Understanding the Cultural Factors to Build Innovation in Organizations

Radical innovation is the key for organizations to reinvent themselves and becoming successful in competitive international markets. Compared to other types of innovation such as incremental which focuses on customers’ immediate needs, radical innovation offers a company unprecedented customer benefits and the ability to create new businesses and markets. Research from literature has shown that cultural factors play an important role in the successful integration of radical innovation efforts. Using the Adhocracy and Market Orientation components within the Competing Values Framework, I developed a testable model of the relationship between cultural factors and radical innovation. The study involved 4 constructs – namely learning capability, shared vision, open mindedness and proactive market orientation. Initial pilot included 50 participants and the main study included 166 participants across different organizations covering 15 industries. I did a hierarchical linear regression in order to examine the direct effects of the predictors on the outcome. Proactive market orientation, shared vision and learning orientation have a positive effect on radical innovation while open mindedness did not have a significant effect on radical innovation. The study highlights the importance of organizational context in order to optimize the cultural factors required to drive innovation. The insights from the main study can be used as interventions to increase the innovation levels in multiple parts of the organization