MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Trouble With Your Innovation Contests

Ever wonder why matchboxes usually have a sandpaper strike on only one side? Well, it didn’t used to be that way. For decades, people could use either side of the matchbox to light their matches. But this changed in the early 1900s, when a worker at a Swan Vesta factory pointed out this apparent redundancy in the design and suggested that the company could reduce production costs substantially by placing sandpaper on only one side of the matchbox. This simple idea has influenced matchbox design ever since, leading to millions of dollars in savings for manufacturers.

Employees often have creative ideas that can help their organizations. These breakthroughs range from ways to make the production process more efficient, such as the matchbox design proposal, to ideas for new products, like Frito-Lay’s Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Those very spicy chips were invented by Richard Montañez, at the time a janitor at the Frito-Lay Rancho Cucamonga plant in California.

About the Author

Jasmijn Bol is the Francis Martin Chair in Business and the PricewaterhouseCoopers Professor at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. Lisa LaViers is an assistant professor at the A.B. Freeman School of Business. Jason Sandvik is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

Learn more about MIT SMR.