Join the PRIDE

Abstract

In the ever changing world we live in, companies have to constantly adapt to stay relevant. More and more large organizations do this by starting up innovation hubs next to their established business. ING is one such company that has started up an hub which they call their innovation studio. ING sees this as a necessity due to developments of new technologies (e.g. blockchain and artificial intelligence) and the installation of new legislation (e.g. PSDII and MFIDII). ING’s approach to this is by setting up corporate ventures (i.e. internal and external) guided by their own method on innovation: PACE. While the innovation studio has been established, the people working there are still influenced by ING’s corporate conditions. Within the innovation studio the CINO team has observed that these corporate conditions potentially inhibit the ventures coming to disruptive or radical outcomes. The corporate conditions in this involve policies and procedures such as performance management. From this perspective, a research question for this thesis was established;

How can policies and procedures such as performance assessment, career planning and recognition be tailored to stimulate entrepreneurial behavior in corporate project teams at ING so that there is a higher likelihood of disruptive or radical outcomes.

To help structure the research and thesis, a design framework is derived from a model of organizational change called Leavitt’s diamond. This design framework consists of four components (i.e. structure, challenge, people and solution) which all connect to part of the research question. The goal in this thesis was to come to a solution by first analyzing the other three components.

First an analysis is performed to come to a fundamental distinction between two parts (i.e. corporate and innovation) of ING’s organization. This is done based on the theory of ambidexterity which states that for a company to be successful, it needs to be thrive in both exploitation of current business models and the exploration of new ones. A big difference between the two organizational parts is found in the journey an employee goes through. The exploitation part of the organization sees employees going through a linear journey climbing the corporate ladder while those in exploration go through more of a continuous process of joining and rejoining projects.

Following on this the challenge in this thesis ,performance management for innovation (i.e. exploration), is analyzed. To do this, a performance management framework is created.
By combining the performance management framework with the employee innovation journey, a matrix of micro challenges is established. These micro challenges are quantitatively tested to come to a challenge of focus of this thesis which is: “unclarity about what happens if-and when a venture ends”. It is then tested how this challenge affects the people working in ING’s internal ventures. The people working in these ventures mostly influenced are determined to be intrapreneurs. The challenge of unclarity creates an uncertainty regarding their own position with them. This uncertainty leads to them not performing optimally towards the end of their corporate venture’s acceleration and thus is likely to inhibit this process
In order to create a solution for this, a design vision is composed:

To design a solution that allows intrapreneurs working in internal corporate ventures to perform optimally by taking some of their perceived uncertainty away.

Through a synthesis, it is determined that the best way to take some uncertainty away is by providing these intrapreneurs with an opportunity. This opportunity should consist of two perspectives: opportunity to ‘explore’ and to ‘manifest’. Based on this, a framework of three boundary phases is conceived to create a concept on. This concept is developed through multiple brainstorms and eventually tested through validation with experts from five different fields. Key-takeaways from the concept validation are used to iterate the concept towards a solution. This solution, called PRIDE, intends to create a community of intrapreneurs. This community should function as both a poule of capable intrapreneurs for ING as well as a social group of them exchanging knowledge and experiences. PRIDE is established by a program consisting of three elements: onboarding, community building and innovation mobility. Facilitating this program is a digital community of intrapreneurs integrated into ING’s portfolio application. Through this, possible journey of an intrapreneur through this program could be established. PRIDE is to be implemented over a period of more than three years based on ING’s innovation strategy.