The importance of Innovation and Technology in Organizational Culture

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.

Reference
Adler, P. and Borys, B. (1996), “Two types of bureaucracy: enabling and coercive”,
Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 41, pp. 61-89.
Ahmed, P. (1998), “Culture and climate for innovation”, European Journal of Innovation
Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 30-43.
Al-Khalifa, K.N. and Aspinwall, E.M. (2000), “Using the competing values framework to
identify the ideal culture profile for TQM: a UK perspective”, International Journal of
Manufacturing Technology & Management, Vol. 2 Nos 1-7, pp. 1024-40.
Ali, A., Krapfel, R. and Labahn, D. (1995), “Product innovativeness and entry strategy: impact
on cycle time and break-even time”, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 12, pp.
54-69.
Amabile, T.M. (1998), “How to kill creativity”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 76, pp. 77-89.
Arad, S., Hanson, M. and Schneider, R. (1997), “A framework for the study of relationships
between organizational characteristics and organizational innovation”, The Journal of Creative
Behavior, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 42-58.
Atuahene-Gima, K. and Ko, A. (2001), “An empirical investigation of the effect of market
orientation and entrepreneurship orientation alignment on product innovation”, Organization
Science, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 54-74
Ahmed, P. (1998), “Culture and climate for innovation”, European Journal of Innovation
Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 30-43.

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]

The importance of Innovation and Technology in Organizational Culture

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (19)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (19)

Similar to The importance of Innovation and Technology in Organizational Culture

Similar to The importance of Innovation and Technology in Organizational Culture (20)

The importance of Innovation and Technology in Organizational Culture