Managing Employee Empowerment and Engagement to Foster Service Innovation

This chapter discusses employees’ engagement in service innovation based on empirical research and a conceptual model. This chapter describes what the literature reports about employees’ role in innovation processes. Then, the model is presented and illustrated using three case examples. Finally, a conclusion is presented by drawing out the implications for management. The model illuminates balanced innovation where employees are empowered to engage in intrapreneurship and innovation activities, but this process is also controlled by the management. The three cases illustrate different versions of balanced innovation with different results. Management should emphasize different roles that employees can play in innovation processes.