Bossink: Eco-innovation and sustainability - Co-innovation in teams

7 important questions on Bossink: Eco-innovation and sustainability - Co-innovation in teams

The first category of organizational forms at the co-innovation level is the category of teams. What does this mean according to Bossink?

In this category, small groups of leaders, entrepreneurs, champions and their colleagues transform the ideas from the co-ideation level into practical business solutions. The teams adopt the ideas and put them into a center of attention. They realize innovative goals that contribute to the organizations. The possibility of improving the company's competitive position, the opportunity to serve new customers and the prospects of increasing market share are the main drivers of teamwork.

The innovation team can be modeled as an open system that operates on the basis of exchanges with its business environment. What does this mean according to Bossink?

That team members perceive their innovation teams as an entity that has to function in the context of a larger whole. The team is part of an organization and that's part of a business environment. A basic principle is that not the team but the organization and business environment determine the usefulness of innovations developed by the team. The team must be aware of the exchanges and transaction processes with its business environment and the consequences of of this.

It can be difficult for a team to be creative and realistic at the same time, why should teams be 'realistic creatively'? (Bossink)

When you are creative and realistic, it will encourage the team members to work on creative  options that contribute to the company's goals and save/generate money. Teams with a realistic approach invest in idea generation, development and adoption but also select and focus on the innovative ideas with the highest potential market value.
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According to Bossink, teams may need a focus on innovation in words and deeds. Whats meant with this innovation focus?

Teams that focus on innovation emphasize that everyone in the teams has to be innovative and oriented toward the team's innovative goals and spirit. This means the members ambition is to develop an innovative culture and practice.

According to Bossink an innovation may need support from and cooperation with other members of the organization to be effective. Why do they need this corporate drive?

Teams with a corporate drive concentrate on cooperation as a means to implement new processes, product designs and service procedures in their organization. Cooperation can tempt people in the organization to adopt the team's innovative proposals. An innovative team thus may have to cooperate with people from the business processes, that can turn the ideas into businesses.

Bossinks research indicates that the success of teams efforts for innovation can highly depend on people's cooperation skills. Explain this (3)?

1 Team members can be supported by local/national authorities with regulation and governmental policy (the government can do more to facilitate, stimulate and support team-based eco- and sustainable innovation)
2 Innovations teams need to be protected once cooperation has been initiated (communicate clear and effective, protect corporate needs)
3 Team members can act because of a sound understanding of the sustainbility problems and issues they aim to solve (situate and implement conceptual innovations: i a complex human/technological web, members need to know how the web functions etc.)

The team is the first element at the co-innovation level of Bossinks model. The research shows that the team can have many salient characteristics. Which one?

1 Its aware of its function in its business environment and knows that it has to develop innovations that fit with this contects.
2 It needs a realistic view on sustainability and concentrates on developing innovations that are profitable to both the firm and society.
3 The teams focus on innovation is consistent and unremitting (aanhoudend).
4 Team members know that they have to corporate and this can be found across departmental/organizational boundaries.
> the eco-innovative and sustainable team is an important org. form that can structure co-innovative activity.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

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