Abstract:

Bootleg innovation is an effective way to break the innovation bottleneck, and get rid of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. It is an important channel for innovation in the new era. However, because bootleg innovation encompasses creative and deviant components, it has been labeled as both "loyal" and "rebel". Starting from the issue about whether bootleg innovation is loyal behavior or rebel behavior, we conducted a systematic research by developing a scale for bootleg innovation, exploring its formation mechanism and its effectiveness. This study consists of three sub-studies. The first sub-study refines dimensions and develops a scale for bootleg innovation in the context of Chinese organization based on the perspective of creative process. The second sub-study discusses the formation mechanism of bootleg innovation based on multi-levels. The third sub-study builds and testifies the influence mechanism of bootleg innovation on organizational effectiveness from the perspective of success and failure of bootleg innovation based on the event system theory. The three sub-studies connect with each other and progress gradually. Theoretical contributions of this study not only lie in deepening the understanding of the bootleg innovation and promoting the development of bootlegging theory, but also extending application of deviance theory, innovation theory, positive organizational behavior theory and event system theory.

Key words: bootleg innovation, trait activation, pattern of difference sequence, social cognition, event system theory