Abstract
This study explores how managers discursively construct innovation cultures as relational phenomena in Finnish innovation-oriented companies. Drawing on critical discursive psychology (CDP) and a collective case study design, this research analyses in-depth interviews with five senior managers to uncover the interpretive repertoires and subject positions they employ when discussing innovation. The findings reveal three key repertoires: (a)
Introduction
Innovation cultures—understood as organizational environments that actively support and promote innovation—are becoming increasingly recognized as being critical to long-term competitiveness, adaptability, and value creation (Bendak et al., 2020). These cultures are often associated with practices such as strategic communication, reward systems, and leadership commitment (Baporikar, 2014; Davies & Buisine, 2018). However, while these structural elements are important, they do not fully explain how innovation cultures are created, sustained, or experienced in everyday organizational life.
Recent research suggests that innovation cultures are not simply imposed from the top down, nor do they emerge from the isolated efforts of creative individuals. Instead, they are socially constructed through ongoing interactions, shared meanings, and relational dynamics within an organization (Besley & Person, 2024). This relational perspective emphasizes the importance of trust, collaboration, and open communication as foundational elements that enable the exchange of ideas and collective problem-solving (Büschgens et al., 2013).
In this context, the role of management becomes particularly significant. Managers are not only responsible for determining strategic direction but also for shaping the relational climate in which innovation can flourish. They act as cultural intermediaries who interpret, translate, and enact innovation-related values and practices in ways that resonate with their teams (Hiltunen & Laitinen, 2021). Managers’ ability to encourage experimentation and build trust-based relationships can either enable or constrain the development of an innovation culture.
Despite this, there remains a gap in our understanding of how managers themselves make sense of innovation cultures and their role in cultivating them. Much of the existing literature focuses on outcomes and best practices, often overlooking the lived experiences, interpretations, and relational work of managers in shaping these cultures. To address this gap, this study adopts a qualitative collective case study approach grounded in a discursive perspective of organizations. This perspective views organizational cultures as constituted through language and discourse, thereby emphasizing how meanings are negotiated and identities constructed through communicative practices (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012). Specifically, the study draws on critical discursive psychology (CDP) to examine how managers construct meanings of relationality and innovation cultures through language. This approach focuses on the interpretive repertoires managers draw upon in their talk and how these repertoires simultaneously position them in specific subject positions, such as enablers, gatekeepers, or collaborators (Parker, 2014). By analyzing these discursive practices, this study aims to reveal the relational and ideological underpinnings of the construction of innovation culture and contribute to a deeper understanding of how innovation is enacted in organizational life.
Theoretical Framework
Innovation Cultures
Innovation culture refers to the shared values, norms, and practices within an organization that foster and sustain innovation. It encompasses elements such as open communication, collaboration, risk-taking, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing (Bendak et al., 2020). Innovation culture is dynamic and context-sensitive and is shaped by interpersonal interactions and structural conditions.
Importantly, innovation cultures are not monolithic. Kavadias and Hutchison-Krupat (2020) argue that different types of innovation, such as incremental versus radical innovation, flourish under distinct cultural conditions. For example, incremental innovation may benefit from structured processes, performance-based incentives, and hierarchical oversight, whereas radical innovation is more likely to thrive in environments that encourage experimentation, tolerate failure, and support visionary thinking. This suggests that organizations may need to cultivate multiple, coexisting innovation subcultures aligned with diverse strategic objectives.
Management plays a pivotal role in shaping and sustaining innovation cultures. Leadership behaviours, communication practices, and structural decisions all influence how innovation is perceived and enacted across the organization (Taylor et al., 2019). Baporikar (2014) emphasizes that top management must visibly support innovation through strategic communication, reward systems, and capacity-building initiatives. Leaders are expected to model openness to new ideas and foster psychological safety, thereby creating conditions that enable employees to take risks, share ideas, and learn from failure.
Recent studies have highlighted the importance of inclusive and participative leadership in cultivating innovation cultures. Such leadership styles enhance employee engagement, ownership, and a sense of psychological security, all of which are critical for innovation (Villaluz & Hechanova, 2019). However, innovation efforts can be undermined by cultural obstacles such as managerial resistance, poor communication, and excessive workloads (Hiltunen & Laitinen, 2021). Effective innovation cultures require managers to function as facilitators, rather than gatekeepers, who enable collaboration and encourage continuous development (Hansen et al., 2017).
Extant literature emphasizes that innovation cultures are not merely organizational attributes but relational ecosystems. They emerge from the interplay among leadership, employee agency, and organizational context. As such, innovation cultures function as enabling structures that empower individuals to act creatively and collaboratively (Beswick et al., 2015; Davies & Buisine, 2018). Strong innovation cultures are marked by a customer-centric mindset, adaptability to change, and proactive opportunity-seeking (Jin et al., 2019).
The relational nature of innovation cultures challenges the notion of innovation culture as a top-down or purely structural construct. Instead, it emphasizes how innovation is co-constructed through everyday dialogue that entails open communication, collaboration, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing (Bendak et al., 2020). Fuad et al. (2022) highlight the evolving and multidimensional nature of innovation culture, particularly in knowledge-intensive environments, where collaboration and meaning-making are central. Similarly, Dobni (2008) conceptualizes innovation culture as a generalized organizational capability, shaped by openness, strategic alignment, and support for change, all of which are enacted through interpersonal and communicative processes.
Leadership plays a pivotal role in enabling these relational dynamics. Visionary leadership helps create psychologically safe environments where dialogue and experimentation can flourish (Leavy, 2005). Participative and inclusive leadership styles enhance employee engagement and psychological security—conditions that are essential for building trust and encouraging innovation (Villaluz & Hechanova, 2019). Managers act as cultural translators who bridge strategic goals with everyday practices, thereby facilitating collaboration and eliminating barriers to creativity.
Finally, innovation cultures are shaped by the coexistence of multiple discourses and practices. Organizations need to support diverse subcultures, each with its own relational dynamics and communicative norms (Büschgens et al., 2013). While influenced by the broader organizational culture, innovation culture can be intentionally cultivated through shared meaning-making and collective agency. The extant literature converges on the perspective that innovation cultures are not static attributes but relational constructs. They are continuously developed through interaction, discourse, and mutual positioning. Studies increasingly describe them as enabling structures grounded in trust, transparency, and a collective commitment to progress (Beswick et al., 2015; Buisine, 2018; Jin et al., 2019).
A Discursive Perspective on Management and Organizations
This study draws on the discursive perspective on management and organizations, which provides a lens for understanding the socially constructed nature of organizational life (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004). Rather than treating organizations as static entities governed by formal structures and rational decision-making, this approach foregrounds the constitutive role of discourse and communication in shaping organizational realities (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012; Schoeneborn et al., 2019). From this standpoint, innovation cultures and management are not merely technical or procedural domains but are deeply embedded discursive practices through which meaning is continuously produced, negotiated, and contested (Sheep et al., 2017).
Rooted in social constructionism, the discursive perspective posits that organizational phenomena emerge through language and interaction (Marshak & Grant, 2008). In this context, discourse encompasses the structured patterns of text, conversation, and symbolic practices that constitute the everyday fabric of organizational life. Therefore, managers are not simply implementers of strategy or enforcers of policy, but they are active participants in the ongoing construction of organizational meaning (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012). Through their use of language—whether in formal meetings, strategic documents, or informal conversations—managers frame issues, legitimize actions, and construct identities. As Uhl-Bien (2006) argued, these discursive acts are far from neutral; they reflect and reproduce power relations, shape organizational culture, and influence how change and innovation are perceived and enacted.
Discursive approaches also recognize that the discursive resources available to organizational actors are shaped not only by local interactions but by broader cultural and institutional patterns. These include prevailing ideas regarding, for example, organizational flexibility (Alvesson, 2011), participatory decision-making (Sørensen & Torfing, 2009), and continuous learning (Gherardi, 2006), all of which shape how actors construct meaning and enact organizational realities through language. While discursive research has significantly advanced our understanding of how language constitutes organizational phenomena, the specific ways in which managers construct innovation cultures as relational and interpersonal experiences remain underexplored. Much of the existing literature has focused on how discourse shapes organizational identity, change, and legitimacy (Hardy et al., 2000; Vaara & Tienari, 2008); however, only a few studies have examined how innovation cultures are constructed in the everyday talk of managers.
Recent research has begun to address the discursive dimensions of culture and innovation, although often from strategic or institutional perspectives. For example, Thomas et al. (2011) illustrate how competing narratives within organizations influence the trajectory of strategic change, emphasizing the role of managerial storytelling in shaping innovation outcomes. Similarly, Peng et al. (2021) explore how multinational corporations utilize rhetorical strategies to manage legitimacy during crises, indirectly revealing how innovation is framed in culturally sensitive contexts. These studies emphasize the importance of discourse in shaping perceptions of innovation, but they do not fully capture how innovation cultures are constructed as lived, relational experiences.
More recently, Puiu (2023) emphasized the role of discourse in shaping organizational culture through shared meanings and interpersonal dynamics, thereby suggesting that culture is not a static backdrop for innovation but is actively co-constructed through communicative practices. This aligns with broader discursive approaches that conceptualize culture as an emergent property of interaction rather than a fixed set of values or norms (Alvesson, 2011; Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004). However, the specific ways in which managers construct and depict innovation cultures as relational and interpersonal phenomena remain largely unexamined.
To address this gap, we draw on CDP, which provides a framework for analyzing how organizational realities are constructed and negotiated through discourse (Budds et al., 2017). CDP focuses on the performative and ideological functions of language, examining how individuals position themselves and others within organizational contexts. In management research, CDP has been used to explore identity, leadership, and diversity. For example, Knox et al. (2021) showed how entrepreneurs draw on different repertoires to construct identity, while Knoppers et al. (2015) revealed how inclusive language can paradoxically reinforce exclusion. Building on this tradition, our study highlights how managers construct innovation cultures as relational and communicative achievements, thus providing a new perspective on how such cultures are enacted and sustained in practice.
Building on these theoretical considerations, we examine how managers discursively construct innovation cultures as relational phenomena. More specifically, we address the following research questions:
How do managers discursively construct innovation cultures through shifting subject positions in their everyday organizational conversations? How do managers discursively construct relationality in their descriptions of innovation culture, and how do these constructions shape the understanding of innovation as a collaborative organizational phenomenon?
Methodology
Research Design and Data
In this study, we employ a qualitative collective case study design (Schwandt & Gates, 2018), grounded in an interpretivist paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). The case study approach is particularly suitable for exploring how complex organizational phenomena, such as innovation cultures, are constructed and negotiated in real-life contexts. In line with the qualitative case study research tradition (Yin, 2018), this study seeks to understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of managerial meaning-making by examining discursive practices across multiple organizational settings. Rather than aiming for comparison or generalization, this study focuses on the richness and plurality of meaning-making processes within and across five innovation-oriented Finnish companies. Informed by CDP (Budds et al., 2017), this study analyses how managers in large Finnish companies construct meanings around innovation cultures as a relational phenomenon. Through five in-depth thematic interviews, this study investigates the interpretive repertoires and subject positions that managers draw upon when discussing innovation and how these discursive resources shape what innovation culture can mean and do in organizational contexts.
The data consists of in-depth thematic interviews with the managers of five large innovation-oriented Finnish companies. The data was collected over a 2-month period in late 2023 using the purposeful sampling principle, selecting companies where innovation-centredness and development play a key role in operations. The innovation-centredness of companies’ operations is reflected, among other things, in the fact that the values of all the companies are based on the following themes: innovation, renewal, development of new solutions, and responsible development. In addition, the companies have relatively good financial conditions, such as ample budgets for innovation. Studying the representatives of innovation-oriented companies served our research objectives, and it made sense to investigate how innovation culture is perceived in organizations that invest in innovation. Details of the data are presented in Table 1.
Data Details.
In terms of research ethics, the participants received clear written information regarding the study and provided informed, voluntary consent, with the right to withdraw their participation at any time (Wiles, 2013). The interviewer, who is also the second author, ensured ethical conduct by approaching interviews with empathy and professionalism (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2015). Confidentiality was maintained through secure data storage, anonymization, and careful reporting of the findings. Sensitive information regarding companies and individuals was discreetly handled (Wiles, 2013). The study posed no risk of harm to the participants, and ethical awareness guided both the research process and transparent reporting. Academic integrity was upheld through appropriate citation and plagiarism checks.
Data Analysis
We conducted our analysis in alignment with the analytical procedures for CDP (Budds et al., 2017). Central to this approach are the analysis of interpretive repertoires—or culturally familiar ways of talking—and subject positions, which define the roles and identities available in discourse. By analyzing how these discursive resources are mobilized, CDP reveals the power dynamics and moral orders that underpin organizational life, providing insight into how meaning, agency, and legitimacy are negotiated in everyday interaction.
With the purpose of providing insights into the discursive construction and relational features of innovation cultures in organizational contexts, we first identified repertoires associated with the relationality of organizational actors and innovation cultures. We did this by looking for patterns in language, particularly those related to how the managers discuss relationships and organizational cultures. We paid special attention to how relationships were described in common ways, for example, as part of everyday practices, communication, and organizational atmosphere. Second, we analyzed variability in the repertoires by analyzing how different managers utilize these repertoires in various contexts. Third, we examined the functions of these repertoires with a specific focus on how the different actors in the repertoires were positioned, including the self-positioning of the managers themselves. Lastly, we analyzed the contextuality of the repertoires by placing the identified repertoires and subject positions within the broader cultural and organizational context and analyzing how these repertoires shape and reflect the organizational culture and innovation practices.
Findings
Our findings identify three discursive repertoires through which managers constructed innovation culture as a relational phenomenon: (a)
Discursive Repertoires, Subject Positions, and the Construction of Innovation Cultures as Relational Phenomena.
The Culture-through-communication Repertoire
The managers consistently drew on a ‘culture-through-communication’ repertoire in which innovation culture is constructed as a dynamic, co-created process sustained through continuous dialogue and shared meaning-making. Communication is not merely instrumental but is framed as the cultural infrastructure of an innovation culture. This repertoire emphasizes the central role of human relationships and communication in developing and sustaining an innovation culture. The managers emphasized the importance of regular and coordinated communication:
Extract 1: People know the targets. So we make sure that we communicate them regularly and take them forward. (M4) Extract 2: … information sharing and coordination and it is just maybe specifically that kind of network where everyone is on the same page all the time in a way that what is being done and how to reach the goal and whether we are on target and going in the right direction and whether we need to do something. (M2)
The extracts above illustrate how an innovation culture is sustained through ongoing goal articulation and coordinated communication. In Extract 1, the manager emphasizes the importance of systematic communication of objectives, thereby positioning themselves as an agent responsible for maintaining the visibility and practicality of collective goals. Despite its brevity, the extract evokes a discourse that positions the speaker as a responsible agent and a manager who ensures alignment and progress. The use of the collective ‘we’ also constructs a shared accountability while simultaneously reinforcing a hierarchical subject position. As such, the manager is both part of the team and a coordinator of the team’s direction. Extract 2 complements this by framing innovation culture as a networked process, where continuous information flow keeps everyone aligned and aware of collective progress. The manager constructs an innovation culture as a distributed and dialogical process, where meaning and direction are co-produced through ongoing communicative practices. The repetition of ‘whether’ clauses (‘whether we are on target … whether we need to do something’) reflects a reflexive orientation. This highlights a discursive practice that foregrounds uncertainty and responsiveness.
One of the managers described how, in his company, teams regularly exchange practices and ideas, supported by open feedback channels for employees to comment on each other’s contributions:
Extract 3: Of course it’s a lot about that, ‘Ok, you did that thing over there and you’re just talking about it, so talk to each other about it’. … there are all kinds of peer-to-peer booting and commenting on things. (M3)
Extract 3 illustrates how innovation culture is discursively constructed through informal, peer-driven communication in everyday conversations. The conversational framing (‘you did that thing … so talk to each other about it’) draws on the culture-through-communication repertoire, as the manager encourages employees to engage in mutual dialogue. The casual tone and direct speech simulate informal peer interaction, thereby making the culture of openness and exchange intelligible and actionable. The mention of ‘booting and commenting’ indicates informal peer review practices that support idea development. In this extract, the managers are positioned as actors who foster an environment where communicative exchange is central to innovation.
A few of the managers also considered it important that when many ideas are submitted, and only some of them can be implemented in the company, management communicates its decisions and provides encouraging feedback to those who submitted the ideas, regardless of the outcome:
Extract 4: … you also have to be able to show that something of this was achieved. … it’s just that you can see that something really happened for them and that kind of feeds it and encourages action. (M5)
Extract 4 highlights the significance of communicating outcomes, even partial or selective implementation, as a pivotal discursive practice in sustaining innovation culture. The manager’s emphasis on ‘show[ing] that something … was achieved’ draws on the culture-through-communication repertoire where feedback is not merely evaluative but also motivational. This positions the manager as an actor who legitimizes contributors’ efforts by narrating outcomes as meaningful, thereby reinforcing engagement and future participation. This suggests that the act of communicating results becomes a signal that innovation is valued, even when not all ideas are adopted.
Within the culture-through-communication repertoire, managers are consistently positioned as communicative facilitators. They are key actors who sustain innovation not through control but through enabling dialogue, feedback, and shared understanding. Across the extracts, communication is constructed as the cultural infrastructure of innovation, where meaning is co-produced, and relationships are actively maintained. Whether articulating goals or encouraging peer exchange, managers enact a discursive role that emphasizes relational coordination over directive authority. This repertoire foregrounds innovation as a collective, communicative achievement, with managers shaping the conditions for its emergence through everyday interaction.
The Collaborative Development Repertoire
While describing the elements of innovation cultures, the managers also draw on a ‘collaborative development’ repertoire, where innovation culture is framed as a co-constructed process that involves both internal actors and external stakeholders, particularly customers. This repertoire emphasizes shared responsibility and responsiveness, thereby positioning innovation culture as entailing collaboration with others.
The managers viewed innovation cultures as a collaborative effort that extends beyond the boundaries of the organization. They described a culture of co-creation that involves strategic partnerships and a strong market orientation, both of which are considered essential to successful innovation.
Extract 5: Our development activities are also based on partnerships. We have a pretty good understanding of what we know and what we don’t know, and we don’t typically go off half-cocked into some new market. (M1)
Extract 6: We try to ensure that the prioritization would really be market-driven … not this kind of thing like Finnish engineers sometimes have this attitude ‘build and they will come’ … so that we would actually make things based on customer needs here. (M4)
Extract 5 depicts how the manager draws on a relational discourse that foregrounds humility, which can be characterized by the recognition of knowledge limitations and the value of external collaboration. The manager constructs a subject position of strategic modesty, acknowledging that innovation requires input from others. The idiomatic expression ‘go off half-cocked’ functions as a discursive formulation that contrasts impulsive, isolated action with deliberate, co-developed decision-making. This positions the organization as part of a broader innovation ecosystem, where success is contingent on shared knowledge and mutual support.
In Extract 6, the manager utilizes a reflexive and critical discourse, contrasting a traditional, internally focused engineering mindset with a market-oriented, customer-responsive approach. The phrase ‘build and they will come’ is invoked as a discursive formulation that represents outdated innovation logic. This discursive framing reinforces the idea that innovation must be co-developed with users, not imposed upon them, and that listening to the market is a key cultural value.
Extract 7: … we also try at a very early stage to relate with the client … If we do not get to the customer discussion early enough for real, then they might say that this is a good idea, but this just is not suitable for us. (M2)
This extract emphasizes the timing and authenticity of customer engagement. The phrase ‘for real’ signals a desire for genuine dialogue, not merely symbolic inclusion. The manager is positioned as an actor whose role is to ensure that innovation is aligned with actual user needs from the outset, thus avoiding misfits and wasted effort.
Extract 8: We have a very systematic way of listening to and involving our customers … the first step is actually to spar with the customers about the idea. (M5)
Concluding the sequence, Extract 8 presents a structured, dialogic model of collaboration. The metaphor ‘spar’ suggests active, reciprocal engagement, positioning customers as co-developers rather than passive recipients. The manager adopts the role of a facilitator of mutual learning, reinforcing the idea that innovation emerges through ongoing back-and-forth communicative exchange.
Together, these extracts construct a discursive innovation culture as being rooted in collaboration. In this interpretive repertoire, managers are positioned as partnership managers who bridge organizational boundaries and cultivate partnerships. The ‘collaborative development’ repertoire foregrounds innovation culture as a socially distributed, co-created process, where value is generated by joining forces with others through dialogue and customer involvement.
The Purposeful Integration Repertoire
The managers also frequently drew on the ‘purposeful integration’ interpretive repertoire in which innovation culture is constructed as a collaborative and value-driven process that emerges through the integration of diverse perspectives and motivations within the organization. This repertoire emphasizes the importance of bringing people together across organizational boundaries, fostering a shared sense of relevance, and enabling individuals to meaningfully contribute to innovative efforts.
In the following two data extracts, the managers depict innovation culture as a result of a kind of cross-pollination and perspective-sharing by bringing together people from different backgrounds and encouraging them to view challenges through each other’s perspectives to spark new ideas and solutions.
Extract 9: I am in favour of cross-pollination and bringing different people together, that people must be brought together and it is not enough for the management to talk. … we have an R&D core team of this kind, but of course it’s not enough … now we have virtual teams of this kind, with different people at managerial level who meet and discuss and go through information … (M1)
Extract 10: … they look at the same thing from someone else’s disciplinary point of view, and then you get funny things and that applies both internally and externally, definitely yes. (M3)
In these extracts, the managers actively construct an innovation culture as an integrative and dialogic process that thrives on heterogeneity and interaction across organizational boundaries. By invoking metaphors such as ‘cross-pollination’, the manager in Extract 9 draws on the ‘purposeful integration’ repertoire to frame innovation culture as something that emerges not from isolated expertise or managerial directives but from the intentional mixing of roles and perspectives. The manager positions themselves as a facilitator of integration, thus challenging the sufficiency of traditional R&D structures and advocating for more fluid, cross-functional collaboration.
Similarly, in Extract 10, one of the managers constructs a view of innovation culture as emergent from disciplinary diversity, where seeing things ‘from someone else’s point of view’ is not only encouraged but considered generative. The phrase ‘you get funny things’ subtly suggests the productive unpredictability of such encounters, thus reinforcing the idea that innovation culture is co-constructed through discursive encounters among different actors. These accounts reflect a shift from hierarchical control to discursive co-creation, where managers are positioned as boundary-spanners who enable the conditions for integrative dialogue.
In the following three data extracts, the managers emphasize the importance of personal meaning, motivation, and a sense of relevance by highlighting how individuals’ emotional investment and perceived value of their role contribute to creating a collaborative and innovation-driven culture.
Extract 11: I’m thinking about ‘Why am I important?’ And through that we create that kind of culture and that type or creating that type of cooperation, which then leads to, in my opinion, an innovative model of doing things. (M5)
Extract 12: The people who come to this sector are those who want this to have and be about another meaning than just the fact that it is a paid job and that it makes money, but that they really want to work in this field. (M2)
Extract 13: Then it kind of describes perhaps the commitment and motivation, if you are able to present some ideas for the development of your own work. (M5)
These extracts draw on the ‘purposeful integration’ repertoire by emphasizing the affective and identity-based dimensions of innovation culture. In Extract 11, the manager constructs an innovation culture as anchored in personal relevance and self-reflection. The rhetorical question ‘Why am I important?’ functions as a discursive tool to foreground the internalization of value and purpose, which is then linked to the emergence of an innovative culture. The manager positions themselves and others as agents of cultural construction, whose sense of meaning directly shapes organizational innovation.
Extract 12 reinforces this by drawing on a discourse where work is framed as more than an economic necessity. The manager highlights that they are driven by intrinsic motivation and a desire to make a meaningful impact. This aligns with post-bureaucratic ideals of authenticity and purpose-driven work (e.g., Dupret & Pulz, 2021), which are central to the discursive construction of innovation cultures. In Extract 13, the manager links personal initiative and voice to commitment and motivation, thus suggesting that the ability to ‘present some ideas’ is both a sign of engagement and a mechanism for innovation. This positions individuals as empowered co-creators, whose agency is enacted through discursive participation in shaping their own work.
In this interpretive repertoire, innovation culture is constructed through an understanding of relationality as integrating diverse perspectives within an organization. This bears resemblance to the ‘collaborative development’ repertoire with its emphasis on collaboration. However, whereas the previous repertoire emphasizes relationality among different organizations, this repertoire highlights the significance of intraorganizational integration. In this repertoire, the managers are positioned as community developers who hold the responsibility to first and foremost foster collaboration within organizations, thus enabling individuals to meaningfully contribute to innovative efforts. Here, innovation culture is understood as a combination of individual and collective efforts.
Discussion
This study examined how managers discursively construct innovation cultures as relational phenomena through three interpretive repertoires: culture-through-communication, collaborative development, and purposeful integration. These repertoires position managers as communicative facilitators, partnership managers, and community developers, respectively, thereby providing a nuanced account of how innovation cultures are enacted through everyday organizational talk. Rather than treating innovation culture as a static or top-down construct, the findings reveal how it is continually shaped through relational practices, communicative infrastructures, and collaborative meaning-making (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012).
This study contributes to scholarship that reconceptualizes managerial agency as discursively constituted. Managers emerge not merely as implementers of strategy but as actors who shape organizational meaning through language, narrative, and positioning (Marshak & Grant, 2008). This reflects longstanding shifts towards discursive leadership in which influencing others is done by creating conversational spaces, facilitating collaboration, and constructing shared direction and purpose (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004; Sheep et al., 2017). Thus, the findings challenge managerial-control perspectives and foreground the relational and communicative dimensions of leadership in innovation work (Alvesson, 2011; Uhl-Bien, 2006).
Although macro-level discourses were not the primary analytic focus here, the interpretive repertoires identified appear to draw upon and reproduce broader societal discourses. The culture-through-communication repertoire resonates with post-bureaucratic ideals that emphasize flattened hierarchies, flexible roles, and communicative coordination (Alvesson, 2011). The collaborative development repertoire reflects discourses of collaborative governance, thus highlighting co-creation with customers and external partners (Sørensen & Torfing, 2009). The purposeful integration repertoire aligns with learning–organization discourses that value cross-functional learning, personal meaning, and collective reflection (Gherardi, 2006). These broader discourses provide ideological scaffolding that shapes how relationality and innovation become intelligible in managerial talk.
To clarify the relationship among these societal discourses and the repertoires identified in the analysis, Figure1 provides a conceptual illustration. The figure does not present empirical findings; rather, it synthesizes interpretations and articulates how the repertoires may be theoretically situated within broader discursive formations.
Conceptual Interpretation of Societal Discourses and Managerial Repertoires in the Construction of Innovation Cultures.
Beyond these repertoire-level insights, this study also suggests interpretive possibilities regarding how the repertoires interact. Importantly, these ideas do not constitute empirical findings; instead, they represent conceptual extensions developed from analytic interpretation. One speculative interpretation is that the intersection of culture-through-communication and collaborative development may create a discursive orientation towards agility and co-creation, where innovation is dialogically shaped through internal and external engagement (Davies & Buisine, 2018). Similarly, the overlap between collaborative development and purposeful integration could reflect a discourse of collectivity and reflection, thereby emphasizing shared ownership and the integration of diverse viewpoints (Villaluz & Hechanova, 2019). The convergence of purposeful integration and culture-through-communication can be interpreted as indicating flexible roles and continuous learning, where innovation is sustained through adaptive, relational practices.
Taken together, these conceptual intersections gesture towards hybrid discursive spaces in which innovation cultures might emerge as overlapping and occasionally competing logics. While not directly observed in the data, these interpretations provide pathways for theorizing how innovation cultures become dynamically configured. Future research could empirically explore how such hybrid spaces manifest across organizational contexts and how they generate tensions, synergies, or new forms of innovation practice.
Further, this study contributes to CDP literature by illustrating how interpretive repertoires are embedded in broader ideological formations and how they position managers in constructing innovation culture (Budds et al., 2017; Parker, 2014). It also advances the organizational discourse theory by revealing how innovation cultures are enacted through relational positioning and communicative practices (Schoeneborn et al., 2019). The discursive framework developed here provides conceptual tools for understanding how managers navigate and combine discursive resources in context-specific ways. Although interpretive, the repertoire intersections illuminate potential emergent configurations—such as agility, collectivity, and learning—that may inform future theory-building on innovation culture.
Conclusion
This study contributes to research that conceptualizes innovation culture as a socially and discursively constructed phenomenon (Puiu, 2023). It demonstrates how innovation cultures are enacted through relational practices, shared meaning-making, and communicative leadership in organizations. Rather than relying on top-down control, managers shape innovation by fostering dialogue, integration, and shared purpose—an approach consistent with contemporary emphases on collaboration and psychological safety (Hansen etal., 2017; Hiltunen & Laitinen, 2021).
Theoretical Contributions
This study’s primary theoretical contribution lies in identifying three interpretive repertoires through which managers construct relational understandings of innovation culture. These repertoires, along with their conceptual intersections, provide a nuanced vocabulary for theorizing how innovation cultures are constituted, negotiated, and sustained in organizational life. The study also extends discursive perspectives on leadership by revealing how managerial positioning practices shape innovation-related meanings. While prior research has largely conceptualized innovation culture as a structural or performance-oriented organizational attribute (Dobni, 2008; Martins & Terblanche, 2003) and discursive leadership studies have shown how leadership is communicatively constituted (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012), this study addresses the overlooked question of how managers relationally construct innovation culture through interpretive repertoires and positioning practices in everyday discourse.
Practical Contributions
Practically, the findings indicate that organizations that aim to foster innovation should strengthen managers’ discursive and relational competencies—such as reflexivity, narrative awareness, and the ability to navigate diverse perspectives and competing expectations. Enhancing these skills supports more effective collaboration, sensemaking, and integrative innovation practices. The results also highlight the need to enable managers to flexibly shift among facilitation, partnership-building, and community-development roles. Finally, organizations should design structures that enable cross- functional integration, including boundary-spanning forums, customer-manager co-creation units, and shared spaces for reflection.
Future Research
Future research could examine how the repertoires identified in this study evolve across organizational contexts, how managers shift among them over time, and how they interact with power dynamics or resistance. Further, an empirical investigation of the conceptual intersections proposed here would help clarify whether hybrid discursive spaces function as meaningful sites of innovation practice or whether they generate contradictions that reshape managerial work.
Footnotes
Data Availability Statement
Due to the confidential nature of the interviews and the ethical agreements made with participants, the data are not publicly available. Documentation verifying the existence of the data can be provided by the authors upon request.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Ethics Statement
This study did not require a separate ethical review under the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK), as it did not involve interventions in participants’ physical integrity, exposure to exceptionally strong stimuli, minors, sensitive personal data requiring special protection, or other conditions that mandate prior ethical review in Finland. The study was conducted in accordance with the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) guidelines and the Ethical Principles of Research with Human Participants issued by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK). All participants were informed about the purpose of the study, the voluntary nature of participation, and their right to withdraw at any time without consequences. Informed consent was obtained prior to data collection. Data were handled confidentially and stored securely in accordance with national data protection legislation and institutional data management policies. No identifying information is reported, and participants’ anonymity has been fully protected.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.