How innovators reframe resources in the strategy-making process to gain innovation adoption
How do innovators from lower levels of an organization gain approval for their innovations especially when their ideas do not readily fit their organization’s strategy? To explore this question, we conducted 138 interviews with innovators and their decision makers in 14 firms based in Silicon Valley. We find that successful innovators shape a story supporting their innovation by rethinking their firm’s current and potential resources. They then use this story to convince decision makers that their innovation creates unique competitive advantage. Contrary to conventional wisdom, decision makers approved such innovations even without external validation, solely based on the innovators’ success in depicting their reorganization of the firm’s resources.
