Shop assistants as instigators of innovation: analysis of 26 innovation initiatives in 17 Dutch supermarkets

Many organisations work on innovation and change processes in order to be successful in the knowledge economy. There can be recognised various assumptions underlying these change efforts. These assumptions appear not always to be effective. In this paper, we study these assumptions and propose alternative assumptions to change and innovation. We conclude that in successful supermarkets shop assistants adopt innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour that leads to a variety of sustainable improvements in their work environment; in the innovation initiatives we saw that uniform working procedures that are designed by the headquarters do not contribute to innovation. In some cases it even hindered the innovation initiatives; innovative behaviour requires personalised learning processes fuelled by intriguing questions, the felt need for urgency to improve, and active experimenting with developing a new practice. Sharing innovative initiatives across other supermarkets is not self-evident