Organization Culture on Innovation: Understanding the Influence using its Variables

Abstract

Today, firms exist in a turbulent environment where technology changes quite often. Satisfying a customer is a big challenge and competition among companies is severe within the industry. Innovation is indispensable in an organization. It gives a competitive advantage over other organization and facilitates sustainable growth as a result of continuous improvement. For innovation to happen a supportive organizational culture is inevitable. The present study adopts modified Cameron, Quinn and Robert (1999) model of cultural profiles for an organization which includes factors such as clan, hierarchy, adhocacy and market. For this study only advocacy and hierarchy were considered and four characteristics considered for the study are: dominant characteristics, management of employees, organizational glue and criteria of success (Naranjo-Valemia, Jimenez-Jimenez & Sanz-Valle, 2011). To study innovation, framework developed by Muller et al (2003) that explains the dimensions of innovation like resource view, capability view and leadership view are considered. The study tries to find out the favorable cultural characteristics that can introduce and prosper innovation in an organization. A small sample of 61 responses was collected from individuals working in three different companies where innovations are encouraged. Other independent variables considered for the study are age of the company and years of experience of the respondents in the same company. The major finding of the study is that hierarchical vulture also supports innovative initiatives as against previous studies. This study concludes by slating that optimal resource allocation improves with experience, as an innovative component.