Innovation in Remote Work

Fostering innovation in remote teams

Esther Tippmann (NUI Galway), Pamela Sharkey Scott (DCU Business School) and Mark Gantly (NUI Galway) explore how leaders can stimulate innovation in remote working teams in a recent article in MIT Sloan Management Review.

Our insights we wish to share with you:

The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated remote work in organizations, and many organizations saw an increase in productivity. However, innovation is equally critical for sustained organizational success – an area that many organizations have struggled with as they embraced remote work.

Innovation comes from nourishing new ideas across all levels of the organization and executing on the most promising ones. Conventionally, innovation could be embedded within the organizations’ work-culture through copresence of human capital. In remote working models, leaders must closely connect for collaboration with their own remote teams, frontline and upwards; they must also nurture contradiction to generate new ideas for innovation.

What was the approach for the research?

In order to explore how to boost innovation in remote teams, the researchers interviewed senior executives and leaders of more than twenty U.S. multinationals covering varied industrial sectors and technologies.

How might you benefit from these insights?

Innovation is key to the long-term success of any organization, whether you are in start-up, scale-up or mature stage of the organizational life cycle. With managed remote work likely to stay post-pandemic, this article provides you with  leadership principles for fostering innovation in remote teams across all levels of your organization. 

Citation: Tippmann, E., Scott, P. S. and Gantly, M. (2021). Innovation in Remote Teams Requires Connecting for Collaboration and for Contradiction. MIT Sloan Management Review.