IT-driven Clinical Improvement Processes: The SkunkwORks

Structuring for innovative responses to human resource challenges: A skunk works approach

Increasingly, organizations find that they need to be more flexible and innovative in responding to unexpected and emergent human resource (HR) issues affecting their members, such as outbreaks of infectious diseases (e.g., COVID-19) forcing massive transition to remote work, changes in industry landscape altering learning and development, and politically-driven global mobility regulations restricting people flow. Organizations have long utilized informal structures known as “skunk works”, flexible groups empowered to work rapidly with minimal management constraints, to address technological challenges. In this article, we aim to better understand when and how organizations similarly employ skunk works-like structures to help them deal with rapidly evolving HR-related challenges. We discuss three examples of organizations that have utilized this approach. We then integrate the learning insights from these examples to develop a framework supported by a set of research questions to guide future scholarship into HR skunk works. We emphasize that there are both benefits and drawbacks of innovative organizational structures for addressing HR challenges alongside regular, established ways of working.

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Organizations have long utilized informal structures known as skunk works to address technological challenges affecting products/services.

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In a similar manner, skunk works teams may be assembled to generate solutions related to people management.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark example for how swiftly organizations need to respond to rapidly evolving HR-related challenges.

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Three examples of skunk works teams illustrate unconventional routes to solutions for specific HR issues affecting organizational members.

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We develop a framework for future research around the antecedents, processes and characteristics, moderators and outcomes of HR skunk works.