Behavioral Competencies for Innovation

In recent years, companies have faced significant changes in the way in which they manage the generation and development of innovation. The diffusion of the open innovation model, the phenomenon of converging technologies and the widespread applications of digitalization require companies not only to redesign their organizational structures and processes but also to redefine the skillset of the employees in charge of the innovation activities. Adopting a micro level of analysis, the chapter draws attention to the way in which the different tangible and intangible dimensions of human capital have been analyzed in the literature in relation to innovation. Then, the aim and the structure of the book are described. Offering emerging insights into the human side of innovation through the lenses of emotional and social intelligence competencies, this book aims to advance the understanding of the relevance of behavioral competencies in fostering the innovation process.

In the last decades, the concept of emotional intelligence has radically changed the organizational environment by offering a new perspective on the main influences on performance at the individual level. Despite the evidence collected in a variety of organizational settings indicating that emotional intelligence affects several work, career and performance outcomes positively, limited attention has been devoted to its role in the success of the innovation process. This chapter contributes to shedding light on the role of emotional intelligence in enhancing innovative processes. It briefly relates the history of the concept of emotional intelligence and describes the different theoretical approaches that have contributed to its definition. Then, the relationship between behavioral competencies related to emotional intelligence and innovation is described, presenting the competency framework that will be adopted in the subsequent chapters.

Entrepreneurs contribute to economic development in different ways. They represent an essential driver of innovation through the development of new products and processes, the exploitation of new markets, the introduction of new ways to organize firms and the implementation of new business models. While the connection between entrepreneurship and technological (product and process) and non-technological (organizational, marketing and strategy) innovation is widely acknowledged, there is an increasing need to investigate the factors that may better explain the differentials in terms of entrepreneurs’ innovation capacity at the individual level. This chapter addresses this void by presenting the stories of entrepreneurs who have introduced changes into their firm products, processes, organization, marketing and strategy, along with the related behavioral competencies that they mobilized to implement these types of innovation successfully.

That a company’s ability to develop and introduce new products successfully largely depends on the characteristics and the dynamics of its NPD team is well acknowledged among scholars and practitioners. However, the role of the different members of the NPD team and their related behaviors has been scantly investigated. This chapter adopts a micro level of analysis to shed new light on the behavioral competencies of those functional specialists, namely R&D experts, marketing professionals and industrial designers, who are responsible for taking a product from conceptualization to commercialization. The chapter presents the results of an empirical study that analyzed the behaviors mobilized by the members of cross-functional teams involved in successful NPD projects in leading Italian innovative companies. The analysis conducted provides insights into the combination of the behavioral competencies that are required by all roles independently from the functional area and the competency profile that distinguishes each of them.

To develop and assess the emotional and social intelligence competencies that entrepreneurs and innovation professionals should mobilize in their innovation endeavor, the competency-based framework can be adopted in companies and higher education institutions to guide the design of effective educational programs and human resource management practices. The chapter offers methodological recommendations to design courses for competency development based on the intentional change theory and provides indications to recruiters and employers to assess the competency profile that candidates should manifest in the workplace to boost innovation.