Innovation in Organizations: Personal and Cultural Factors that Facilitate or Hinder Innovation

Professor Miriam Erez
Technion University, Israel

Abstract

Innovation, the generation and implementation of novel ideas, is the driving force that leads to the competitive advantage of companies today. Paradoxically, the personal characteristics that lead to generating novel ideas may contradict with the characteristics that lead to their successful implementation. The former requires divergent and creative thinking, whereas the latter requires attention to detail and conscientiousness. Similarly, the cultural characteristics that support innovation and emphasize autonomy, risk-taking and tolerance for errors, may contradict the cultural values that enhance adherence to rules and standards and distract from an outcome orientation. Furthermore, the effect of personal characteristics on innovative performance may be moderated by the organizational culture. This presentation consists of two studies, an experiment and a field study. The objectives of these studies are three-fold: a) to explore whether there are conflicting relationships between creative thinking, attention to detail and conscientiousness, that lead to innovative performance, b) between cultural characteristics that lead to innovative performance, and c) how personal characteristics interact with the organizational culture to affect performance.