Employee participation is a source of innovation that is overlooked by most companies. Based on the assumptions that employee participation is beneficial to companies and that every single employee can make valuable contribution, this thesis presents systematic approaches to stimulate employee participation in the innovation process. Guidelines to set up and maintain a participative innovation program are given based on examples and practical hints. The company context must be considered for the design of such program. The examples presented in this thesis show that various approaches can be followed to better fit the environment and current situation. First an innovation model is introduced to support the design of a future participative program. Six examples of successful implementations of participation programs are then given based on the experiences of IBM, Toyota, El Al airline, Whirlpool, 3M and Google. These examples reflect the potential of employee participation in stimulating the innovation performance of organisation in various situations. Eventually, this thesis tackles the challenge of organisational change required to implement a participative program within an organisation. The 8 steps approach introduced by Kotter in his book "Leading Change" is detailed considering the implementation of a participative innovation program. This thesis is mainly based on a theoretical analysis of literature examples. Further empirical results and field experiences in introducing an innovation program relying on employee participation would be required to confirm and validate the findings.