Fit between Organizational Culture and Innovation Strategy: Implications for Innovation Performance

Zhi Chen,Chong Liu,Shenglan Huang,Min Min,Liying Zhou

doi:10.3390/su10103378

Abstract

Although prior studies have indicated the interrelationships between specific types of innovation strategy and specific elements of organizational culture, few studies simultaneously evaluate the relationship between the two multi-dimensional constructs in holistic perspective. Based on configuration theory, we conceptualize fit as ‘profile deviation’, and investigate the fit between an organization’s culture and its innovation strategy. Data were collected from 183 Chinese organizations. We examine the hypothesis that greater fit between organizational culture and innovation strategy encourages superior innovation speed and innovation quality. Our results provide evidence that in the group of organizations exhibiting either exploratory or exploitative innovation strategy, the more similar the organizational culture configurations are to those of the top performers, the higher their innovation speed and innovation quality are. In the group of organizations exhibiting ambidextrous innovation strategy, the fit between organizational culture and innovation strategy is insignificantly associated with innovation speed and innovation quality. Implications for applying the culture–strategy fit in innovation management are discussed.

Highlights

Innovation strategy that outlines how organizations intend to achieve their innovative goals is critical for organizations to attain competitive advantage [1]
Several scholars have suggested that a profile deviation score reflects a ‘misfit’, and the greater the deviation the greater the misfit [42,43]
To support our hypotheses that greater fit is conducive for innovation speed and innovation quality, a negative relationship between profile deviation and each of the two variables is required

Summary

Introduction

Innovation strategy that outlines how organizations intend to achieve their innovative goals is critical for organizations to attain competitive advantage [1]. The literature suggests that to enable innovation strategy implementation and achieve superior innovation performance, organizations should combine their shared norms and values with the strategy requirement [3]. This indicates that the fit between innovation strategy and organizational culture is critical for effective and efficient implementation of innovation strategy [4]. Many organizations are still facing the difficult challenges of managing organizational culture in ways that successfully enable innovation strategy implementation [5]. This issue is of great theoretical and practical importance, the current understanding about how organizational culture should be managed to facilitate innovation strategy implementation and how this affects innovation performance is still limited

Methods

Results

Conclusion