Innovation in organizationsDiffusion of Innovations

Chapter 10

Highlights

• Chapter deals with collective and authority innovation –decisions

• Optional• Made by an individual independent of the decisions of other members of

a social system

• Collective• Made by consensus among members of a social system

• Authority• Made by relatively few individuals who have power, status, or technical

expertise

• Contingent• Based on already having adopted an innovation – agency adopts, social

worker uses.

Organization

• Organization – a stable system of individuals who work together to achieve common goals through a hierarchy of ranks and a division of labor.

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• Predetermined goals

• Prescribed roles

• Authority structure

• Rules and regulations

• Informal patterns 404

• Iron Cage – What is this??? • Rationality in the system disappears

VirtualOrganization

• Network of geographically-distant emp0loyees who are linked by electronic communication. 405

• Positives • More flexible

• Less hierarchy

• Edgeless, permeable boundaries

• Virtuality can be considered an innovation 407

• Negatives• Less organizational identification

• Lower satisfaction

• Higher turnover rates

• Less inhibited than fact-to-face and may lead to greater conflict and misunderstanding

Organizational Innovations

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• Core competency – what an organization does best.

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• Generalization – Both the innovation and the organization usually change in the innovation process in organizations.

Independent Variable –Organizational

Innovativeness• Individual leader characteristics

• Positive attitude toward change

• Internal characteristics of organizational structure

• Centralization –

• the degree to which the power and control in a system are concentrated in the hands of a few individuals

• Complexity +

• the degree to which members possess a relatively high level of knowledge and expertise

• Formalization –

• the degree to which an organization emphasizes following rules and procedures in the role performance of members

• Interconnectedness +

• the degree to which the units in a social system are linked by interpersonal networks

• Organizational slack +

• the degree to which uncommitted resources are available to an organization

Independent Variable –Organizational

Innovativeness

• Size +

• Gen 10-1 – Larger organizations are more innovative

• One of the best predictors of innovativeness

• Variable that’s easily measured

• Total resources

• Slack resources – the degree to which an organization has more resources than those required for its ongoing operations

• Employees technical expertise

• Organizational structure

• Gen 10-2 – Each of the organization structure variables may be related to innovation in one direction during the initiation phases of the innovation process, and in the opposite direction during the implementation phases. 412-413

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• Degree of progress predicted by

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• Perceived attributes of the innovations – Observability, low risk, and low complexity –40% of variance explained

• Organizational and leadership variables – 11% of variance explained

Innovation Champion

• A charismatic individual who throws his or her weight behind the innovation, thus overcoming the indifference or resistance that a new idea often provokes in an organization.

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• Gen 10-3 – The presence of an innovation champion contributes to the success of an innovation in an organization.

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• High status for high risk/expensive innovations

• Middle management for less radical innovations

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• Champion characteristics

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• Occupied a key linking position in the organization

• Possessed analytical and intuitive skills in understanding various individuals aspirations

• Demonstrated well-honed interpersonal and negotiating skills in working with other people in their organization.

• Particularly adept at working with people

• External characteristics of the organization• System openness +

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• Five stages in the innovation process in an organization – page 421 for chart

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• Agenda-setting – organizational problems – creating uncertainty, identifying and prioritizing needs, sometimes knowledge of an innovation launches the adoption process

• INITIATION – all of the information gathering, conceptualizing and planning for the adoption of an innovation leading to the decision to adopt. 420

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• Matching – fitting agenda with innovation • INITIATION

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• Redefining – innovation modified/re-invented and organization changes, involves mutual adoption of the innovation and organization, social construction – IMPLEMENTATION

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• Social constructionism – where the perceptions of the organization’s problem and the innovation come together and each are modified in the process.

• Radical innovations – represents a new paradigm • social justice principles

• personal belief’s role

• Clarifying – relationship between org and innovation is more clearly defined and the meaning of a new idea gradually becomes clearer to the organizations members – IMPLEMENTATION

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• The clarifying stage in the innovation process in an organization consists of social construction. – marketing

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• routinzing – innovation loses its identity as it becomes routine –IMPLEMENTATION

• Depends on sustainability, which depends on participation in using the innovation.

• reinvention is positively related to sustainability

• Gen 10-5 both the innovation and the organization usually change in the innovation process in an organization.

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• Performance gap – the discrepancy between an organizations expectations and its actual performance.

• Performance gap can trigger the innovation process

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• Begin with solution, not problem –

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• Three types of uncertainty -

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• Technical uncertainty – the degree to which it is difficult for an organization to determine the reliability, capacity, and precision of the new technology, or whether a new technology will soon appear to make the innovation obsolete

• Financial uncertainty – the degree to which the implementation of the innovation will yield an attractive return on investment, and whether future returns can be forecast accurately.

• Social uncertainty – the degree to which conflict is likely to occur during implementation of the innovation.