From the construction to the consolidation of an innovation lab: wich transformation dynamic for a large company? The Air France Digital Factory case

Thesis defended on the 15th of April 2022 at 9:00 am and it took place at Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation

Abstract: 

As a result of competition through innovation, the digitization phenomenon but also the uncertainty due to several types of crisis, established companies survival is threatened. This context encourages organizations to renew their products and services, but also their operating mode and their innovation capacity for transformation purposes and continuous adaptation. Over the past fifteen years, there has been a growing interest for new organizational entities created to respond to this changing environment: innovation laboratories. These new structures have grown to such an extent that today more and more organizations have their own. These innovation laboratories are characterized by an allocated space, tools and specific teams that carry out activities and projects dedicated to fostering creativity, collaboration and innovation within their organization. While these organizational entities are arousing growing interest for both the academic community and practitioners, few analyzes have been conducted to understand the emergence of this type of structure within a large company. In addition, innovation labs are questioning nowadays, thus it is essential to understand the mechanisms that allow their evolution within the organization as well as the nature of their achievements for organizational performance purposes. Through a longitudinal case study of the transformation of a French airline, we study the process of building and reinforcement of an innovation lab, through a multi-level analysis (the organization, the innovation lab as an entity and the projects). Firstly, our results confirm that an innovation lab emerges within an organization through a mimetic posture in response to multiple uncertainties. Secondly, if an innovation lab is mimetically adopted, our results also show that these are malleable structures and shaped according to the specific issues of the organization. Third, the case studied highlights four types of characteristics that give innovation lab this malleability: (1) a dedicated governance body, (2) two types of facilitators, namely methodological facilitators and integration facilitators, (3) a place with specific space planning but also specific location and finally (4) a project portfolio management which allows it both to implement its mandate but also to manage repositioning over time. Fourth, the case study shows that an innovation lab embodies a response to some needs located at the crossroads of a social context and a maturity related to digital tool conception and usage. Fifth and finally, our results show that given the organizational needs and innovation lab characteristics, this entity tends to become a learning agent through the interlinking of three dynamics : (1) an adaptation dynamic of the lab to the challenges and needs of the organization, (2) a capitalization dynamic from the projects to the lab and vice versa, and finally (3) a dynamic of building new management tools that materialize the achievements of the lab for the purposes of transformation of organizational processes.

Composition of the jury :

Key words : Innovation lab ; organizational transformation ; digitization ; learning ; airline ; case study