Lecture 6: Institutionalizing innovation Flashcards
What 2 aspects do we have to look at in organizations?
- Creativity: how novel and valuable ideas are created
- Innovation: how novel and valuable ideas are implemented into new processes, products, services,…
-> Selection issues (Type 1 and Type 2 errors)
Process: “Idea Management Systems”
Defintion?
Problems with this approach?
= Def.: “ An administrative procedure for collecting, judging, and compensating ideas, which are conceived by employees of the organization”
-> Systems to capture ideas from the employee’s minds
= These systems are widely used and established in organizations
= Problems: Many problems associated with these systems that are usually plagued by a lack of effectiveness
-> Employees with good ideas did not communicate it through the suggested system
-> Many valuable ideas are not adequately followed- up , despite being submitted to the idea management system
Process: Idea Management Systems
How to support valuable unpredictability
= Support, not just reduce, outcome variation
= Reduce teh cost of creating original outcomes
= Integrate with makers’ established expertise and evolved techniques
? Allow induced variation
= Support collection, not just reuse
= Modulate the rates of iteration and convergence
Process: Networks in Organizations and Innovation
What does the weak tie theory by Granovetter say?
Weak ties are social relationships, which are typified by infrequent interaction, short history, and limited (emotional) closeness
= Bridge: A direct tie between nodes that would otherwise be unconnected
= Core assumption: Not every relationship between individuals is equally strong
The strength of weak ties?
= Weak ties can be bridges that facilitate innovation
= Low maintenance and low risk
= Diversity and felxibility
= Knowledge floe
The weakness of strong ties
= High maintenance and high risk
= swimming in their own pond
= No external champions
= Lock-in effect
Process: Weak ties in innovation
How to foster the formation of weak ties?
= Providing people with the opportunity to develop and maintain weak ties within and outside of the organization
= Establishing firm events spanning teams and departments
=”Lunch Roulette”
Support leveraging weak ties:
-> Establishing a climate of trust within the company
= Level of trust influences the exchaange of knowledge
Process: User Innovation
The traditional process of innovation:
= firms first explore user needs and then develop responsive products
BUT: Developing an accurate understanding of user needs is not simple and requires substantial inputs of time and money
= Traditional approach is getting more inefficient since user needs change more rapidly
The alternative approach of traditional innovation processes?
Including users in the innovation process
= Abandoning the attempt to understand users needs
= Transferring need-related aspects of products and service development directly to users
= Providing customers with tools to design and develop the application-specific part of a product on their own
Organizational Culture
Definition?
= Values, norms, and guiding beliefs that are shared by members of an organization
-> Socialization: Taught to new members as the correct way to think, feel, and behave
= Organizational culture exists at different levels
-> Observable symbols
-> Underlying values
-> Assumption or basic beliefs
Positive aspects of Organizational Culture
- Provides a sense of organizational identity and purpose
- Provides behavioral guidance to the members of an organization
- Attracting to outsiders and energizing employees
Which kind of organizational culture fosters innovation?
= Creating a climate that supports creativity and innovation behavior
How to influence the organizational culture?
= Organizational culture can only be influenced indirectly
= Influencing organizational culture requires concerted, consistent, and persistent managerial effort, including:
- formulating lead values and continuously communicating them
- top and middle managers as role models, living these values
- rewarding people who live these values
- recruiting and selecting people that fit the culture
- assimilating people into the culture
Creative deviance
= refers to the violation of a managerial order to stop working on a new idea
How does creative deviance occure
- The first element consists of culturally defined goals that the social context holds out as legitimate objectives
- A second element defines, regulates, and controls acceptable modes for achieving these goals
= A social system may lack the capacity to provide all individuals with access to the legitimate means they need to pursue its culturally defined goals –> Structural strain
=> This may lead to Creative deviance
