**4. EDI effect analysis on micro- and meso-level**

This section presents the results of our systematic literature review. The 35 final articles are incorporated into a concept matrix, as proposed by Webster and Watson [13], which is depicted in **Table 1**. Within this matrix, the literature is initially categorized by type—either a practical case study or a conceptual approach. Subsequently, the described effects of EDI on employees and organizations are segregated into micro- and meso-level effect areas. The micro-level effect areas amalgamate effects pertinent to individuals involved in an EDI process, such as employees or organizational members. Conversely, the meso-level effect areas compile all the effect statements we discovered on an organizational level. From these 35 articles, we extracted and codified 124 effect statements, which we consolidated into 11 overarching effect areas. Four effect areas reside on the micro-level, while seven are found on the meso-level.

Our review revealed that the most commonly described effect area in the literature occurs on the meso-level, connecting EDI to heightened innovativeness within organizations. The least frequently mentioned effect area pertains to the increase in organizational affiliation. Concerning the 35 articles, 24 (69%) are classified as case studies, exploring various use cases in distinct organizations, such as Allianz and Telecom, or diverse countries, including China, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam. The remaining 11 articles (31%) are conceptual, denoting their logical argumentation and analyses rooted in secondary data on EDI topics. These could be literature reviews as meta-studies, offering a fresh perspective on a specific topic or proposing a novel framework.

#### **4.1 Micro-level effects**

The most frequently observed micro-level effects are related to motivation and engagement, with 16 articles (46%). Several articles mention increased compensation, such as monetary incentives [3, 50], and various forms of rewards like promotions, recognition, and leisure time [8, 42, 45, 55] as potent extrinsic motivational factors. These incentives can inspire employees to participate in the EDI process with their innovative ideas actively. A study notes that EDI influences the resources and technologies that employees can utilize [46], as novel tasks and responsibilities can

*Unfolding Effect Areas of Employee-Driven Innovation: A Systematic Literature Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112160*


**Table 1**.

*Continued.*


#### **Table 1.**

*Concept matrix of the EDI effect areas synthesized from the literature.*

enhance their roles. This situation allows employees to perceive and seize career opportunities [4, 42], such as leading a small dedicated team, improving their selfimage [23], and having full or partial responsibility for an EDI project [45, 64]. Such factors could boost employees' intrinsic motivation. Additionally, increased curiosity, excitement, and enthusiasm [55, 56, 63], as well as stimulating discussions [60], can enhance engagement and interest in innovations emerging from EDI initiatives [11]. However, a contrasting statement suggests that if decision-makers do not respond on time to the generated and submitted ideas, it may decrease employee motivation [53]. This situation can also occur when employees' routine operational duties conflict with the EDI process [34].

Satisfaction and workplace represent the next effect area, with seven articles (20%) containing relevant effect statements. According to these findings, EDI enhances the workplace environment by involving employees in innovation. For example, front-line employees can forward and enhance customer ideas and facilitate their implementation, fostering employee and customer satisfaction [42]. Consequently, the opportunity to participate in innovation can generate pride, enjoyment, and, ultimately, job satisfaction [8, 38, 55]. The organization's appreciation for

### *Unfolding Effect Areas of Employee-Driven Innovation: A Systematic Literature Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112160*

additional tasks or participation, such as the aforementioned responsibility can create a fulfilling job situation [64] and novel work experiences [23], promoting a healthy work environment [3]. This positive environment can cause a ripple effect, as a satisfied and content workforce generally leads to increased productivity and lower employee turnover.

Skill and knowledge development constitute another aggregated micro-level effect area. Nine articles (26%) include statements suggesting that EDI results in employees exploiting their skills [3, 11, 53], acquiring or employing operational experience [42, 53], or enhancing their knowledge about (digital) innovations and related topics like entrepreneurship [38, 46, 53, 56, 65]. Specifically, employees apply their current abilities in new contexts, explore areas beyond their regular roles, and acquire new competencies. Hence, EDI introduces effects that foster employees'skills, knowledge, and a mindset of innovation and continuous learning, enabling them to adopt new perspectives on their operational tasks and the entire organization, improving their efficiency and effectiveness [3, 11, 55].

Organizational affiliation is the least commonly found effect area on the micro-level, with two articles (6%) reporting effects resulting from EDI. This effect area implies that EDI can fortify employees' affiliation with their organization [38]. By involving employees in the innovation process, organizations offer them a platform and voice to contribute actively to organizational development and goals. This involvement can cultivate a deeper connection to the organization and its values, fostering stronger affiliation [68]. Employees who feel affiliated with their organization are more likely to demonstrate commitment, loyalty, and eagerness to contribute.

## **4.2 Meso-level effects**

The most frequently identified meso-level effect area pertains to organizational innovativeness. We discovered effects related to this area in 21 of the 35 analyzed articles (60%). Generally, this area links EDI and employee engagement to organizational innovation. As a diverse workforce contributes their unique insights, the repository of innovative ideas becomes enriched, thus amplifying the organization's overall innovativeness. The most commonly mentioned benefit for organizations is the generation of a steady stream of ideas from employees [42, 50], which subsequently enhances the innovation capability [3, 11, 38, 42, 50, 57]. Some findings indicate that organizational innovation's practical success is notably heightened due to EDI and employee involvement [3, 23, 46, 63]. This is primarily achieved by incorporating employee creativity into the innovation process to develop superior solutions, such as improved products [58, 66, 67]. Other articles point out that harnessing employee innovation and knowledge provides organizations with a competitive edge [4, 42, 59, 65]. A few findings directly link EDI to the contribution toward short- and long-term organizational objectives [6, 66]. Furthermore, the positive impact of EDI and employee innovation on exploration and exploitation within an organization is highlighted [29]. Moreover, some articles assert that EDI significantly influences radical innovation in organizations [3, 8]. EDI has also been employed and positively impacted innovativeness in the public sector [62]. However, some literature also underscores the adverse effects of EDI on organizational innovativeness. For example, one article states that digitalized innovation processes employed for harnessing employee innovation might suffer from low user acceptance rates or exclude employees [64]. Another article points out that EDI could result in managers feeling threatened, consequently obstructing employees' innovation efforts [52].

The following effect area pertains to artifact creation and enhancement in organizations through the utilization of employee innovation. In this context, artifacts should be considered products, processes, services, and business models that benefit from employees' deep-rooted understanding of the organization and its customers. This effect is described in 15 articles (43%). Most findings directly connect employee engagement in innovation to the creation or enhancement of new artifacts [3, 50, 54]. Other findings suggest that employees are more involved in the conceptual aspects of creating artifacts [45, 53, 64], which can, for example, accelerate the pace of their enhancement and creation [4, 51]. Consequently, employees can gain more trust and responsibilities through their involvement in EDI initiatives and artifact creation, such as through the ownership of the respective development projects [30], and they can further contribute to their organizations' visions [61]. Conversely, one article elucidates the ambiguity of incorporating employees in such business matters, detailing that wellprepared EDI can yield significant positive impacts, but ill-prepared initiatives may result in various negative outcomes such as demotivation, subpar products, and reduced employee participation [6]. Several authors connect EDI and digital tools, highlighting their mutual value addition. Digital tools can serve as a collaborative environment and facilitate processes and documentation, thereby enabling employees to focus more on creativity and content by relieving them of various tasks [7, 29, 30]. Contrarily, some articles from the final dataset highlight the negative aspects of employee integration in artifact development. One article notes that it is probable to exclude certain groups of employees [64], while another warns about the risk of information overload for the departments responsible for reviewing artifact ideas [42]. Furthermore, some research indicates that most improvements are predominantly related to internal artifacts that do not have a direct link to external business capabilities [4, 23].

The next effect area in the matrix relates to idea perception and communication. We identified 13 articles (37%) containing effect statements that were assigned to this area. It aggregates all effect statements found that imply EDI resulting in more ideas being perceived by the management and communicated, and how that further benefits the organization or institution. Employees require some form of guidance and a robust as well as trusted communication channel, for example, through a digital platform, a person, or other opportunities, when undertaking innovative tasks or promoting their ideas to a higher hierarchical level to gain recognition [60]. Therefore, managerial commitment is necessary to further increase participation in EDI [8, 30, 42, 50, 62], resulting in greater employee motivation [50, 59] and aiding the creation of a communication bridge between managers and employees [6]. For this communication to function properly, knowledge and information need to be distributed bidirectionally [38], which may result in structural changes. As the EDI concept aims to involve every employee in the innovation process to contribute innovative ideas, these ideas need to be perceived so employees recognize that they are heard and taken seriously [29]. Some articles state contrary effects, where managers were not open to receiving ideas from "outsiders" to the innovation process and considering them as irrelevant [54], or the ideas submitted were overly complex [34, 53, 62], resulting in lower idea acceptance rates.

The ensuing effect area listed in the matrix is decentralization and entrepreneurship. It is mentioned in 16 articles (46%) and, hence, is one of the more frequently found areas. Decentralized decisions are primarily attributed to the autonomy of the employees during their EDI endeavors as they work independently, self-direct their projects, and decide how they proceed to a certain degree. The level of freedom is individually set by the organizations and often linked to cost and risk factors. A

#### *Unfolding Effect Areas of Employee-Driven Innovation: A Systematic Literature Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112160*

common assertion is that decentralization induced by EDI leads to more entrepreneurial outcomes in organizations [6, 23, 43]. Additionally, some articles state that this decentralization directly contributes to a more proactive and situationally conducive environment for EDI [4, 8, 46]. It is described that this results in the generation of more ideas by employees [50, 64]. Consequently, employees' engagement in innovation increases [30, 69] and their drive to innovate gains momentum [42, 55]. Decentralization also contributes to more knowledge sharing across department borders, since employees may form cross-functional teams to engage in EDI projects [60]. Some less frequently found effects included in this effect area comprise better performance or more success in organizations through the promotion of entrepreneurial behavior among employees [52, 54, 65].

Another effect area identified is innovation process agility. It was found in four articles (11%). This effect area aggregates statements suggesting that EDI results in a more agile and flexible organizational environment [6], since the openness to innovate and the democratization of the innovation process requires a dynamic infrastructure [38, 56]. Therefore, EDI enforces a structure where employees can drive their innovative ideas forward, for example, in distinct EDI projects. This involves self-responsible conceptualization, prototyping, experimentation, and feedback gathering from the employees driving their projects, often without being incorporated into a lengthy bureaucratic decision-making chain. Consequently, organizations become more adaptable, capable of swiftly responding to the evolving innovation landscape. At specific points, management is required for decisions and to guide the employees according to organizational and institutional goals. In this way, traditional hierarchical structures are softened, increasing agility and flexibility for innovations [11].

One more effect area consolidated by the discovered statements is culture and mindset. Nine articles (26%) were found addressing this effect area. It describes that EDI generally results in more awareness regarding the topic of (digital) innovations and leads to a greater spread of an innovative culture and an open mindset throughout the organization or institution [11, 66]. Specifically, several articles indicate that EDI improves the openness to idea contributions, especially by top managers [46, 65], enhances an innovation-friendly, tolerant environment [38, 42, 59] and encourages a forgiving failure culture [43]. These aspects can foster the innovation process and increase the participation rate of employees [53].

The final effect area identified in the literature is collaboration and knowledge exchange. This effect area was found in four articles (11%) and describes all statements indicating that employees discuss and exchange ideas within workgroups and between departments as a result of EDI implementation and events such as idea competitions [60]. As a result, employees can expand their (internal) social network and improve cross-department collaboration in the long run [45, 56]. It is also noted that employees with different qualifications collaborating on various levels and complementing each other's competencies lead to greater impact in (complex) EDI projects, the diffusion of knowledge, and a more integrated and cohesive organizational community [62].
