Overcoming Organizational Fixation: Creating and Sustaining an Innovation Culture

Abstract

Fixation on established paradigms and practices can severely limit the capability of organizations to change, thereby jeopardizing the ability of organizations to keep up with changes in their environment and new technological developments. Overcoming organizational fixation is therefore a requirement for any organization that strives to achieve sustained success. Based on a discussion of individual, social and organizational causes of organizational fixation, a framework for overcoming organizational fixation and establishing an innovation culture is presented. Elaborating on the important role of leaders in creating an innovation culture, competencies and behaviors of innovation leaders are discussed, and a comprehensive leadership development strategy is outlined.

Innovation Enablers for Innovation Teams - A Review

“…Culture is defined as a set of shared values, norms, and knowledge within a firm (Crespell and Hansen, 2008;Hauser, 1998;Nanda and Singh, 2009), which are partly conscious and partly subconscious, but are very hard to change (Hauser, 1998). The culture influences the behavior of members within the company, as culture represents the deepest level of basic values, assumptions and beliefs shared by the members, and it is established by actions, especially from leaders and managers Sarros et al, 2008), such as hiring individuals with a range of abilities and interests or a variety of backgrounds and personalities, and heavily involving peers in the selection process (Leavy, 2005;Stempfle 2011). A strong culture ensures that everyone in the organization is on the same track (Nanda and Singh, 2009) and plays an important role in a firm's innovativeness (Hauser, 1998), where the culture has different roles in the innovation work.…”

“…Collaboration with competitors is recommended by Ritala and Hurmelinna-laukkanen (2009) as well, but they believe that IPR issues should be considered before entering into any collaboration of this kind. On the other side, research shows that companies tend to overestimate the risk of losing intellectual property while underestimating the benefits of exchanging ideas with external partners (Stempfle, 2011). However, when starting up new joint innovation projects, one strategy may be to avoid putting too much emphasis on details in contracts, which kills innovation, rather securing the collaboration as some kind of agreement providing trust in such innovation work (Paasi et al, 2010).…”

“…Innovative companies rely on personalized intrinsic rewards, where less innovative companies place almost exclusive emphasis on extrinsic awards (Nanda and Singh, 2009). Intrinsic rewards are claimed to be more motivating to innovation than extrinsic rewards, referring to job security, tolerance for early failure and timely feedback on performance (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2007;Manso, 2011;Nanda and Singh, 2009;Stempfle, 2011), having control over the small part with which they are closely involved (Cooper 2005). Extrinsic incentives have negative effects on innovation as they tend to make people risk-averse and foster the expectation that they will be compensated for every action they take Judge et al, 1997, Nanda andSingh, 2009).…”

“…However, extrinsic incentives can be highly motivating if they are carefully combined with strict wage rules (Haucap and Wey, 2004), support company goals, are fair and understandable, relate to performance and expected behavior, and support creativity and personal initiative (Lukes, 2012). If employees are rewarded only for success, they will go for the "low-hanging fruits" and pursue incremental innovation that is almost certain to produce results (Stempfle, 2011;Tushman and Nadler, 1986). Hence, the best effects of incentives are the ones that are connected to performance and not activity (Sheikh, 2012).…”

Innovation Management in Cultural Heritage Tourism: Experience from the Amphawa Waterfront Community, Thailand

“…Successful innovations require leaders who can drive ideas towards commercialization (Dombrowski et al, 2007). Several works have focused on these leaders and refer to them as "authentic" or "transformative" leaders, whose main interests lie in their ability to motivate and inspire others to deliver innovation (Kalyani, 2011;Ryan & Tipu, 2013;Stempfle, 2011). By positively communicating achievable visions and missions for organizations or communities, transformative leaders concurrently have a deep concern for the higher-level needs of followers.…”