DDBA 8511 Week 6 Innovation Culture Appraisal Example

Read the Designs, Not the Conclusions: An Appraisal of Research on Innovation-Supportive Culture, Sorting Studies by When Culture Was Measured, by Whom and Against What Outcome, and Deciding What the Evidence Can Bear

Student Name

Walden University

DDBA 8511: Seminar in Innovation Management

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Read the Designs, Not the Conclusions: An Appraisal of Research on Innovation-Supportive Culture, Sorting Studies by When Culture Was Measured, by Whom and Against What Outcome, and Deciding What the Evidence Can Bear

Why Appraise Designs

A great deal of writing on innovative cultures was produced after the innovations it describes, by people who already knew they had worked. That creates a specific risk. Rosenzweig (2007) called it the halo effect: when a company performs well, observers, employees and researchers tend to describe its culture, leadership and practices favorably, so that a strong culture appears to cause success when the success may have colored the description of the culture. For my DBA study of a manufacturing firm's attempt to build a more innovative culture, I need to know what the research can and cannot support. This appraisal sorts studies by three features of their design: when culture was measured relative to the innovation outcome, who reported culture and what outcome was used.

Three Questions for Every Study

The first question is timing. If culture was measured after the innovations happened, knowledge of the outcome may have shaped reports of culture. If it was measured before, that risk is smaller. The second question is the source. If the same people reported both culture and innovation, for example managers rating their own firm's values and its innovativeness in one survey, a shared view or wish to look good can produce an association with no real link behind it. If culture and outcomes come from different sources, such as employee surveys and counts of launched products, that risk shrinks. The third question is the outcome itself: a count of products launched, a share of revenue from new products, an expert rating or a self-rating.

Applying the Questions

Damanpour (1991), in a meta-analysis of studies of organizational innovation, found that several structural and cultural factors, among them specialization, professionalism and attitudes toward change, were consistently associated with the adoption of innovations. Meta-analyses pool results, so their strength depends on the designs of the studies pooled, many of which were cross-sectional and measured determinants and adoption at the same time. The consistency across studies is meaningful; the direction of influence is not settled by it.

Khazanchi et al. (2007) studied how organizational values related to process innovation in manufacturing plants, finding that values balancing flexibility with control supported innovation. The study measured values and innovation in the same period, which limits conclusions about which came first, but it focused on specific values rather than culture in general, which makes its findings easier to apply and to test.

Tellis et al. (2009) surveyed firms in many countries and found that corporate culture, including willingness to cannibalize existing products and orientation toward the future, was a stronger predictor of radical innovation than national culture or other factors they examined. Its scale is a strength. The appraisal question is whether culture was reported independently of, and before, the innovations it predicts; where the same respondents report both at the same time, the halo risk Rosenzweig described applies.

What the Evidence Can Bear

The studies consistently find an association between certain cultural features and innovation. That consistency across settings and methods suggests the association is real. What the evidence cannot yet bear, on the designs reviewed, is a confident claim that changing culture causes more innovation. Too much of it measures culture and innovation at the same time, often from the same people, and descriptions of successful firms are vulnerable to the halo effect.

Where the Better Designs Point

Some studies in the wider literature avoid the main weaknesses by measuring culture through employee surveys and innovation through independent records, or by measuring culture before outcomes are known. Where such designs exist, their associations tend to be smaller than those in single-source studies, a pattern consistent with shared reporting inflating the bigger estimates. That pattern does not prove culture is unimportant; it suggests the size of its effect is easily overstated. For a manager deciding how much to invest in culture change, the smaller and better-measured estimates are the safer guide.

Implications for My Study

My study will measure culture before the change program begins and again a year later, using a survey of employees, and will measure innovation separately, from the firm's records of ideas submitted, projects funded and products launched. That design will not settle causation, but it will avoid the two weaknesses that most limit the existing evidence: measurement after the fact and a single source for both.

References

Damanpour, F. (1991). Organizational innovation: A meta-analysis of effects of determinants and moderators. Academy of Management Journal, 34(3), 555-590. https://doi.org/10.2307/256406

Khazanchi, S., Lewis, M. W., & Boyer, K. K. (2007). Innovation-supportive culture: The impact of organizational values on process innovation. Journal of Operations Management, 25(4), 871-884. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2006.08.003

Rosenzweig, P. (2007). The halo effect: And the eight other business delusions that deceive managers. Free Press.

Tellis, G. J., Prabhu, J. C., & Chandy, R. K. (2009). Radical innovation across nations: The preeminence of corporate culture. Journal of Marketing, 73(1), 3-23. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.73.1.3