How conducive their organization’s culture to innovative

Today’s executives want their companies to be more innovative, hoping to discover the elixir of success. They are impressed by the ability of comparatively young companies such as Google and Face book to create and market breakthrough products and services. And they marvel at how some older companies — Apple, IBM, Procter & Gamble, 3M and General Electric, to name a few — reinvent themselves again and again. And they wonder, How do these great companies do it?”After studying innovation among 957 companies based in 19 major markets, researchers Gerard J. Tellis, Jaideep C. Prabhu and Rajesh K. Chandy found that corporate culture was a much more important driver of radical innovation than labor, capital, government or national culture.A new assessment tool can help pinpoint your company’s innovation strengths and weaknesses. How they go about building a unique innovation culture which ensures their continuous growth even in trouble times, that conclusion raises two more questions: First, what is an innovative corporate culture? And second, if you don’t have an innovative culture, is there any way you can build one? This article addresses both questions by offering a simple model of the key elements of an innovative culture, as well as a practical 363-degree assessment tool that managers can use to assess how conducive their organization’s culture is to innovation — and to see specific areas where their culture might be more encouraging to it.

Keywords:

Innovation , Organization culture , Innovation management , corporate culture