HR psychological management of innovation

The term innovation generally refers to the process of transforming ideas or inventions into value-creating goods or services. From an active point of view, to innovate means to improve, to actively try to reach one’s ideal state. The report published in Accenture (Technology Vision 2021) shows that the companies that invest in innovation increase their profits five times faster than those that are more conservative. In the work environment, innovation comes from the exchange of knowledge, ideas and skills that belong to the organization’s population. Thus, innovation comes from people, whether they belong to the same organization (closed innovation) or different organizations (open innovation). We mention “people” rather than “a single individual” because innovation is inextricably linked to collaboration and is less and less likely to originate from the idea of a single individual, although the narrative of the revolutionary entrepreneur has always held sway in the collective imagination. Innovation thus requires the contribution of multiple individuals in organizations, which is why human resource management is critical to fostering organizational innovation. In particular, two HRM functions are of paramount importance in human innovation processes: personnel selection and training.
In this sense, the aim of the current line of research is to study the processes underlying the search for candidates with the skills needed to promote organizational innovation. This also makes it possible to implement training interventions for members of organizations aimed at increasing strategic skills related to innovation processes. In this way, the organization will be able to promote innovation processes through the development of competencies and skills of workers involved in them. In addition to selection, organizational innovation is closely linked to the concepts of training and development. In organizations, innovation grows with training and leads to the development of both human resources and the organization as a whole. This strand of research deals with innovation from both an experimental and a consulting perspective. It helps individuals, groups and organizations to define a training path that leads them to the creation of new ideas, tools and products.