Innovation and Organizational Culture Order Instructions: Innovation and Organizational Culture
The importance of innovative thinking is stressed in much of your Required Resources this week. So, one would naturally assume that innovative thinking is highly prized, compensated accordingly, and even demanded of successful people in many fields. Indeed, a traditional business approach is to incentivize innovative thinking. It is odd, though, that many organizations that seek innovators and innovation seem to conversely have an organizational culture that stifles creativity. You are strongly encouraged here, though, to think creatively as you write this paper.
Respond to the following
questions: • How can innovative thinkers overcome the organization’s innovation-stifling culture?
• How can innovative projects in portfolio management be important to organizations?
• How can innovative thinking skills positively or negatively influence project management?
• What leadership skills are necessary for project managers to manage innovative projects?
o What steps can you take to improve your skills in managing innovative projects?
Innovation and Organizational Culture Readings
• Thiry, M. (2007). Value management. InP. W. G. Morris & J. K. Pinto (Eds.), The Wiley guide to project, program & portfolio management (2nd ed., pp. 199–225). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
In Chapter 9, the author offers historical background on value management and how value management (VM) evolved from the concept of value analysis at General Electric in the 1940s. The chapter underscores the validity of VM as the method of choice to deal with the ambiguity of stakeholders’ needs and expectations amidst a changing business environment.
• Winch, G. (2007). Managing project stakeholders. In P. W. G. Morris & J. K. Pinto (Eds.), The Wiley guide to project, program & portfolio management (2nd ed., pp. 271–289). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
In Chapter 12, the author addresses the complexity of project stakeholder management. A framework is proposed for mapping stakeholders as a prerequisite for influencing the project mission or disrupting its execution.
• Johns, G. (2006). The essential impact of context on organizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 386–408.
The author argues that context is important when thinking about organizational behavior. He defines the context and proposes two levels of analysis for thinking about context.
Innovation and Organizational Culture Sample Answer
The organizational and innovative culture has a direct and a strong link according to recent researches. Innovation is the development of a new idea and, therefore, it’s processing. It is the application of new ideas to get new solutions to problems. In organizations, innovation can be defined as the changes in production to effective, quality, and more efficient products. A proper organizational culture is the one that enables organizations to translate innovation to cultures that ensure quality performances and improvements. The corporate culture should also be able to provide resources to the staff and room for the innovation process and hence improving the company’s performance. Every employee should have a duty to innovate besides the assigned job tasks in an organization. It is because innovation is the primary function in entrepreneurship (Mckeown, 2014).
Change by the employees in an individual organization helps to make the organization remain relevant in the ever competitive market. Workers in an organization can assist the organization to retain its competitive advantage. The making of new ideas by the employees in an organization can help put the organization in a good frame that prevents the organization from stifling innovation (Barry, 2013). The employees who think critically over the internal organizational environment are always in the look to identify new ideas that help the organization remains relevant in the market. These ideas can help in improving the efficiency of and production measures and hence delivering quality products (Newton, 2011).
Organizations which have their strategies and plans that are after innovation always find themselves in the map of competitiveness. Innovative projects through trial and error make organizations devise ways in which they can improve their production and hence quality products. Managers who promote innovation within their organizations are always in the urge to change their ways of production to realize quality products and hence remaining relevant in the market (Mckeown, 2014).
Innovation in project management can be both negative and positive and thus can bring up positive or negative influences in project evaluation. Innovation is mostly positive and leads to positive results in project evaluation according to the many researchers recently. It leads to the changing of ways of production and project evaluation and thus realizing a quality and efficient way of production. However, sometimes the new methods of production resulting from innovation may not be encouraging to the project evaluation process. These new methods may sometimes lead to the altering of organizational culture and thus not easy to change the culture of an organization. Change within an organization may not be easy to change and if necessary, it will take a lot of time and resources to change a way of project evaluation (Barry, 2013).
Project managers need to be effective leaders to ensure that innovation in an organization is done effectively and that it leads to encouraging results. Managers that are a motivation to the organization’s employees always find their organization adapting to the innovative ways easily. Leaders who are also strong decision makers are always successful in innovation implementation. It is because the innovation process involves a lot of changes within an organization and without proper decision making the innovation process may spoil (Newton, 2011).
Upon completion, there are several steps that can be taken to ensure that the leadership and the managing skills in the innovation process is positive. Evaluation of projects that involves innovation requires leaders that are wise in their actions and hence proper decision makers. Efficient training in leadership is the key step that ensures proper innovation is successfully adapted.
Innovation and Organizational Culture References
Mckeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results.
Daft, R. L., Murphy, J., & Willmott, H. (2010). Organization theory and design. Andover: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Newton, R. (2011). The management book. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Anthony, S. D. (2012). The little black book of innovation: How it works, how to do it.
Barry, B. (2013). Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Oxford: Wiley.
