Culture of Innovation and Technology in an Organization

Adedamola Aina O. (12657706)

Organizational Theory

Professor Scott Granberg-Rademacker

There exists thousands of write-ups and scholarly academic work on innovation and technology

and their impacts on organizational effect, efficiency and relevance. The world today cannot shy

away from the significance of technology and the role of innovation in the corporate world and

organizations. The purpose of this paper however is to answer questions such

as: The understanding of organizational culture; the relevance/significance of innovation; (is

there any relationship between organizational culture, innovation, and efficiency/effectiveness?)

Organizational culture can be defined in basic terms as a system of shared actions, values and

beliefs developed within an organization. These shared values and beliefs basically act as a

useful guideline for the behavior of its members. Each and every organization indeed possesses

its unique culture that could be compared to human/individual personalities and way of life.

However, that is not to say that similarities amongst corporate/organizational cultures do not

exist because they do but the uniqueness in the standout of the company growth or successes and

the participation and involvement of its members.

Organizations that foster a very innovative work environment which eventually leads to plenty of

intuitive and innovative products that give them a very strong advantage in the competitive

market. The organizational culture of a firm can be affected by various aspects and some are

discussed herein; the aspect of external adaptation which basically involves mapping out a

conscious effort at achieving company goals/aims and objectives through the tasks and methods

and coping with success and failure. The cogent aspects/features of external adaptation includes

but not limited to the creation of an accomplishment/performance measuring tool and the

separation of external forces/influences based on their relevance and formulating/ reviewing

reasons why specific aims/goals are not met. The aspect of external adaptation asks several

questions such as; 1. What are the organizational goals and how can they be achieved? 2. What is

the real mission? (Companies really need to fully express the mission). 3. What is the mode of

member contribution? 4. What are the important external forces/influences? 5. How are the

results measured? 6. What is the next line of action when there are certain goals that are not met

or achieved? 7. What are the available means of communication employed to inform others on

how good an organization is? 8. What are the pointers to when to quit? It is very important that

all these questions are put into consideration when creating a very efficient corporate culture.

Most companies fail to express the mission which is wrong and could generally affect the start-

up and eventual process and output.

The most used and best solution to effectively dealing with problems of organizational culture

would be internal integration which involves exploring ways of living and working together and

creating a unique identity. Internal integration could be very useful for an organization or

corporate entity that seeks to progress towards innovation because this can only occur when its

members begin to have a strong belief that they can change the world around them and that is

when the constant strive for constant change comes into play.

The greatest organizational/corporate cultures commence with deciding how to change the world

of the clients/customers and striving to do the needful that the needed change happens. Peter

Drucker says that it is only what is measured that can be improved. In providing an answer to the

question 5 above (How are the results measured?). Today’s companies do not operate an

effective performance metrics for innovation and interestingly most of the ones that attach

financial benefits and incentives to performance actually end up decreasing employee

performance. The culture of an organization although not seeable (it is invincible) because it’s

not physically available it is important that it is identified with by the employees, well interpreted

by the employees and most importantly well understood.

The subcultural aspect of culture such as counter culture which is simply a group whose patterns

and values contradicts those of the greater part of the organization or system. This can prove

really effective sometimes if there is a need for a total overhaul/re-orientation of how things

should be done to boost productivity, efficiency and performance. Steve jobs joined Apple and

had to basically battle the entire top-level management staff that still wanted to operate in line

with the culture as provided by the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Apple eventually

changed from their usual way of doing things and adapted the new wave of innovation and

technology that Steve Jobs took to the company and today even after his demise they are a major

pace-setter and a strong force to reckon with not just in the United States but on the global scene.

Public organizations face a huge pressure trying to increase productivity and organizational

effectiveness. The thirst frequently is expressed as “doing more with less” or some similar

phrase. (Rupert F. Chilsom) one frequent response to these pressures is to look for technological

fixes that will enhance productivity and minimize system dependency on employees.

A broader view of technology includes all the knowledge, information, material, resources,

techniques and procedures that a work unit uses to convert system inputs into outputs

(Chilsom, 1984). Although the specific nature of technology varies from one work to another,

each work system has one core technology. The core technology is what carries out

transformational process that must be performed if work is to survive

(Cummings and Srivatsva, 1977). This implies that while it might be right to say that all

technologies affect various aspects of organizational functioning in critical ways, the specific

impacts vary from one technology to another and the degrees of freedom permitted vary greatly

among technologies. The choices on the type of technology to be used are very strategic and it

affects the long term performance of any organization.

In a world with great dependency on technology it is only normal that firms that are able to keep

up with the speed and significant changes in how things are done would remain relevant. Thus, if

the organizational culture provides an enabling environment for innovation that is evident in the

policies, procedures and catchy phrases/slang that shape and form what eventually consists of the

norms and values that guide conducts, operation and behavior of its employees they tend to have

great success stories, world acclaimed recognition and awards that promote integration and

encouragement amongst workers. It is vital to note that having the end in mind is an important

part of establishing a process of organizational culture. Netflix today is a brand to be reckoned

with, it is a company that came from obscurity to the lime light because they decided to innovate

and do what other movie companies are not doing at the moment by basically putting movies in a

mail. Patty Mcford, a former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix said in a presentation on Freedom

and Responsibility (Cranet Konference, 2014) that rapid growth of an organization relies on the

fact that aspects of the organization culture is in fact based on the culture of innovation.

Organizations that foster the learning of new technologies and endeavor to keep their staff up to

date with the trends in the economic world tend to be more efficient and productive. This implies

that workers would be able to conceptualize issues/problems with an intent to proffering

solutions to the different situational problems as they arise; workers would possess the ability to

be able to challenge prevailing assumptions when warranted and suggest a highly

improved/advanced approach; workers would be given room for invention of ideas that are

useful, efficient, minimize complexity and have a great chance of being implemented. The

market today has one constant factor which is change and forward thinking organizations should

be able to rapidly adapt to the speed of change and the only way to do this would be to create an

enabling environment where the shared values, beliefs and goals is directed or aimed at one thing

which is innovation. A good innovative culture basically depicts and should be able to imbibe

into the entirety of staff the habit of being an ‘inventor’ not an ‘implementer’. Innovators solve

for better ways and not consistency in the process of doing things and they basically really do not

concern themselves with maintaining status quo.

In the consideration of innovative ideas in an organization, companies must however take note of

certain important questions such as but not limited to the following.

1. Does the idea seek to achieve the desired outcome?

2. Does it support the organization or opposes?

3. Does it proffer a smoother way of doing things?

4. Is it logical?

In the United States, the typical approach to selecting and designing technology has been to

choose the technology and leave workers responses to the working environment as dependent

variables. (Skinner, 1979). While some would say it might have a negative effect organizational

effect in terms of human resources/relations on the long run, it might just be the needed move to

be emulated by all. Relegating the physical working environment to last place in developing and

designing technology is also based on the assumption that while this approach may cause

‘personnel problems’ these problems can be over-come through various techniques such as

communication and suggestion programs and industrial psychology techniques (scientific

selection) exemplify these methods. The treatment of the human side of work is becoming

increasingly questionable in an era of changing employee expectations, new complex

technologies and emerging social values (Skinner, 1979). There is the need for top level

management and decision makers to create room for specificity in choice of technology to be

used while simultaneously creating a workplace design to be able to cater for the dire need of an

organization with a sophisticated information processing environment. A theoretical visionary

framework, an accompanying analytical and design process that consists of the human and

technogical aspects of work design is required. Since technology is normally selected or

designed to conform to and reinforce existing organizational structures, reshaping the design of

the organization is also often required (Perrow, 1983). This is evident because appropriate

designs contribute to a more flexible and adaptable organization that can offer a higher quality

response to customers. This approach to a complex organizational work design that recognizes

the interaction between people and technology in work places provides an efficient way of

working to improve total system performance through improved links between the human

systems and technology.

In order to get the best out of an organization and remain competitive, it is important for

corporate organizations to note that success is in fact dependent on the level of sophistication and

advancement in procedures used, which means that they cannot help but rely on technology and

innovation which must and should be clearly defined in their mission statement and

organizational culture. To achieve this, organizations must make innovation a part of their core

values. These core values represent the best traits in the employees and what they have to offer

every day. It reflects what an organization is passionate about. If an organization wishes to create

a culture that prioritizes innovation and growth.

Firstly, they would need to make it a core value and only hire people who share the same beliefs

or are interested in aligning themselves with the vision, mission and purpose of the organization.

Employees who challenge fundamental assumptions, discuss with people who know more than

they do and welcome alternative viewpoints for the purpose of increasing their understanding

and depth of knowledge.

Secondly, in ensuring that the successive flow of innovation is adequately managed, it would be

correct to say that great companies need to compete successfully over time by properly and

effectively managing their innovation streams, initiate processes for incremental, architectural,

and radical innovations. What this does is that creates an opportunity for them to penetrate new

markets with already existing products and to proactively introduce substitute products that

would create new markets and redesign the system in the industry. In managing streams of

innovation it requires an unusually skillful organization that possess the ability to simultaneously

do two fundamentally different things and well. This requires managers/leaders who possess the

ability to maintain consistency, encourage periodical and continuous improvement in the way

things are done, while simultaneously allowing the freedom of experimentation that would

empower the organization to create or respond to radical shifts in the environment. Also the

organization must create multiple, contradictory structures and cultures held in alignment by a

single vision and management team and the basic implication of this theories is that there needs

to be more of ambidextrous organizations. Organizational ambidexterity requires the

organizations to use both exploration and exploitation techniques to achieve success. Such

organizations are decentralized but usually have a strong social and financial control.

Furthermore, understudying and understanding the basic evolutionary cycle of technology can

help any organization in predicting the period of radical change. The technological cycle

commences with a temporary discontinuity followed up with the discovery or invention of a new

possibilities and methods. In literary terms if there is a product class then, there is a high level of

innovation and when a dominant design is selected or an industry standard is established then

variation ceases. The second stage is when the period when the product enters the retention stage

which is a time of incremental change and architectural innovation. Suffice to say that during the

same period the process of innovation commences with improvements and advancements in the

way the product is produced and delivered. Eventually, another technological discontinuity

occurs and the cycles begin again. The mobile phone industry provides a great example of this

evolutionary process. A hundred years ago there were no mobile phones. A tremendous idea

conceived by Martin Cooper while he was at Motorola in the 1970s, turn of the century the only

constant thing related to that awesome product is change and more change. The early 1970s saw

Martin Cooper head up Motorola's communications systems division where the innovation and

creation of the first portable cellular phone in 1973 was first conceived. It relatively took about

10-years to get launch it on the market. Before then the United States had been in limited use of

car phones across its cities but Cooper decided to reject the industry's limited choice of car

phones and pioneered the culture of cellular telephones for portable and personal

communications because he knew that people needed that freedom to communicate anywhere

and anytime via the cellular phone. Cooper along with a carefully selected team designed and

assembled a product which prior to that time had never been built. Presently after various

modifications and upgrade there are over a thousand types of mobile phones in the world.

It is important to note that the above example points to the fact that the senior management at

Motorola were supportive of Cooper's mobile phone concept and they painstakingly invested an

estimated $100 million for about twenty years before they even began to realize any revenues.

The standard set by Motorola then has been substituted by the likes of Apple, Samsung, HTC

and the likes. The first juncture in the evolution of a product class is the closing on a standard—

the shift from an era of incite to an era of change. That juncture is crucial. When Windows

became the dominant design in the operating system of PCs, Apple and IBM dropped in that

product class, and Bill Gates became the single richest person in the United States.

In the stage of variation, it's not all about technology alone. There’s an umbrella that consists of

technology, seeking influence from policy changers and partly coalitions with suppliers, vendors,

and customers. There are dangerous results attached to losing control of a core subsystem. Look

at the world of hand-held phones. There's a European standard, an American standard, and a

Japanese standard. Each trying to become the dominant global standard; hence, Ericsson wants it

to be Ericsson; Nokia wants it to be Nokia. This is a profoundly political game that is crucial in

the evolution of a product class.

The roles of leaders is to help their organizations clarify strategies and make choices about the

breadth of product and service offerings, target customers, technology strategy, competitive

timing, and the strategic intent, vision, or aspirations for a business unit. Strategy and vision

statements alone are mere words or figurative expressions; most organizations today these days

possess a well-articulated set of visions and strategies but relatively few execute them. The

execution really depends on how managers use the organization's processes, structures, rewards,

systems, roles, competencies, and culture. Success would eventually come in the short-term,

because organizations are managed for internal agreement, compatibility and consistency. Then,

these organizations start to grow so they can handle higher volume and the only way to handle

high volume throughout is by installing a structure, a bureaucracy, levels of control, effective

system, rewards/incentives, and procedures for resource allocation. Irrespective of the industry or

market choice of a business (i.e. whether it is into restaurants/dinners, training students, or

assembling computer chips or automobiles, the only way its managers can develop internal

harmony for handling high volume is by constructing these technical systems in the service of a

strategy. That's good news for today, but bad news for tomorrow, because with structure,

bureaucracy, and systems also comes "structural inertia." Organizations also age with time and

the older an organization becomes, the more it develops myths, stories, and histories. When the

world is shifting towards a new dawn or age, experience might be irrelevant and of no real

significance. The older an organization becomes, the more its people tend to develop a paradigm

of the way work should be done and a certain arrogance about what they are doing begins to

come into play. Inertia and arrogance are benign as long as the environment is stable or moving

incrementally. But when the environment moves rapidly, inertia becomes profoundly

pathological. When an environment shifts in a discontinuous way, the response of high-inertia

systems is almost always characterized by increased compliance, increased commitment to the

status quo, and a diminished or decreased attention to problem-solving. A further example here is

when refrigeration was introduced, the ice industry responded with a about a three hundred (300)

percent improvement in ways of preparing, packaging and shipping ice. In industry after

industry, companies after companies and business after business the response of top class players

almost always has been pathological. In ensuring continuous success over time, a company

should be able to reorganize and redefine itself to stay in sync with external forces and events.

The theories on the influence managing the streams of innovation are endless and this paper does

not seek to exhaust rather it is to further clarify the significant relationship that exists. An

organization that seeks dominance worldwide would need to have control of the low end of the

market, the middle, and the high end. This can be done by managing streams of innovation to

shape the product class. To manage these streams of innovation, an organization must build two

fundamentally different organizational architectures (ambidextrous) in the same business unit to

operate, not sequentially, but at the simultaneously. The kind of strategy, structure, people, and

process that are required in a mature era of incremental change of a product class is

fundamentally different than the kind of strategy, structure, people, and process required in an

era of ferment. It is not portfolio management, it is an ambidextrous organization an organization

that has different cultures, structures, competencies, and processes operating in the same

business unit at the same time [Michael Tushman, 1997]. The only way to break out of the

internal forces for structural inertia is by managing sets of competencies within the organization,

or by establishing strong alliances, partnerships, thereby creating an organization that has

multiple strategies, multiple competencies, and multiple structures.

The world of variation indeed is a filled with the likelihood of making several errors/mistakes,

but it is important and stressed that the organization learns. The quality factor may tend to

intervene but unless the environment is stable, incremental improvement can disrupt innovation

streams because it seeks to remove variance. An organization would need to make a selection out

of the variations and begin to build on it, then comes the retention stage where mistakes are not

allowed. The cost of mistakes in this world would normally be terrible. These worlds must be

allowed to operate on a parallel within a given organization. Top level management in

organizations, every once in a while must take a risk on the decisions to be made and as leaders,

they must break out of the forces for stability that come from today's success and be willing to

make a bet on these punctuated changes. Managers must build organizational capabilities such

that their firms are systematically more consistent and lucky than the competition. Innovation

streams and change seem to be a worldwide phenomenon. As companies move through

innovation streams, they find it is better to make these revolutionary changes before being forced

to make them. Contemporary decision makers in organizations must manage inherent

inconsistencies consistently if they are to manage innovation and change. They must be

architects saddled with the responsibility and obligation of building fit, consistent, and congruent

structures and cultures to execute tasks in the service of vision and strategy. They must be

network builders, shaping coalitions to manage revolutionary change and to close on standards in

a product class. And they must be skilled artists as they juggle contradictory strategies,

structures, competencies, and cultures in the service of both incremental and discontinuous

innovation [Ahmed, P. 1998]. While difficult, great firms like Microsoft seem to be able to build

ambidextrous organizations and manage discontinuous and incremental change in the service of

winning through innovation.

Finally, based on the findings above this paper also makes some recommendations achieving

success, efficiency and effectiveness through creating a culture of innovations as follows:

Every organization is designed to get the results it gets. Inefficiency emanates from poor

performance which in turn comes from a poorly designed organization. Superior results

only emerge when strategies, business models, structure, processes, technologies, tools,

and reward systems are effectively pronounced and constantly put in place.

Practically knowledgeable leaders shape the culture of their company to drive innovation.

It is the culture, the values, norms and behaviors of leaders and employees that often

limits performance. These invisible forces are responsible for the fact that a very large

percentage of all organizational change efforts amount to failure. What to do here would

be to structure the interplay between the company’s explicit strategies with the

interpersonal relationship amongst workers/employees and to the organization.

Organizations need to be intentional with your innovation intent. Most corporate visions

and missions statements sound alarmingly alike especially those in relatively close

industry and markets. All organizations want to be number one, they want to be on top.

These generic, broad-based goals might rev up sales teams, but they do little to spark

ingenuity. The worst thing an organization can do to its employees especially those at the

middle and low level positions is to give "innovation marching orders" without any

guidelines or any form of assistance. The way to go about dealing with this is to

conceptualize the way the organization would like to change the world, and make it

basically about the customer.

Create a structure for unstructured time. Innovation needs time to develop. No one ever

feels like they have time to spare. People get so consumed with pursuing short-term

targets that most can’t even think about the future. Giving up control when the pressure is

greatest is the ultimate innovation paradox. That’s why iconic brands like 3M and

Google give their employees about 10% "free time" to experiment with new ideas. The

organization can deal with this by encouraging employees to take paid days off to work

on any problem they want but they must bring something fresh and of value within a

specified period of time. Companies such as Intuit use time as a reward because they

believe it’s the biggest motivator. Using time wisely creates a major incentive.

Providing "free" time for employees to experiment with new technologies, products, or

processes can create an opportunity for the next big thing to spring up. In cases where

there are too many companies and the consultants they hire attempt to over-engineer the

innovation process. A better option would be to give enough structure and support to help

people navigate uncertainty and tap into the creative process without stifling it. There are

some pretty good off-the-shelf tools that can help build employee skill sets a guide that

would be made available to all employees and the public and which would include

self-serve ingredients for cooking up innovation. Employees within the organization such

as the software engineers to human-resources managers would have used the skillsets to

innovate internal work processes or create new products, including products that ease the

life and street of their employees. An example is (Snaptax) which lets customers file their

taxes in less than 15 minutes on their mobile phones. Promoting these types of toolkits

help convince employees that leaders care about their development while they also

promote best practices that can be adapted to the needs of the individual or team.

Measure the meaningful. What’s measured improves, said in another way, you get what

you measure [Peter Drucker]. For many organizations, coming up with ideas often isn’t

the problem. The challenge is turning them into something real that delivers an impact.

So what metrics should they use? First, it is important to figure out what to measure. In

its early days, Facebook measured how often its users returned to its site. Everything they

did focused on blowing out this single metric. Customer-oriented numbers are clearly

essential. There are several other indicators that can drive organizational internal

innovation and they are as follows; Percent of time dedicated to discovering, prototyping,

and testing revenue-generating new products, services, or business models; A pipeline of

new ideas that includes a set ratio of short-term products or services and longer-term

game changers; Percent of employees who have been trained and given tools for

innovation; Percent of revenue from products or services introduced within a given

period of time

Giving of rewards. Recognizing success is critical, but most companies stop there. An

annual innovation award is just not enough to support and promote a culture of

innovation. Sure, formal rewards are good for the short term but they might not keep

people truly engaged. The most powerful and robust type of recognition the kind that

shapes organizational values—often occurs more informally. Several members of

Colgate-Palmolive’s Global R&D group initiated a "recognition economy" by

distributing symbolic wooden nickels to colleagues who had made noteworthy

contributions to their projects. The fortunate recipients didn’t hoard their winnings. They

passed them on to others who had chipped in on projects that they themselves had led.

Nickels are now distributed in meetings, but it’s not uncommon for employees to return

from lunch and find a few nickels anonymously placed on their desks. It’s a fun and

validating idea; such informal acknowledgments encourage a collective spirit and help

promote the free flow of ideas.

Symbolism. Symbols represent the underlying values of an organization, and they come

in many forms—values statements, awards, success stories, posters in the hallways, catch

phrases, acronyms, and, yes, those wooden nickels. Those who intentionally select the

innovation symbols of their companies essentially select their innovation cultures. Netflix

names its corporate conference rooms after blockbuster movies (for one, King Kong) as a

reminder of the continuous breakthroughs its employees are creating and promoting.

Although, symbols can be more than just physical objects. Poignant experiences, for

example, live on as stories and folklore and shape the mind-sets and behaviours of new

and existing employees. Rather than let stories naturally unfold from leaders’

unconscious behaviour which may or may not support innovation come companies

explicitly shape stories to convey key values. There is a constant reminder that everyone

needs to consistently "march to the beat of a different drummer."

Finally, the abolishment of automatic approval without proper consideration. Every

organization’s culture is inherently different. So when cultivating innovation, they are

cultivating a unique system. Which implies that they have to be thoughtful about the

chosen approach. That is, whatever is done should align with the values of the

organization and with the organizational goals. And in each case, you have to make it

easy and rewarding for the people whose roles and dynamics influence the very

innovation culture you’re trying to cultivate.

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Structural Inertia and Organizational Change Michael T. Hannan and John Freeman

[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095567]

Michael Tushman, Winning through Innovation

[http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/eb054591]