above, there are two sets of data to analyze: the threads of ideas with comments and 

likes from the COLINs and the interviews. First, the idea threads will be used to identify central employees 

and managers in the ideation process. These persons will constitute the sample to be interviewed. 

Simultaneously, the idea threads will be coded in Nvivo. Based on these codes, a thematic analysis (Bryman, 

2016) will be applied in order to find answers to and deep understanding of how employees communicate in 

an employee ideation community on an internal social media, and how this communication constitutes the 

ideation process of an organization. Next, the interviews will be transcribed and coded using Nvivo. The 

thematic analysis will be conducted and provide insights into why employees communicate in an employee 

ideation community on an internal social media, and what their expectations are to this communicative 

practice. 

An overview of the empirical data collection is depicted in figure 2. As it appears from the figure the data 

collected from the first study will be data (interviews) based in text when managers talk about their 

expectations and perceptions of employee ideation communities on internal social media. The data collected 

in part one of the second study will appear from the conversation, which in this case are observations of the 

communicative practice employee ideation on the internal social media. In part two of the second study, the 

data collected (interviews) comes from text when employees and other organizational members relevant for 

28  

the employee ideation talks about why they ideate and what their expectations are. The arrows in the figure 

indicate the relations between the two studies and the different data collection methods. These relations 

are constructed in the translations of text into conversation, conversations into text and back again. 

 

Figure 2: Overview of empirical data collection 

4.3 Delimitations and challenges 

I will delimit my single case research to study the communication in the employee ideation communities on 

internal social media. Novozymes has implemented an internal social media platform specifically used for 

employee ideation, and this is what will be part of the actual research. Other internal social media available 

for employee communication at Novozymes will not be part of this study. 

 As previously mentioned there is a huge amount of submitted ideas and comments in the 

employee ideation community at Novozymes. It will be a challenge to generate an overview of the more 

than 2,000 submitted ideas, 6,000 comments and 2,500 likes in order to assess what ideas, comments and 

likes to analyze and what not to analyze. I plan to select significant ideation situations where I will select 

posted ideas that are followed by a minimum of five comments. I will study the communication and 

29  

interaction in the employee ideation communities, but if there are no comments to the posted ideas, there 

is only a minimum of communication and no interaction to study.  

The next challenge will be to select the interviewees. I plan to select interviewees based on 

their activity in the employee ideation communities on internal social media, both those who participate and 

contribute with ideas, comments and likes, but also those who choose not to participate. I will combine 

these selection criteria with the selection criteria of employees in different job positions and at different 

departments and locations. 

 

5. OVERVIEW OF ARTICLES 

As mentioned in section 1.1, the PhD thesis is planned to have the form of an article based dissertation 

comprising three articles. These three articles are going to answer the overarching goal of this project and 

they are based on the investigations conducted in the explorative research and in the single case research. 

The first article will enhance the understanding of how managers, through their expectations to and 

perceptions of employee ideation, author this communicative practice into text. The second article will 

contribute with deep insights into how employees translate these perceptions and expectations (text) into 

practice through their idea postings, comments and likes on internal social media (conversation). The third 

article will provide understanding of and explications to how employees through distanciation translate the 

local communicative practices into a collective experience when they talk about why they ideate, and what 

are their expectations to this practice. The relations between the three articles and the theoretical 

framework are illustrated in figure 3:  

30  

 

Figure 3: Relation between the three articles and the theoretical framework 

5.1 First article: Employee ideation communities on internal social media: Managers’ expectations and 

perceptions of contributions and challenges (work in progress) 

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this article is to enhance the understanding of how managers, through their 

expectations to and perceptions of employee ideation, author this communicative practice into text. 

Intended Journal: Corporate Communication, an International Journal. 

Submission: Spring 2017. 

5.2 Second article: Employee ideation communities on internal social media: translation of text into 

practices and conversations (Tentative outline) 

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to contribute with deep insights into how employees translate text 

into practice and conversations through their idea postings, comments and likes on internal social media. 

Intended journal: International Journal of Business Communication. 

Submission: Autumn 2017. 

5.3 Third article 3: Employee ideation communities on internal social media: why employees ideate and 

their expectations to employee ideation communities on internal social media (Tentative outline) 

31  

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide understanding of and explications to how employees 

through distanciation translate the local communicative practices of employee ideation on social media into 

a collective experience when employees talk about why they ideate, and what their expectations are to this 

practice. 

Intended journal: International Journal of Strategic Communication 

Submission: Spring 2018 

 

6. A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS  

The purpose of the TP has been to present and explain the current state of my PhD project. During the first 

20 months of my research, I have 1) reviewed literature on open innovation, employee ideation 

communities, internal social media, network, organizational communication, CCO, methodology, case 

studies, research design, and netnography 2) conducted an exploratory research within 10 organizations; 3) 

written my first paper for and presented it at the CCI Conference on Corporate Communication 2016; 4) 

started to write my first article to be submitted for CCIJ in spring 2017; 5) participated in four PhD courses of 

each five ECTS; 6) taught, supervised and examined master students in the course “Corporate 

communication and internal stakeholders” in spring 2016, and 7) finally made an agreement with the single 

case company to conduct netnography and interviews. The PhD activities for the rest of the period have 

been planned and are outlined in enclosure 1.  

The main questions that I have to my PhD project is 1) to the coherence of the research design, 2) to the 

relevance of my research questions and finally 3) to theories that I will benefit the most from when 

answering the research questions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

32  

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Appendix 1: Overview of the research process 

Semester  Activities in the research process

 

S2015 

Apr ‐ Jun 

- Development of research questions and theoretical framework. 

- Reading of literature on internal social media, network, online communities and open innovation.  

- Search and selection of 10 organizations for the explorative study. 

 

A2015 

Jul ‐ Dec 

- Development of research questions and theoretical framework. 

- Reading of literature on organizational communication, CCO, methodology and case studies. 

- Development of interview design and guide for the explorative study.  

- Interview with 11 managers responsible for employee ideation communities on internal social media in 10 different organizations. 

-  Interview transcriptions. 

 

S2016 

Jan ‐ Jun 

- Development of research questions and theoretical framework. 

- Reading of literature on organizational communication, CCO, employee ideation communities and philosophy of science. 

- Coding of interviews from the explorative study. 

- Conference paper submission. Paper based on preliminary results from the explorative study and presented at the CCI Conference on Corporate Communication 2016, USA. 

 

A2016 

Jul ‐ Dec 

- Thesis proposal writing. 

- Selection of an organization for the single case study. 

- Reading of literature on research design, netnography and case studies. 

- Development of research design and interview guide for the single case study. 

- Contract settlement with Novozymes (case company). 

- Start of netnographic studies. 

- Identification of relevant employees and managers for follow up interviews. 

 

S2017 

Jan ‐ jun 

 

- Rewriting  and submission of the first article based on findings from the explorative study 

- Reading of literature on organization as a dynamic of four translations, tensions, contradictions, paradoxes, ambiguity, multivocality. 

- Continuation of netnographic studies. 

- Interviews with relevant employees and managers. 

 

A2017 

Jul – Dec 

- Coding and thematic analysis of idea threads captured in the COLINs.  

- Writing and submission of the second article. 

- Reading of literature on theories about decoupling strategies, hypocrisy and paradoxes. 

S2018  - Transcriptions, coding and thematic analysis of interviews. 

39  

Semester  Activities in the research process

Jan ‐ jun  - Writing and submission of the third article. 

A2018 

Jul – Dec 

- Writing of the first chapters for the dissertation.  

- Writing of the text to connect the three articles. 

S2019 

Jan ‐ Mar 

- Writing of the last chapters that sums up the whole research. 

- Rewriting the whole dissertation. 

- Hand in March 31, 2019. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

40  

Appendix 2: Overview of study elements 

PhD Courses total: 30 ECTS 

 Completed PhD Course  Place 

 Time  ECTS 

 Research paradigms in Strategic 

Communication 

Department of Business Communication, Aarhus University 

January 2016  5 ECTS 

 Publish or Perish:  

Preparing, Writing and Reviewing Journal Articles in Marketing 

Management 

Department of Management,  Aarhus University 

January – August 2016 

5 ECTS 

Introducing the Philosophy of Science:  

A Multi‐perspective Approach 

Department of Business Communication, Aarhus University 

June 2016  5 ECTS 

Thesis Research Design  Department of Business Communication, Aarhus University 

November/Decem‐ber 2016 

5 ECTS 

 Total completed PhD courses 

  

  

20/30 ECTS 

TBD  

?  

2017  5 ECTS 

Advanced Qualitative Methods  Department of Business Communication, Aarhus University 

May 2017  5 ECTS 

 Total planned PhD courses 

   10 ECTS 

 Total completed and planned PhD 

Courses    

30/30 ECTS 

 

Teaching activities total: 300 hours 

Completed Course  Teaching / Supervision / Examination  Time  Hours

 Corporate Communication and Internal Stakeholders, MA 

Teaching / Supervision / Examination February – June 

2016 122,38 

Completed Course  Teaching / Supervision / Examination  Time  Hours

 Corporate Communication and Internal Stakeholders, MA 

Teaching / Supervision / Examination February – June 

2018 176,54 

 Teaching Activities ‐ Total 

  299/300 hours 

 

Going abroad: 3 months I have been accepted as a visiting PhD student at Lund University, Campus Helsingborg, Sweden, from April 1st to June 30th 2017. Professor Mats Heide, Department of Strategic Communication, will be my host. 

 

 

41  

Appendix 3:  CCI Conference on Corporate Communication Paper:  Employee communication in open innovation communities on internal social media – the perspective of managers responsible for open innovation 

 

Employee communication in open innovation communities on internal social media - The perspective of managers responsible for internal open innovation Helle Eskesen Gode, Department of Business Communication, Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University and VIA Business, VIA University College, Denmark heeg@bcom.au.dk Abstract Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the role of employee communication and internal social media (ISM) in open innovation. Design/methodology/approach – Explorative study based on 10 semi-structured interviews conducted in autumn 2015 with managers responsible for internal open innovation. Findings – Employees share ideas and valuable insights on ISM. Employee reactions to ideas (e.g. comments, likes and recombination of initial ideas) as well as accumulation of insights and ideas contribute to innovation. Research limitations/implications – According to the managers responsible for internal open innovation, employee communication and IMS have important implications for the open innovation process. Further research is needed taking an employee perspective. Originality/value – In contrast to open innovation communities on external social media, studies within open innovation on ISM are almost non-existent. Thus, this study offers some of the first insights into employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM. Keywords Internal social media, open innovation communities, employee communication, organizational communication. Paper type Research paper (work in progress). Introduction Innovation is important for economic growth possibilities as innovation contributes to the competitiveness of organizations (Cantwell, 2005). Open innovation is an approach to innovation where organizations open up and use both internal and external innovation sources (Chesbrough, 2006). These sources are dispersed outside the company, as well as within the company across departments. All employees in an organization are important for the innovation process. In fact, according to Linke and Zerfass (2011) they constitute one of the most important resources for innovation. Moreover, organizations’ ability to create networks is central for their innovation possibilities (Piller et al., 2012). Thus, ISM may offer a significant contribution as they make it possible to create online open innovation communities.

The open innovation literature has primarily had an external perspective focusing on the knowledge and ideas flowing from one organization to another (Vanhaverbeke, 2006). Only few scholars have included an internal perspective. This is the case of Dahlander and Gann (2010) and Van de Vrande et al. (2010) who considered collaboration within a firm to support the flow of innovative knowledge from its external environment.

Research exists in relation to strategies for and communication in online communities, brand communities and open innovation communities, but again it is viewed from an external perspective (Casaló et al., 2008; Kozinets, 2002; Bateman et al., 2011; Antikainen et al., 2010). Scholars have not paid much attention to employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM. However, open innovation on external social media cannot just be compared or transferred to employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM. Employees may react differently than customers, fans or other external stakeholders, because employees have a closer relationship to the organization they are working in (Frandsen and Johansen, 2011).

42  

In addition, although from an organizational communication perspective, Rice and Leonardi (2014, p. 441) emphasize the need for more studies in the underexplored new context which is formed by the rise of the mass collaboration and the ”technology-enabled large-group problem solving”.

This paper aims to fill the gap in existing research within the field of organizational communication, open innovation, and ISM by exploring, from a management perspective, how employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM influences the open innovation processes in organizations. The paper does so by taking an internal management perspective upon open innovation, since managers responsible for the open innovation process are knowledgeable about the strategic intent of the organization, and the challenges and opportunities of this practice.

Denmark was chosen as the research setting of this study, since Denmark in recent years experiences low productivity growth (cf. Erhvervs- og Vækstministeriet, 2016 – [Ministry of Business and Growth, Denmark]). With an increasing governmental focus on innovation, on new technologies driving productivity growth, on differentiation and competitive advantage, and more and more organizations that are actively using social media for innovation in collaboration with external or internal stakeholders (Networked Business Factbook, 2013), there are reasons to believe that this will create new opportunities and challenges to organizational communication and organizations in Denmark worth researching.

The paper consists of five sections: introduction followed by theoretical framework, research design, main findings and discussions, ending with conclusion, implications for theory and practice and future research within this area. Theoretical Framework The research study has an interdisciplinary character, and is based on selected theories from four research fields each contributing in different ways to shed light on the topic: organizational communication, open innovation, internal social media and open innovation communities. Organizational communication When researching employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM, it is relevant to take the approach that communication is constitutive of organizing (Putnam and Nicotera, 2009; Mumby and Stohl, 1996) since employee communication in open innovation communities is constitutive of the open innovation process. In particular, Lewis’ (2014) approach to innovation and change as socially constructed, can be used to discuss in what way employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM influence the open innovation process. Lewis’ approach is inspired by Weick’s sensemaking theory (Weick, 1995), and accordingly, employees’ communication in the open innovation process can be viewed as a construction of their environment through a process of social interaction and sense-making. When employees are part of an open innovation community on ISM, they communicate and interact in order to make sense of what is going on. Open innovation Open innovation is an approach to innovation where organizations open up and use internal and external sources for innovation, as the sources to contribute to the innovation do not only exist in the R&D departments (Chesbrough, 2006). These sources are distributed both outside and inside the boundaries of the organizations. Open innovation is defined by Chesbrough and Bogers (2014, p. 17) as a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, using pecuniary and non-pecuniary mechanisms in line with the organization’s business model. This definition of open innovation is guiding the understanding of open innovation in the present study. However, the scope of the “flows across organizational boundaries” will be limited to across boundaries within the organization and between employees. Furthermore, these knowledge flows will be nuanced in the present study, when analyzing how employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM can influence the open innovation process.

A variety of concepts and views upon open innovation exist in the research literature. This study considers a range of them to be complementing approaches to the organization’s open innovation process. Accordingly, open innovation can comprise e.g. user innovation (von Hippel, 2005), open source software (West and Callagher, 2006), open knowledge creating process (Nonaka, 2014), ideation platforms and ideation contests (Piller and Walcher, 2006; Adamszyk et al 2012), crowdsourcing (Howe, 2008), or co-creation (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). ISM

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ISM enables communication across organizational boundaries and facilitates creation of online communities that contribute with knowledge to the innovation process (Piller et al., 2012). Treem and Leonardi (2012) have specifically studied ISM and developed the theory of four affordances (visibility, persistence, editability, association) and their consequences to organizational communication processes. Due to these four affordances, ISM makes communication between employees across departments and geographies possible that were difficult or not possible to achieve before ISM entered the workplace. What is named “social media in organizations” (Treem and Leonardi, 2012), “enterprise social media” (Leonardi et al., 2013) or “intra-organizational social media platforms” (Vuori and Okkonen, 2012) is termed ISM in this study to emphasize that only employees have access to this internal platform not open to external stakeholders. Open innovation communities From the communication networks research, the open innovation communities can be considered innovation networks (Monge and Contractor, 2003) communicating about new ideas. They are communities of practice because they are informally bound together by their common interest in the open innovation process (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, E., 1998). It is through their collaboration that the boundaries of the community are set, and these boundaries go across departments, divisions, geographies and other formal hierarchical structures of the organization. According to previous research, diversity is an important dimension within open innovation. Granovetter’s (1973) theory of the strength of weak ties suggests that networks consist of few strong ties and many weak ties. The weak ties are indirect contacts to relations outside one’s network, which can expand the possibilities for new knowledge, information and experience. Therefore, it can be expected that the more diverse profiles of the employees communicating in the open innovation communities across departments and geographies, the more diverse and different knowledge, information and experience will be available that can contribute to the open innovation process. Research questions Based on this theoretical framework and building on the managers’ perception of how employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM influence the open innovation process in organizations, the aim of this study is to answer the following questions:

RQ1. How does communication among employees in open innovation communities on ISM contribute to innovation?

RQ2. How does innovation occur when employees communicate in open innovation communities on ISM?

RQ3. What are the managers’ expectations to the outcome resulting from employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM? Research Design and Methodology This study explores a new context in which employee communication and open innovation take place, and that is within open innovation communities on ISM. Managers responsible of internal open innovation are among the first to have observed how open innovation works on ISM. Therefore, an explorative study (Stebbins, 2001) has been conducted in order to investigate managers’ perception of how employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM influence the open innovation process in organizations, and thereby contribute with new insights into this underexplored area of technology-enabled large-group problem solving (Rice and Leonardi, 2014, p. 441). These managers also have knowledge about the strategic intent of their organization for inviting employees to participate in the open innovation community on ISM. They have this area as one of their key responsibilities, they have considerable experience within the field of open innovation, and therefore they are able to reflect and share insights on this new field. Sample Interviews were conducted in autumn 2015 with managers from 10 large (3,400-20,000 employees) private and public organizations within different industries (social care, IT, toys manufacturing, pump manufacturing, dairy, technology manufacturing, wind turbine manufacturing, fashion manufacturing, biotech, constructions). These organizations are considered first movers within employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM, as they are some of the first organizations in Denmark to use this practice. Nine of them are currently using ISM actively for open innovation, whereas one ceased after a year mostly due to lack of employee

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communication on the ISM. Through purposive sampling (Mason, 2002) participants who represent and have knowledge about employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM have been selected. In total, 11 managers responsible for employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM were interviewed. In one organization, the social department director was interviewed together with the manager responsible for the open innovation community.

All interviewees were responsible for open innovation activities, although they were entitled in different ways and covering different functions: commercial innovation director, head of business innovation, head of digital innovation, innovation and business design manager, social department director, global project manager, open innovation senior manager, head of innovation development, and innovation manager. Common to all of them, they were experienced within innovation, and had career backgrounds and educations within areas such as innovation, business development, product development and online communities. In that way, they were assumed to have much knowledge about the researched topic. Seven interviews were carried out face-to-face, and three over telephone, each lasting from 45 to 90 minutes. It must be kept in mind that the interviewees can be biased in their responses, as they may want to position the employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM as a valuable contribution to the innovation process in the organization, being themselves responsible for this field. Interview guide and data analysis The study is based on semi-structured interviews (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015) conducted according to an interview guide that focused on three themes: (1) strategic intent for implementing employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM; (2) managers’ observations of the employee communication in the open innovation community; (3) managers’ perception of how this practice contributes to the organization’s innovation processes. The theoretical framework inspired the three themes of the interview guide, and helped to cover main areas and collect comparable data from all interviewees (Daymon and Holloway, 2011). At the same time, the interview guide allowed for flexibility and development of new or unexpected themes, as it consisted of two types of interview questions. The one set of questions were open ended in order to encourage the interviewees to tell about their views of the topic. This was important, as the analysis of the interviews focused on meaning where rich and nuanced descriptions in the answers are important. When answers required more elaboration, they were followed by interpretive questions in order to verify the interpretations (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015). The other set of questions were based on the critical incident questioning technique (Downs and Adrian, 2004), in order to make the managers describe both positive and negative incidents that they had met in relation to employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM, in order to make specific challenges or opportunities from practice come forward.

Prior to the interview, the interviewees were asked to fill in a questionnaire answering demographic questions such as age and education as well as general questions about prior experience with open innovation and start date of the employee participation in open innovation communities on ISM. The interviewees were briefly informed about the topic before the interview, but no definitions of e.g. open innovation or employee communication were provided in order to allow interviewees to elaborate on their own perception of themes relevant to their perceptions of employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM.

The analysis of the interviews took place in two steps: First, the interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded using Nvivo. Next, the meaning of the text units was condensed and interpreted (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015). All interviewees and findings were anonymized.

Findings and Discussion This section is divided into four sub-sections. After a short presentation of the way the open innovation communities were established, and of the main barriers to make employees communicate in these communities on ISM, follow three sets of findings related to the three research questions about 1) how employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM contributed to innovation; 2) how the innovation occurred when employees communicated in open innovation communities on ISM; 3) managers’ expectations to the outcome of employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM. Organizing of open innovation communities and barriers to employee communication The organizing of the open innovation communities on ISM in the organizations participating in this research differed from each other. Some organizations had created open innovation communities open to all employees through an always open idea box, in other organizations it was about “challenges”, “events”, “campaigns” or

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“competitions” that were posted in open innovation communities open to all employees, whereas in a few organizations these activities were targeted a specific number of employees in the organization. In all of the organizations, employees were considered to be active communicators (Heide and Simonsson, 2011) able to contribute to the open innovation process.

Whereas one of the managers told that over the years, they had experienced more and more employee communication in the open innovation community on ISM, another manager explained that they had to cease the practice in his organization mostly due to lack of employees communicating in the open innovation community on ISM.

However, most of the interviewees wanted more employee communication to happen in the open innovation communities on ISM, since they experienced at least four different sets of barriers for the employee communication. The most important barriers were perceived to be a time issue: e.g. employees had other tasks to do; they were caught up in their daily work; they had their own priorities; other online activities competed for their attention. Second, it was a matter of self-censorship (Detert and Edmondson, 2011): e.g. employees found that they did not know enough to contribute; some believed that only experts had the solutions; others were worried about “exposing” themselves on ISM, they feared to lose expertise or respect or being made a fool of when communicating ideas visible to all employees. Third, some innovation challenges had a too broad topic, others targeted a too broad employee crowd, or the frequency of the innovation campaigns was too high and then considered as spam by the employees. Finally, it was due to power relations (Treem and Leonardi, 2012): e.g. the original idea contributor may lose control of the idea once it was developed in an ideation process; employees were afraid of their ideas being stolen; or it was not their preferred way of working with innovation. Despite these barriers, the interviewees still saw benefits in trying to make employee communicate in open innovation communities on ISM. RQ1 How does employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM contribute to innovation? The interviewees agreed that employees communicating in the open innovation community on the ISM contributed to innovation in different ways: Some employees posted ideas, and/or made comments to the submitted ideas, suggestions, or likes; they shared problems or challenges, or tried to recombine submitted ideas in new ways. Some of the interviewees found that most of the submitted ideas were either bad ideas, obvious ideas or similar ideas. The bad ideas, but also the good ideas, could develop into something better through comments or a recombination of the submitted ideas. The obvious ideas served as a reminder of what was already known, but needed to be revisited to decide whether this was something, the organization still did not want to implement. The similar ideas were accumulated on the ISM, and served as an indicator of what was going on in the organization.

The ISM allowed employees to communicate about ideas and suggestions in a new way visible to all employees in the community. Employees could comment, like, suggest, share problems, recombine and connect with similar ideas or other employees on a large scale and across departments and geographies; the open innovation process was dependent on this amount of activities. RQ2. How does innovation occur when employees communicate in open innovation communities on ISM? According to the interviewees innovation occurred in two ways. Either through the reaction to the submitted ideas (comments, suggestions, re-combinations of submitted ideas, etc.) or through the accumulation of the submitted ideas (similar ideas).

Innovation through reactions: All interviewees found that for the open innovation process to work, the most important dimension was to have employees comment on the submitted ideas. One interviewee (iH) described this as the “enrichment phase” in the open innovation process. The submitted ideas developed into something more through employees’ comments, because, in this way, new perspectives were added to the original ideas. This perception was confirmed by one of the interviewees: “Sometimes, the idea is really a bad idea, but the reaction to the bad idea… it could be like “Hey, I think that we should do this”, and then somebody reacts on this and say “No, that is silly, what you should do is this and this”, and then somebody starts to react to that, and you can argue that innovation happens in the reaction” (iF).

The interviewees also found that employees’ ideas, comments and likes to the submitted ideas created new connections between employees across organizational boundaries that helped improve their existing product portfolio, as they could discuss and develop the original idea.

One interviewee mentioned the re-combination aspect occurring through the comments to the submitted ideas. To him, comments were crucial, because in this way employees added knowledge and recombined aspects

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of the initially posted ideas. Employees mostly discussed elements of knowledge already known, but they combined the elements in a different sequence: “…, it is more about the re-combinatorial aspect of innovation than going into solution mode finding the concept that actually is so new and so different and so actionable that you should find a patent. That is usually not happening in this early stage…” (iJ).

The perception of the managers that innovation happened in reaction to different comments to the submitted ideas confirms the theory of the strength of weak ties (Granovetter, 1973). The more employees communicating on a large scale in the open innovation communities across departments and geographies, the more diverse and different knowledge, information and experience would be available, which contributed to the open innovation process.

Innovation through accumulation of ideas: When many similar ideas were submitted in the community, they served as an indicator of what employees saw as opportunities or challenges. According to iJ, in this way, they got the organization closer to a better reason to believe in a specific concept. None of the similar ideas were things they would do, but similar ideas could still give the organization a hint about what mattered to the employees: “Nobody gave a good idea, but it shows us that out of 100 people, 60 are interested in that. So, that is an insight, and this insight leads to innovation” (iF). The perception of iB was also, that perhaps none of the posted ideas were the right ideas. However, they could indicate some challenges or opportunities, and point the organization in a specific direction: “But what I think is interesting is that out of the posted 1000 ideas, 381 are about retail and payment, well then there is something here that we have to investigate further” (iB).

The value of the accumulation of similar ideas can be related to Leonardi et al. (2013) who describe one of the roles of ISM within the organizations, using the metaphor of an echo chamber. One of the positive sides of the echo chamber is that ISM may allow like-minded employees to connect to each other in order to communicate about their similar ideas. Thus, although they are echoing one another, this accumulation of similar ideas may lead to new insights and directions for the future. This confirms the approach of the wisdom of the crowds (Surowiecki, 2005), where a large group of people are considered smarter than few experts. RQ3. What are the managers’ expectations to the outcome resulting from employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM? The managers of the study had many expectations to the outcome of employee communication in open innovation communities on ISM, but one of the key findings was that all of them directly or indirectly told that they did not expect to uncover the one and only idea creating radical innovation or brand new patents. IF stated this in the following way: “… if all you are looking for is finding the big, large golden nugget, you will probably be disappointed”. In contrast, they expected “warning signals” or opportunities to emerge from the employee communication. Adding all these insights contributed to the innovation.

It was also expectations to change the way people work. Many encouraged their employees to submit ideas that were still not fully developed, such as iG: “Don’t hide your idea even though it is not 100% finished. If you have described it very detailed, there is no possibility of developing the idea. Your colleagues will find it difficult to develop your idea, because you have selected a direction and a solution. Make the idea 30% open, and ask some question that can further develop the idea. That is what brings dynamics to the idea”.

A part from the expectations in relation to innovation, the managers expected the open innovation communities on ISM to create more collaboration between employees across departments and across geographies as expressed by iG like “It is about igniting sparks that can collaborate”. Conclusion, implications and future research This explorative study provides some of the first insights into an emerging field: open innovation through employee communication on ISM. This study shows that innovation through open innovation communities and employee communication is not a matter of finding the one and only idea creating radical innovation or new patents. It is more about changing the way employees work to be able to work and share knowledge in an open and visible environment. Furthermore, it is about increasing the collaboration between employees across organizational boundaries and geographies.

Despite the perceived barriers of employee communication in the open innovation community, the interviewed managers stated this practice to be worthwhile, as it had important implications for the open innovation process: First, the different ways in which employees communicated in the open innovation community on a large scale and across departments and geographies contributed to the innovation. Employees could comment, like, suggest, share problems, recombine and connect with similar ideas or other employees, and the open innovation process was dependent on this amount of activities. Next, innovation occurred in the

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reaction to the submitted ideas. Comments gave new perspectives to the original submitted ideas, and these ideas developed into something more. Ideas, comments and likes also created new connections between employees that helped improve existing product portfolio. The recombination of ideas already submitted in the open innovation community also added new knowledge and aspects. Finally, the accumulation of similar ideas submitted in the open innovation communities on the ISM could indicate some challenges or opportunities, and point the organization in a specific direction. These ideas might not be something the organizations wanted to implement, but they still gave hints about what mattered to the employees. According to the interviewees, this added or accumulated employee insight also lead to innovation.

Since this study is based exclusively on the perceptions of managers, further research is needed in order to study what is actually going on, and adding the views of the employees.

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