The Relationship Between Ethical Organisational Culture and Organisational Innovativeness: Comparison of Findings from Finland and Lithuania

Abstract

The paper explores the interrelations between ethical organisational culture and organisational innovativeness in two different socio-cultural contexts, Finland and Lithuania. According to the Global Innovation Index 2013, Finland ranked 6th and Lithuania 40th in terms of the national capacity to produce innovations. Prior research by Riivari and Lamsa (J Business Ethics 124:1–17, 2014) and Riivari et al. (Eur J Innov Manag 15:310–331, 2012) argues the importance of the ethical dimension of organisational culture in fostering the organisational capacity to innovate. In this paper, a different context is taken to test hypothesised differences between the two multidimensional phenomena. The paper discusses the findings of 2 surveys in Finnish and Lithuanian public organisations (respectively, n FI = 477 and n LT = 757). Data analysis shows that ethical organisational culture affects organisational innovativeness, in particular process and behaviour innovativeness in both organisations. The findings suggest that some ethical virtues such as congruency of management, discussability and clarity can be explained by an institutional rather than socio-cultural context. However, the effect of transparency and sanctionability in the Finnish organisation and congruency of supervisors, supportability and feasibility in the Lithuanian organisation rests on peculiarities of a socio-cultural context.