25 April 2017
How to Prepare the Ground for “Idea Fishing”
The importance of frontline employees for the success of organisations is recognised by researchers and practitioners alike. However their relevance for the innovativeness of companies - resulting from their boundary spanning role - is often underestimated and has received little attention. Based on an academic piece of research, Prof Christof Backhaus summarised the current state of knowledge in this context, and outline results derived from an empirical investigating “idea fishing behaviors” of frontline employees from a diverse range of industrial and business services firms.
Furthermore he assessed the impact of motivators - such as job satisfaction and desire for upward mobility - and the effects of other important conditions like role stress and internal network, on idea gathering and dissemination. Christof shared the results of the study, showing the chain of idea gathering leading to idea dissemination results in innovation. Plus the various effects of role stress underlines the importance of differentiating between role conflict and ambiguity. Based on these findings, he explored the implications for management that are derived.
Speaker
Prof Christof Backhaus, Professor of Marketing, Director of the Aston Centre for Retail Insights, Aston Business School
Christof joined Aston Business School as a Professor and Chair in Marketing in September 2016. Before, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Universities of Dortmund, Bochum and Braunschweig in Germany, and as a Professor of Marketing at Newcastle University Business School. His research interest lies primarily in the field of Retail and Services Marketing and Management.
His work in these domains has been published in international marketing journals such as the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Small Business Management, Industrial Marketing Management and Psychology & Marketing.
He regularly collaborates with companies such as Allianz SE, Deutsche Bahn AG, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone D2 GmbH, and Volkswagen AG to help resolve issues in the areas of service innovation, customer and partner relationship management, marketing control & monitoring, and sponsorship management.