Het effect van formele en informele feedback op het innovatievermogen van organisaties

Little attention in literature so far has been given to the impact of feedback on organizational development and change. As well as the impact of feedback on the innovation power of organizations. The capacity of innovation of organizations however may be seen as a crucial capacity of organizations to survive in competitive markets. Prior studies towards the impacts of feedback have more often analyzed formal and informal feedback separately, other than analyzing them together in one study. This master thesis develops and explores a model to assess the possible impact of both formal and informal feedback on the capacity of innovation within organizations. The master thesis is the closing assignment of a Master Study Management at the Open Universiteit Nederland. The general question of the single-case study is: What is the impact of formal and informal feedback on the capacity of innovation of companies? The explored model in the study is a combination of the model of Lawson and Samson (2001) about the capacity of innovation and the framework model of Pitkänen and Lukka (2011) about formal and informal feedback. The single-case study is performed at Yellowbrick, a Dutch company which offers consumers an online parking service, suitable for the use on smartphones. The single-case study is performed twofold by semi-structured interviews and a survey. Although conclusions may not be generalized, because of the limitations of the study and the particularly small investigated group, some findings may be suitable for further investigation. In the study was found that feedback has an impact on the capacity of innovation. Formal feedback scored higher than informal feedback when asked about the impact on the capacity of innovation. The study also found multiple ‘new’ kinds of feedback used by organizations, other than the more ‘traditional’ forms of feedback, such as team meetings and bilateral meetings. Further on was analyzed that when employees find themselves more involved in the process of an innovation, they also seem to score the organization higher on the capacity of this innovation.