Idea management and organisational effectiveness: a research gap

Abstract

Purpose: present an overview of idea management (IM) and organisational effectiveness (OE) literature trends, identify if there is a research gap, and make suggestions for future research in this field.

Approach: the research is based on a literature review. This detailed literature review has considered 75 scientific publications, conference proceedings, books and popular market reports published over 34 years, i.e., from January 1982 to February 2016, in all research fields about IM and more than 130 scientific publications about OE over the last 47 years, i.e., from January 1969 to January 2016.

Findings: it has been concluded that there is a tendency in literature to focus on internal IM, but from 2006 the situation started to change and more external and mixed IM application approaches have been researched; the authors have also summarized the main applied research methods and focuses. From 1969 till 2004 OE literature is fragmentary, but from 2004 there are substantive literature sources about OE. The research results show that OE has become especially topical in the last decade. The most frequently applied and mentioned OE models are the Goal Attained Model and the Competing Values Model, while the most commonly applied approach is the multidimensional approach. The authors have summarized 199 potential OE research dimensions. The results of the research revealed that there is a research gap – no studies focussing on the relationship between IM and OE. This is a topical theme and the authors have highlighted 5 main possible future research directions to bridge IM and OE, which shows that this topic has scientific potential.

Research limitations: data collection from 7 databases within these periods – IM literature from January 1982 to February 2015, OE literature from 1969 to January 2016.

Value: this paper fulfils an identified need to explore if there is a research gap between OE and IM research. The study also aims to clarify the domain of IM and OE by summarizing the main OE dimensions that are normally found in the OE literature and the main elements of IM. The concept of OE is encountered repeatedly in the organisational literature, but few serious attempts have been made to explain the construct either theoretically or empirically – this research has summarized 199 OE dimensions and is the largest scientifically gathered OE dimension list that aims to explain the OE construct. The added value of this research in an IM context: (1) explored the latest literature (published in 2015) on IM and IMS; (2) created a holistic view of IM and IMS. The main contribution of the research – it reviews IM and OE literature tendencies and synthesizes them to outline future research directions.

Paper type – literature review