Organizational Culture and Corporate Innovation

WO Olori, J Mark
2013 African Research Review  
This paper examines corporate innovation with a view to determine its relationship with organizational culture. A critical review of extant literature suggests clearly that innovation matters and it is important for achieving competitive advantage in a highly competitive market. But in achieving corporate innovation, organizational culture plays a very significant role because innovation requires very different business conditions, skills, structures and processes. Previous studies have shown
more » ... at corporate innovation is influenced either positively or negatively by organizational culture. While some constructs of organizational culture serve as impediments to corporate innovation, Copyright© IAARR 2013: www.afrrevjo.net 50 Indexed African Journals Online: www.ajol.info others serve as support to corporate innovation. It is therefore recommended that for corporate innovation to strive, managers should be extremely careful in keeping the right mix of cultural traits. literature and lays out a research agenda inclusively of proportions on the relationship among variables important to organizational, culture and innovation. Angle (1989), first reviewed the literature related to how motivation is important for creativity and innovation, noting that intrinsic motivation for creativity is much more powerful in producing creative behavior than extrinsic motivation. Angle went on to discuss enabling factor in the organization, enlighten the importance of information flows in the organization. Information flows are dependent, to a certain degree, on organizational climate and culture. Expectations about the importance of communicating, the vehicle available for communicating, and the cues within the environment regarding with whom to communicate can determine how communication will influence innovation .In the Minnesota Innovation Survey (MIS) data, "innovation effectiveness was found to be related both to communication frequency within the innovation teams (r =.17, p <.03) and communication frequency outside teams (r =.19, p < .02)" (Angle, 1989, p. 144). However, somewhat surprisingly, however MIS data also showed the lack of a relationship between innovation, effectiveness and communication with customers (r=.09-p<.23) and vendors (r=.12-p<.12). This data contradicted previous research (Utterbach, 1971). Angle (1989) concluded that what is important is not necessarily that the communication and information sharing take place within or outside the organization, but rather the frequency of communication among persons with dissimilar frames of reference with the thoughts being that an exchange of ideas from different point of view will generate new, creative ideas. Also particularly relevant to creativity / innovation and its relationship to an organizational climate/culture is the concept of an organic organization. By definition, an organic organization supports open communication flows, power on the basis of experts instead of positions, and decisionmaking authority is decentralized (Angle, 1989). Angle concluded that an organic organization (as opposed to an mechanistic one) enables greater organizational innovation in
doi:10.4314/afrrev.v7i4.4 fatcat:rbqx7p2evrh5fhelqmj7uqbt7i