The Role of Organizational Culture and Management Behavior in Organizational Innovation: A Case Study of the Agricultural Extension Organization (AEO) in Iran

Abstract

To achieve new ideas and know how to manage innovation successfully, organizational development is one of the most serious challenges facing management. Although organizational innovativeness is a complicated phenomenon which involves many organizational and environmental factors, this chapter has mainly focused on two important factors: management behavior and organizational culture. The main purpose of this chapter is to explore how management behavior and organizational culture can affect organizational innovation in the Agricultural Extension Organization (AEO). The chapter has used both correlation and descriptive-analytic methodologies. A sample of 215 expert employees (at least B.Sc. holders) of AEO was randomly selected. The data were collected by using the questionnaire and processed within SPSS. The questionnaire as a research tool was initially developed based on an extensive review of literature and finalized after both pre-testing and face validity review by a team of experts. The data were collected by an interviewing team using the questionnaire. Results showed that despite the importance of the two organizational factors, organizational culture and managerial behavior, these factors were not supportive enough for facilitating a suitable environment for organizational innovation in AEO. Moreover, a rather low level of organizational innovation was observed, as well as positive relationships were found between organizational factors and organizational innovation. In order to change the organizational structure of AEO based on organizational innovation, it was recommended that informal organizational relationships should be encouraged, a decentralized planning system, and participatory decision making need to be applied, and formal, hierarchical, and complicated control should be eliminated.