Looking at the literature on the role of top management in innovation, one often comes across the instruction to create an organizational context enabling and driving innovation. But what does such a context look like? I went through about 100 articles and studies and summarized my findings…here they are.
First of all we have to look at the elements that constitute the organizational context and then look at the characteristics of these elements within strategically innovative companies and compare them to non-innovative companies.
Culture: A culture fostering innovation is characterized by the following elements: questioning attitude; rewards successes and failures, but punishes inaction; tolerates mistakes; welcomes change; welcomes slack; supports risk taking; supports teamwork and collaboration.
Structure: Structures in innovative companies tend to be flat and fast; consist of small units; encourage collaboration; and is made of small autonomous teams at the front lines.
Processes: Processes are fast and unbureaucratic; decision making is decentralized; and they support idea generation, experimentation and execution.
Systems: Systems support the process of strategic innovation; enable collaboration, and the use and creation of knowledge; reward risk taking and action; are used to create relationships with customers and external stakeholders.
People: strategically innovative companies “use” a variety of internal and external people with diverse backgrounds; people do collaborate; and they are educated in regard to the strategy and the skills needed for strategic innovation.
Anything you would like to add? Comments welcome!
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Hey thanks for posting this post. I was looking for some of these definitions as part of my assignment. Thanks for sharing. It really helped me..
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