This is considered the adoption of a new idea or behavior by an organization.

Originating in the field of psychology, the concept of creativity has attracted the attention of many disciplines. Creativity is generally accepted to be any act, idea or product that modifies an existing field, or that transforms it into a new field (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). In this vein, Management Science has been particularly interested in organizational creativity. This is “the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working together in a complex social system.” (Woodman et al., 1993, p. 293)

The literature has grown significantly in recent decades (Parmentier et al., 2017). After having broadly defined the concept in a consensual manner (e.g. Woodman et al., 1993; Durand, 2006), many authors have endeavored to underline the importance of organizational creativity and to identify its benefits. By claiming that the ideas are a “precious commodity” for the firm, Andriopoulos and Lowe (2000) emphasize the importance of organizational creativity. The authors point out that employees who are capable of generating new ideas are considered to be important resources, sought by firms. Organizational creativity is also an antecedent to innovation (Sarooghi et al., 2015). Amabile et al. (1996) do indeed indicate that the creation of a new product or service is based on the idea that is conceived, developed, then supported by one or several people in the firm. Finally, by promoting innovation, organizational creativity stands out from the competition. Bérubé (2015) thus indicates that the “creative reputation” brings the firm increased visibility and influence. It allows it to both attract new customers but also a creative workforce, allowing it to develop a competitive advantage (Durand, 2006).

To bring out and benefit from organizational creativity, the literature also shows that a certain number of antecedents are required, articulated around four levels of analysis (Blomberg et al., 2017). At the individual level (1), organizational creativity is mainly based on three elements: motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), skills in the relevant field, and creative skills. At the level of the team or the group (2), organizational creativity is based on the aspects inherent in collective work, such as the composition of the group, the type of management, climate and culture, as well as the techniques used to improve creativity. The macro level of analysis (3) brings together all the aspects external to the organization, (environmental, competitive, etc.). Finally, at the level of the organization (4), organizational creativity is favored by many antecedents that further its emergence.

In line with Andriopoulos (2001), the literature (e.g. Isaksen, Ekvall, 2007, Slavich, Svejenova, 2016; Blomberg et al., 2017) allows us to summarize the following antecedents:

• The organizational climate, that is, a favorable working atmosphere, including participation, freedom of expression, performance standards, interactions with few barriers, lots of stimuli, the freedom to experiment and to build on previous ideas;
• The style of leadership, which should be as participatory or democratic as possible, and led by a leader with a clear vision;
• The organizational culture, open to communication, risk taking, autonomous activities, encouraging “participatory security”, respect and trust between individuals;
• Resources and skills; in other words the allocation of sufficient resources (funds, time, expertise, process, information and training), an efficient communication system, and work presenting challenges and issues;
• Structures and systems, flexible, oriented toward the long term, based on a fair evaluation of employees, to encourage and reward creative performance.

While these different antecedents allow organizational creativity to emerge, the literature also shows that they are transforming the organization. Indeed, in addition to the fact that organizational creativity mobilizes human, financial, spatial, and temporal resources (Parmentier et al., 2017), it disrupts, even changes, the routines of the organization and calls for numerous organizational changes (Cohendet et al., 2014).

Organizational creativity, via the devices through which it operates, does indeed bring about profound changes and a renewal of the organization, calling on the firm to “modify its constitution” and requiring the implementation of new practices (Durand, 2006). More specifically, Amabile and Pratt (2016) make the link between organizational creativity and organizational innovation. The authors argue, in fact, that the organizational environment influences creativity and that, in return, this involves organizational innovation.

The establishment of a creative device can thus be likened to an organizational innovation (sometimes called a managerial innovation). This kind of innovation results in “the invention and implementation of a management practice, process, structure, or technique that is new to the state of the art and is intended to further organizational goals.” (Birkinshaw et al., 2008, p. 825) It is a non-technological innovation, leading to the adoption of new managerial practices (for the adopting organization), work procedures, techniques, forms, and organizational structures with the aim of improving efficiency but also the efficiency of internal organizational processes (Dubouloz, 2013). Unlike technological innovations, organizational innovations tend to meet internal needs with a view to improving the effectiveness and the efficiency of organizational processes (Dubouloz, 2013).

The literature on organizational innovation has mainly focused on studying its adoption. On the one hand, the literature highlights a procedural vision of the adoption of organizational innovation. It distinguishes the different stages of decision to adopt, implementation, and sustainability (Damanpour, Evan, 1984). Several studies also seek to highlight the barriers to the adoption of organizational innovation. In a research work dedicated to lean management, Dubouloz (2013) particularly identifies and categorizes three kinds of barriers to organizational innovation: internal and external barriers and those linked to the attributes of innovation. On the one hand, internal barriers are expressed by a lack of employee qualification, a top management reluctant to adopt innovation, a lack of time and appropriate human resources, overly strong centralization of the firm, as well as a resistance to change within the organization. These can hinder the adoption of organizational innovation. On the other hand, from an external point of view, difficulties linked to supply, demand, or the environment (local or national policies) can also negatively influence the adoption of this kind of innovation. Finally, the attributes of the innovation can also be a barrier. A negative image of innovation, linked to a disadvantage perceived by the adopter, or an incompatibility with the practices or routines of the organization, can also hinder its adoption. In other words, organizational innovation should be considered as being compatible with the firm in order to be adopted (Dubouloz, 2013), while the antecedents of organizational creativity require a “creative climate” that disrupts the organization (Isaksen, Ekvall, 2007).

While the creative device articulates organizational creativity and organizational innovation (Amabile, Pratt, 2016), it thus appears that the antecedents promoting organizational creativity are also those that slow down or even stop the adoption of an organizational innovation. This thus leads the firm that wants to adopt a creative device to manage paradoxical tensions that to date have been scarcely identified (Parmentier et al., 2017). The question of the identification and management of these tensions, conveyed by the articulation between the antecedents of organizational creativity and organizational innovation, then arises.

Schmidt Groupe was established in 1934. Through its Schmidt and Cuisinella brands and relying on a network of franchised stores (about 700 points of sale in France), it designs and distributes kitchens, storage units, and bathrooms. Leader in the concept of “made-to-measure”, the firm stands out from the competition thanks to extremely tight design, production, and delivery times. Committed to its family footprint (Anne Leitzgen, granddaughter of the founder of the firm, now manages it), Schmidt Groupe displays a culture encouraging innovation articulated around five values: integrity (know-how and quality work, a springboard for its creativity), ambition (new ideas, questioning, innovation), trust (global “eco-citizen” approach), respect (responsible HR policy), and humility. The firm is thus required to constantly invest and question its innovation process. Scheduled on an annual “cyclical” plan, innovation is organized in three stages: ideation, pre-project, and project, which brings together the industrialization and commercialization phase. A new product campaign is organized every year and presented to all the partners at an event that takes place every two years. The firm also has a large-scale manufacturing base (six production sites, mainly located in France and in Germany), allowing it to produce more than 5000 kitchen items per day.

It is in this context that Créativ’Café was created in 2016. Based on the observation that the group’s employees have an excellent knowledge of the business and of the products but few means to express their ideas, the Product Development Director, along with an external expert, decided to create the Créativ’Café, aimed at identifying new product innovations. Presenting a space for collective discussion and experimentation, the device allows for a decompartmentalization of functions to support innovation, which is not the custom of the firm. The Créativ’Café is based on five principles:

• A good idea is the result of a collective and not an individual reflection,
• A good idea is brought by someone who has the desire to see it succeed,
• A good idea does not meet formal obligations,
• A good idea is not confronted with, nor limited by, everyday concerns,
• A good idea is the start of a path, not an expected result.

Specifically, any employee with a “inspiration” (that is, a theme around which s/he would like to work) contacts the facilitator of the Créativ’Café. This person, if s/he approves the idea, communicates it to the firm’s employees and organizes an initial meeting with those concerned. These therefore constitute a group working on the idea proposed by and with the employee who has initiated the project. The Créativ’Café is then organized to transform this inspiration into an idea in weekly sessions, during which the participants (four to five on average) have to define a problem, a solution, and to whom the solution is addressed. During these sessions, the participants have some simple materials (sheets of paper, cardboard, glue, scissors, etc.). Once the sessions are over, the initiator of the idea presents it to an evaluation committee (consisting of the product managers of the firms’s two brands, the Product Development Director, the Director of the Research Department, as well as the Purchasing Director), who will decide if the product will be produced on an industrial scale, reworked, or rejected. To date, more than 15 inspirations have been examined in depth in the Créativ’Café in four years. About sixty employees were able to interact during these sessions. Amongst these, ten inspirations that evolved into ideas were presented to the decision-making committee and two were converted and are now being “produced on an industrial scale” (that is, put into production). However, since its creation in 2016, the number of inspiration proposed and the number of participants in the Créativ’café has steadily declined.

In a logic of data triangulation, several collection tools have been used. With regard to primary data, our case study is based, on 13 semi-structured interviews conducted with various actors: seven with the organizers and creators of the Créativ’Café (Product Development Director, innovation expert, innovation facilitator), as well as six with several participants (design engineers, purchasing assistants, technical parts buyer, etc.) Conducted between June 2019 and June 2020, these interviews are based on an interview guide, structured in three different parts, cross-referenced with the adoption process of the Créativ’Café: (1) an introductory part on the firm (history, strategy, values, identity, organization, role and responsibility, the place of innovation and its organization, etc.), (2) a part on the Créativ’Café device (presentation, operation, evolution, difficulties and barriers, levers, medium- and long-term visions and integration in the firm), and (3) a part on the link between the device, organizational creativity and organizational innovation (putting antecedents in context: access to resources, integration in the innovation process, etc.) All the interviews, lasting an average of an hour, were recorded and transcribed. In addition, there was involvement in a day dedicated to creativity in the firm in November 2019. During this day, we were able to attend a presentation on Schmidt Groupe and its innovation process and participate in a creativity session with the innovation facilitator to “think about the kitchen of the future”. Finally, in March 2020, we held a non-participant observation during a session of the Créativ’Café, focusing for the first time not on a specific inspiration but on the creation of a “reservoir of ideas” on the theme of sustainable development. This has allowed us to better understand the dynamics present during the workshops. With regard to secondary data, many sources were used: in addition to the use of the firm’s financial reports (since 2016), we had access to several reports and internal notes on creativity (including one on the place of creativity within the firm, as well a note dating from May 2020 on Créativ’Café), an activity report on the firm’s innovation process, as well as a study presenting the Créativ’Café published in 2017 (Cenier, Llerena, 2017). All these documents helped us to better understand the firm’s innovation process, as well as its relationship with creativity. We carried out a thematic content analysis (Miles, Huberman, 2003), using the NVivo 12 software. During this coding, the data were divided into analysis units according to a dictionary of themes, produced from the literature, then supplemented by emergent themes.

Schmidt Groupe has always been keen to innovate in order to offer ever more high-performance products to its customers. Thus in 2016, the Product Development Director proposed the creation of the Créativ’Café, a device clearly aimed at promoting organizational creativity:

“It is an internal incubation device for the ideas of the firm’s employees, on the basis of the principle that all the employees are close to the products, are close to the stores, are close to a whole lot of things that can give them ideas for new products or new services that could be offered and, once they have this idea, they don’t know what to do with it.” (Innovation facilitator, July 2019)

As a family business, the directors of Schmidt Groupe are also very involved with their employees. The management of the firm therefore saw this device as a means to involve them and provide them with a space for freedom and expression, alongside their respective activities within the firm. Beyond its objective of product innovation, the Créativ’Café thus brings a new way of working within Schmidt Groupe, very different from the usual practices, thus producing organizational innovation. Indeed, when it comes to innovation, employees are more used to working on their own. Here participants, from various functions, are invited to reflect together and collectively on innovation topics.

“It also allows me to (…) meet other colleagues because we come from different departments so it’s about exchange and sharing, it’s very good.” (Purchasing Management Assistant, July 2019)

Although the device’s methods have changed very little, the Créativ’Café has undergone several changes. When it was first implemented in 2016, the facilitator’s goal was to convince employees to suggest “inspirations” and to come and participate in the sessions. Also, this first stage of the launch clearly aimed to introduce the Créativ’Café internally and to engage the participants in the device. Once this stage of the launch was over, the facilitator was able to work on the Créativ’Café’s first goal: product innovation. Obtaining creative results was therefore decisive when using Créativ’Café. For the firm’s management, who aimed to create a sustainable device, in the end it was a question of perpetuating it in the firm by ensuring its integration. However, since this is a device that combines organizational creativity and organizational innovation, the adoption of the Créativ’Café by Schmidt Groupe involves several tensions that echo this articulation.

The launch of the Créativ’Café was a real success in 2016, in particular thanks to the involvement of the innovation facilitator, in charge of the device, supported by top management. Indeed, aware that its involvement would be decisive in the launch of the Créativ’Café, the firm allocated resources to it, in particular by appointing an innovation facilitator, responsible, with others, for implementing the device. The launch was thus the occasion for a conference-debate with a very broad invitation to employees, coupled with a solid communication strategy, to introduce the Créativ’Café and to encourage employees to participate in it. This effort to promote it internally paid off as many participants came forward, happy to find the space and time dedicated to innovation where they could express their ideas.

“At its [Créativ’Café] launch, there were lots of ideas because some colleagues had been nursing their projects for a long time, months, even years.” (Innovation facilitator, September 2020)

To support this enthusiasm, the Créativ’Café invites participants to discover the methods of creativity implemented in each session: collective brainstorming, use of simple and fun material to “make”, creation of a friendly “space-time” around a coffee, etc. While all these elements may seem trivial, nevertheless they create a motivating environment:

“The idea to ensure that people agree to do that in addition to their work is conviviality.” (Research engineer, July 2019)

According to several participants we interviewed, this would benefit them, both individually and for the firm. Indeed, one of the actors explained to us that the Créativ’Café not only helps to develop everyone’s “creativepotential”, but also helps to “achieve something new for the firm”. In this vein, one of the participants even believes that he has developed creative skills that he would never have suspected.

Another element that encouraged participants’ motivation relates to the freedom they enjoy in the Créativ’Café sessions, whereas the framework of their professional activities within Schmidt Groupe is very structured. Indeed, within the firm, like many industrialized companies, innovation is formalized, leaving little room for flexibility.

While, during the launch of the Créativ’Café, participants were present, showing very strong motivation, a problem of commitment emerged. Participants rapidly submitted fewer inspirations and were also less numerous and assiduous in the Créativ’Café sessions once the first session was over.

“The communication efforts quickly paid off at the start but I soon realized that more was going to have to be done to motivate the participants and make them return… They were interested and they found it enjoyable but I quickly felt that their interest could immediately subside.” (Innovation facilitator, September 2020)

According to them, the resources, particularly material, allocated to the device were not sufficient. While these allow participants to be more creative, participants very quickly became frustrated at not being able to take their ideas further and have a more active role in the process of developing ideas for innovation. Thus some participants, disappointed, quickly considered the workshops as a game, even as “recreation”, allowing them to take a breather.

“The first time, we go because it’s interesting, we’re curious. But straight away, we like meeting around a coffee, talking, etc. You really have to take action to stay focused on why you’re there. (…) So at the start, there were a lot of curious people and then we found that only a few of us were really assiduous.” (Purchasing management assistant, July 2019)

The strong motivation of participants at the launch of the Créativ’Café thus quickly gave way to a lack of commitment to the device on their part. As the sessions still attracted enough employees, often the same ones, the facilitator was able to work on the real goal of the device: product innovation.

As the facilitator himself said, “after the enthusiasmlinked to the launch of the initiative, we had to think ahead”. Aware that, despite the lack of long-term commitment by the participants, a handful of them showed real motivation, he relied on this nucleus to formalize an internal innovation community and to continue to use the device. As several inspirations were identified, groups of regular participants were thus formed. The facilitator of the Créativ’Café then focused his efforts to ensure that the device gained credibility, both at the level of top management and the firm’s employees. To do this, he made sure, in particular, that the inspirations were converted into ideas. In other words, the implementation of the device in the firm at that time was based on obtaining creative results.

From the participants’ point of view, it appears that the methods used by the facilitator clearly favored development of their creativity. The inspirations initially submitted by employees thus evolved collectively into ideas, which themselves subsequently developed. Achieving these creative results depends primarily on the facilitator, the material, and the methods of creativity used. As part of the Créativ’Café, the facilitator systematically initiates a discussion of ideas between the participants. He brings all of them to interact, especially if their role in the firm does not concern innovation. He limits himself to refocusing the discussions when they digress. For example, when employees whose role relates to innovation begin to move away from the ideation by proposing solutions from the start, he intervenes.

“[It] opens our minds as much as possible, because we all have a tendency, especially engineers or in production, to very quickly refocus the debate on "hey, what could we do here", and the objective is really to be vague and to be creative.” (Technical parts buyer, July 2019)

This further motivated the regular participants to develop their creativity. Indeed, apart from the individual level and the methods of creativity implemented, the collective competition between participants, forming an internal innovation community, reinforced the development of creative ideas.

Although the Créativ’Café sessions allow participants to achieve initial creative results, they nevertheless believe that the development of these results is hindered, pointing to the control mechanisms applied by top management. In particular, it seems that the development of these results requires the idea to be converted into innovation. However, this cannot be done without a prototype or a similar device. Today, the defense of ideas before the committee is materially based only on the elements used during sessions. A prototype or similar seems to them to be needed in order to be able to defend the ideas before the decision-making committee and to develop them.

“We made a mistake with the prototype part, we didn’t have the resources for this, but that’s where it’s really a shame because all the work that was done was not used in the end. (…) We went so far as to make the first prototypes and afterwards the problem was resources.” (Method technician, July 2019)

Beyond the lack of resources made available to participants to develop these results in innovation, it also appears that the evaluation committee does not necessarily encourage the taking of risks associated with the development of ideas from the Créativ’Café. Thus, despite the ten ideas submitted to the evaluation committee, only two were invited to take the next step in the innovation process.

“The main organization, too rigid and too cautious, is not suited to this kind of project, at least not until a late stage where the perceived risk has been reduced to an acceptable level.” (Innovation facilitator, September 2020)

Despite these control mechanisms slowing down the development of these creative ideas, two ideas were integrated into the firm’s innovation process in this way, with the aim of leading to product innovation. The objective of top management, aware that the Créativ’Café makes it possible to meet the originally fixed goal, is thus to perpetuate it in the firm.

“It takes time but the device we imagined meets our expectations (…) it’s an important tool for our firm so (…) how to make it sustainable?” (Product Development Director, creator of the Créativ’Café, September 2019)

However, the fact that the device articulates organizational innovation and organizational creativity once again results in managing a tension in this logic of sustainability concerning its organizational positioning. Indeed, if the Créativ’Café itself offers a new work practice, it also calls for changes in the firm’s processes, an element specific to any organizational innovation, involving acceptance and integration in the firm. In the case of the Créativ’Café, integration is a problem. This can be seen in the lack of coordination with the business innovation cycle. As indicated, innovations are developed during an annual cycle, punctuated by a major biennial event to present them to the entire network. As the Créativ’Café sessions are not coordinated with this cycle, the ideas that emerge from this are not integrated into the various post-ideation stage-gate.

“The more the project progresses, the more it has to be institutionalized, to fit into a development pipeline.” (Innovation facilitator, July 2019)

However, with the objective of promoting innovation and creativity, the Créativ’Café was not designed to fully integrate into the firm’s innovation process, but to be an autonomous support for innovation. Encouraging the acquisition of creative ideas, the device is indeed of particular interest for the first stage of the firm’s innovation process, ideation. However, in practice, the manifestation of this tension leads Créativ’Café to be perceived neither as an autonomous complementary device, nor as an element integrated into the innovation process. The problem produced by this tension is that the device suffers from clear positioning and ultimately finds itself, not as a stand-alone element, but on the fringes of innovation.

Several elements seem to explain this marginalization of the device, struggling to find the desired position within Schmidt Groupe. Also, the lack of involvement of some teams, who could nevertheless facilitate the desired integration of the device in the innovation process, is highlighted by the participants and the facilitator. Several of the actors who we interviewed even mentioned the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome internally, that is, that some employees show a form of reluctance to adopt an innovation that does not come from their own actions or that of their department.

“The typical answer is that you’re stepping on the toes of the product managers, the marketing people, who are paid for that.” (Technical parts buyer, July 2019)

This observation is supported by a lack of visibility of the device within the firm. Despite a communication effort by the innovation facilitator (inclusion in the innovation newsletter, regular emails, organization of conferences on the subject open to all, etc.), the device is still considered by some as being too “secret”.

“Specifically, I think that it is still perhaps too secret, still too experimental and not yet institutionalized enough for it to work.” Innovation facilitator, July 2019)

The participants we interviewed also agree on a necessary evolution in the forms in which the Créativ’Café takes place. Currently, the fact that participation takes place outside working hours hinders many participants, some of whom have to travel to the firm’s headquarters. It is interesting to note that, while the sessions were originally organized after the working day, one of the rare changes to the device was to organize them at noon, during the lunch break, to attract more people. According to all the participants interviewed, although this encouraged them to take part, they thought it would be more relevant to integrate this device at least partly into work time, which would not prevent the device from remaining autonomous. In fact, allowing participants to be free and develop their creativity without entering into the traditional processes of innovation projects, the Créativ’Café would nevertheless be taken “more seriously” by potential participants who are currently reluctant and better integrated into the firm’s routines to be perceived as complementary and no longer to be marginalized. For example, from the moment the idea takes shape and begins to be “credible”, the Créativ’Café time could then be integrated into work time.

“Some employees who, when they go to the Créativ’Café, have the impression of being a little... perhaps not on a break, but they are aware that they’re working, all the same, but in any case they are well aware they’re not doing the job that they are supposed to do. (…) If we included the Créativ’Café permanently in innovation processes, it would become a work tool among many others, without, however, deviating from its objective, creativity.” (Innovation facilitator, July 2019)

To integrate into the firm’s routines without, however, losing its autonomy, the Créativ’Café would benefit by taking into account the existence of a mode of organization “in silos” in the firm, and to redirect this. Indeed, although the innovation facilitator was supported by all the participants, stronger coordination with the managers from market studies or innovation teams would make it possible to bring this decompartmentalization into the heart of the device, to make it better accepted, and to integrate it into the innovation process. Some participants interviewed told us that the reluctance of some managers was based on a lack of knowledge about the device, coupled with its “secret” image.

To avoid the ideas coming from the Créativ’Café being abandoned once the sessions are over, it has already been decided to change the way it works. Instead of bringing together employees around an inspiation proposed by an initiator and approved by the facilitator, employees now come together around a more general theme, identified with the firm’s external partners, and therefore in line with the projects currently underway in the firm. This makes it possible to generate ideas that can be more easily integrated into the firm’s innovation processes and to mobilize the entire group that took part in the Créativ’Café sessions, and no longer mainly the initiator of the inspirations that has been developed. While this solution makes it possible to clarify the positioning of the device in the firm, and to resolve the tension linked to its need to be integrated, while preserving its autonomy, the innovation facilitator nevertheless remains cautious:

“The establishment of this pipeline is an easy task, the difficulty lies in the firm’s creative community. How would they react to ideas that did not emerge internally?” (Innovation facilitator, September 2020)

Several contributions emerge from this work. From the theoretical point of view, this research contributes to the literature on organizational creativity. By following the recommendations of Parmentier et al. (2017), we propose to study a specific device of organizational creativity. We also contribute to the literature by going beyond existing results which deal with organizational aspects linked to organizational creativity (Durand, 2006; Cohendet et al., 2014). While this highlights the changes required and the implementation of new practices, it does not, however, explicitly equate organizational creativity devices with an organizational innovation. To our knowledge, only the work of Amabile and Pratt (2016) explicitly makes this connection, recommending that this link between organizational creativity and organizational innovation be further explored. Moreover, while most of the research on the subject is focused on identifying antecedents (Zhou, Shalley, 2008), our work thus allows us to go further by putting these antecedents in perspective and adopting a more nuanced vision of the development of organizational creativity. Our work follows the recommendations of Blomberg et al. (2017), who encourage future work to focus on what hinders organizational creativity, and in particular to consider that antecedents can be double-edged. Finally, by identifying the tensions inherent in the creative process, especially in its perpetuation, our work contributes to the debate on the link between creativity and innovation. While the literature does indeed emphasize a positive link between organizational creativity and innovation (e.g. Sarooghi et al., 2015; Valgeirsdóttir, Onarheim, 2017), our results are more nuanced, like the findings of Sarooghi et al. (2015). Based on empirical studies, the authors identify difficulties in moving from creativity to innovation, because of cultures and environments in organizations that are often restrictive, too significant. In addition to qualifying this link, the case of the Créativ’Café suggests an avenue to foster the transition from creativity to innovation. This is about offering participants themes related to the interests of the firm, rather than letting them work on a inspiration from an employee. Without proposing themes linked to innovation projects within Schmidt Group that are too advanced, the firm ensures a minimum of consistency between the Créativ’Café and the firm to facilitate its integration and thus support its sustainability. This highlights, in particular, the key role of integration mechanisms and the delicate question of their balance, emphasized by the literature on other creative devices, such as crowdsourcing (e.g. Ruiz et al., 2020).

From a managerial point of view, our work suggests recommendations for organizations who wish to set up organizational creativity devices. First, our results allow us to contribute to the debate on the involvement of top management in this type of device. While involving top management does not always help to free it from the firm’s traditional innovation processes, our results suggest that firms should involve them in the device as early as possible and as regularly as possible. Indeed, the adoption of ideas calls on the firm’s managers to play an active role, especially as the ideas are at odds with the “routine” process of innovation. Like Schmidt Groupe, however, it is not about “controlling” the device with the help of onerous performance indicators. As we have shown, this kind of device can be likened to a diversion, both by employees and by managers. Also, to reinforce the credibility of these devices, we recommend not only to rely on the volunteering of employees, but also to encourage regular participation by integrating this participation, at least partially or gradually, in work time, as soon as the idea that emerges is approved by top management. This is about using commitment as a lever for the motivation of the employees involved.

Second, implementation of these devices raises the question of the proximity of ideas generated with the firm’s knowledge base. Indeed, while the device needs to be integrated it should not, however, be entirely managed by a specific department of the firm or controlled by top management, otherwise creativity will be limited. It is therefore recommended to appoint an independent facilitator, as Schmidt Groupe does, without him being isolated in a dedicated business unit, on the periphery of all the other processes. A cross-disciplinary integration of the device makes it appear as a complement to the ideation stage and not as a device that is competing with the traditional innovation process, while diverging from the standard knowledge of the firm.

This research is not without its limitations, which open up avenues for future research. On the one hand, even if it is not intended to be applied generally, the unique nature of the study calls for a form of caution concerning the results obtained. Extending the results to other devices favoring creativity would allow us to have another look at the factors identified in this study. On the other hand, a wider variety of actors, particularly from top management, would provide an interesting complementary view. Finally, although this is only suggested in our research, we think it would be interesting to further investigate the role of creative capabilities to balance the tensions involved in the creative device. This would then allow us to study one of the major issues linked to organizational creativity: the transformation of ideas into innovation, a subject that is currently under-explored in the literature (Sarooghi et al., 2015).

What is the adoption of a new idea or behavior by an organization?

Which type of organizational change involves the introduction of a practice that is new to the organization?

Which of the following refers to innovations in products services or processes that radically change competition in an industry?

Which of the following is a change in the organization's production process