TY  - JOUR
A1  - Steuer-Dankert, Linda
A1  - Sharma, Mamta Rameshwarlal
A1  - Bleck, Wolfgang
A1  - Leicht-Scholten, Carmen
T1  - Diversity and innovation management in large research groups
JF  - International Journal of Innovation Management
N2  - Contemporary research appreciates a diverse workforce as a potential source of innovation. Researchers explore the fine details of why diversity management is central for generating innovations in heterogeneous research groups and how it could be effectively implemented into organizations. Complex research associations that discuss topics with a high impact on society increasingly address the necessity of establishing a diverse workforce to confront the challenges of tomorrow. Characterized by complex management structures as well as hierarchies, research associations have not been a subject of investigation until now. For this reason, the presented research project aims to develop a diversity and innovation management strategy with the ultimate goal of inducing change in the corporate culture. The proposed approach consisted of six phases; the first two phases investigated the status quo of diversity in the existing organizational structures of member institutes and the variety of particular working cultures within the research association. The third and the fourth phases utilized qualitative and quantitative studies. The third phase focused on the connection of management level to diversity and innovation, and the need for diversity and innovation management, and tailor-made methods of implementing them. The first three phases have been accomplished successfully; preliminary results are already available. The fourth phase will mainly focus on exploring the mind-set of the employees. The fifth phase will consolidate the findings in the first four phases into an implementable strategy. The final phase will address the implementation of this strategy into the organization. Phases 4 to 6 have not yet been undertaken
KW  - diversity management
KW  - innovation management
KW  - research association
KW  - change management
KW  - engineering
Y1  - 2017
SN  - 1757-5877
VL  - 5
IS  - 2
SP  - 49
EP  - 72
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Steuer-Dankert, Linda
A1  - Sharma, Mamta Rameshwarlal
A1  - Bleck, Wolfgang
A1  - Leicht-Scholten, Carmen
ED  - Farn, C. K.
T1  - Innovation through Diversity - Development of a Diversity and Innovation management concept
T2  - International Conference on Innovation and Management : IAM23017S : Date: July 4-7, 2017, Osaka, Japan
N2  - Acknowledging that a diverse workforce could be a potential source of innovation, the current research deals with the fine details of why diversity management is central to achieving innovation in heterogeneous research groups and how this could be effectively realized in an organization. The types of heterogeneities addressed mainly include gender, qualification, academic discipline and intercultural perspectives. The type of organization being dealt with in this work is a complex association of research institutes at a technical university in Germany (RWTH Aachen University), namely a 'Cluster of Excellence', whereby several institutes of the university work collaboratively in different sub-projects. The 'Cluster of Excellence' is a part of the 'Excellence Initiative' of the German federal and state governments German Research Foundation (DFG) and German Council of Science and Humanities, with the ultimate aim of promoting cutting-edge research. To support interdisciplinary collaboration and thus the performance of the cluster, the development of a diversity and innovation management concept is presently in the conceptual phase and will be described in the frame of this paper. The 3-S-Diversity Model, composed of the three elements: skills, structure and strategy, serves as a basis for the development of the concept. The proposed concept consists of six phases; the first two phases lay the ground work by developing an understanding of the status quo on the forms of diversity in the Cluster of Excellence, the type of organizational structure of the member institutes and the varieties of specialist work cultures of the same. The third and the fourth phases build up on this foundation by means of qualitative and quantitative studies. While the third phase deals with the sensitization of the management level to the close connection between diversity and innovation; the need to manage them thereafter and find tailor-made methods of doing so, the fourth phase shall mainly focus on the mindset of the employees in this regard. The fifth phase shall consolidate the learnings and the ideas developed in the course of the first four phases into an implementable strategy. The ultimate phase shall be the implementation of this concept in the Cluster. The first three phases have been accomplished successfully and the preliminary results are already available.
Y1  - 2017
SN  - 2218-6387
SP  - Panel C
PB  - Kuang Hui Chiu
CY  - Osaka
ER  -