1CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Executive Summary The aim of the paper is to identify the barriers to creative thinking and organizational innovation, carry out an in-depth analysis of various models of organizational creativity and innovation such as the Woodmens’s multi-level model, the Peter Senge frameworks and many more. The study will also provide some recommendation’s that can be carried out by the organization under study to improve organizational creativity and innovation.
2CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Table of Contents Introduction......................................................................................................................................3 Analysis...........................................................................................................................................4 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5 Recommendation.............................................................................................................................6 References........................................................................................................................................7
3CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Introduction Critical thinking is the process of using the information that is gathered through observation or experimentation for the purpose of analyzing, synthesizing and conceptualizing for the purpose of carrying out any actions (Guimaraes and Paranjape, 2017). Critical thinking is equally important in the organizations or the workplace because it helps the people in the organizations’ to find solutions to the problems after properly diagnosing the problems. It broadens the thinking capability of the organizations and its people such that they can look at the problems differently and from a broader perspective to find the solutions. The main benefits of carrying out critical thinking in the organization are that of empathizing with others and help the individual have to carry out the process through self-control, self-directional and others (Brettel, Chomik and Flatten, 2015). The organizational innovation is the process of carrying out the activities of the organization in a new way or even innovating some new products or services. Organizational innovation can act as a competitive advantage to the company by developing new products and carrying out innovations which will help to make the company better from others (Jafri, Dem and Choden, 2016). DRAX is a British company from Yorkshire, that is engaged in providing electrical power generation and its major products are the power generation products and the byproducts of these. The company is known for its traditional methods of occurring out its business and it has been successful using the same (Drax. 2019). However, recently it is facing many problems due to lack of technological innovations and in order to regain its position it is important to carry out the innovations such that it can gain a competitive advantage. The main aim of the study is to show the importance of innovation and creative thinking. DRAX can regain its lost position in the market by doing the same. The following paper will discuss about
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4CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP the problems that is being faced by the DRAX which is acting as a barrier and to overcome those with the help of innovative techniques. Analysis There can be different types of barriers to the process of creative thinking in an organization due to which it is not easy to carry out innovations and changes in the organization. The company was using traditional techniques for carrying out the operations of the organization and was running a profitable business but the company recently lost its market share due to fierce competition from competitors and because the company is lacking technological innovations. This has resulted in new strategies being formulated by the company directors to rethink the process by which it was carrying out its operations. The company has decided to carry out a paradigm shift from the traditional hardware and software selling business to a modern business that will make use of AI or artificial intelligence, machine learning and internet of things. For this the company has established a separate department to look after the innovative capabilities’ of the company called the knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) funded by the UK (Drax. 2019). However, this approach of the company can improve its innovativeness failed because of lack of availability of in-house expertise. The company then decided to take help of some academic Computer Science Technology to help the company in its acts of innovations. This has led the company to innovate an centralized dashboard by which all the operations can be centrally controlled and that will be established by the company at the clients house such that the fire alarm system can give alarms in case of any critical situation and on a real-time basis. The fire and maintenance system of UK is in need for innovation and creativity in order to become
5CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP successful. This scenario has however has seen some major barriers within the organization to creative thinking. Cultural background The cultural backgrounds of the employees determine their openness to change and their creativity. According to Hofstede, there are various cultural factors that define the way a person behaves (Block and Walter 2017). Power gap is one of the cultural dimensions defined by Hofstede that defines how the people react to change and for creation of an environment in the organization. If the country is one that follows hierarchy then the environment of organizations in those countries will be such that employees will not feel free to share their views and ideas. On the other hand, the employees’ belonging to countries where the power distance is less, the managers will support the participation of the employees and there the employees can give their opinions. Therefore, the country from which the individual belongs also determines the way they perceive change and open-mindedness. If an employee is from a country that follows more power gap, he needs to be motivated so that he can share some ideas. The culture of UK is the one with more follows the heueacghy structure and that is why companies that are established in UK find it difficult to share their ideas as they do not get a friendly atmosphere and fear that their ideas will not be heard (Pesämaa, Shoham and Ruvio, 2017). Therefore, it is DRAX’s duty to create such an environment where the employees feel free to share his views. Adaptability to change and organizational climate Organizational climate refers to the organizational environment of work and the level of motivation an employee gets in the organization (Iljins, Skvarciany and Gaile-Sarkane 2015). The employee’s adaptability to change affects the way they look at innovations. There are many
6CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP employees who get a sense of security and safety from the work they are doing presently and do not want to change from that because they get accustomed to it (Klimas and Czakon, 2018). They feel that the changes will lead to many more difficulties. They have a fear that they would become obsolete in the organization in case any changes take place especially any technological changes and therefore they do not support these new innovations and create resistance for those innovative actions. This is something that has happened with the company DRAX, the company was operating in a traditional industry and the company was using traditional methods for varying out its operation’s and was in the business of selling various hardware, software and others. The employees were habituated to the traditional techniques and when the company made decisions to use modern techniques for carrying out its operations and making use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technique, the decisions was strongly resisted by the employee’s and also from people from different levels of the organizations. Analysis Paralysis It is a process by which an organizational group analyzes a situation so deeply that it leads to paralysis of the ultimate solution that is the group is unable to come up with some decisions due to this act of over-thinking (Haupt and Shockley 2018). Sometimes the organizational group identifies a problem as so difficult that it is not possible to find a solution for the same as that may result in another problematic situation which the organization wants to avoid. Many times the organization wants to make a perfect decision and that is why it fears that the solution may be error prone and the organizational group thinks that the best solution is just a step away and delays their thinking process and as a result do not take any decisions. Whenever an organization is stuck in an analysis paralysis situation, they are actually losing an opportunity to become successful by overcoming this overthinking and taking an actual decision on a right
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7CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP time. This act sometimes also results in taking an action at the last moment when it is already too late and someone else takes the opportunity. This is what has happened with DRAX, the company decided to undertake innovation activities after it started losing its market share. If the company has started doing these activities prior to the actual market share it might have become a market leader. Contemporary models for in-depth analysis of the organizational entrepreneurship and innovation Woodmen’s Multi-level model According to Woodmen, creativity is a process by which individual’s working together on a system that is complex, they try to generate something new that adds value such as products , services and others. The first multi-level model was developed by woodmen for understanding and relating the individuals, the groups and the organizational creativity outcome. Level of analysis has to be understood for the purpose of understanding the multi-level model of woodmen. According to the theory, the analysis of the focal level; is central to other following activities such as frame and others. Therefore according to the multi-level theory of Woodmnen there is relatedness between the Level if analysis and creativity. The LOA can also be understood with the help of a new approach of Sense-making. Organizational creativity at the macro-level occurs not only through the efforts of a person but through the changing and dynamic process of sense making. Therefore interpretation can occur simultaneously at multiple levels with various levels interacting with each other.
8CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Figure 1: the multilevel model Source : (Gong et al. 2018 ) From the above diagram of the multilevel model it is clear how the various individual, organizational and organizational characteristics’ affect the creative situation and creative behavior and which ultimately leads to organizational creativity. DRAX can use this technique to improve its organizational creativity by overcoming all the barriers of the organizational level. Teresa Amabile model for creativity The Amabil model of creativity is based on the model of Xu and Rickards models of creativity. The main advantage of the Amabil model is that it is based on a robust model of creativity. There are three key elements in the model that are the- domain skills, intrinsic
9CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP motivation and the creative thinking process (Rigolizzo and Amabile 2015). The models are aimed at solving the conflicts between creative thinking and the management. According to Amabil, the traditional management practices have a negative impact on the organizational innovativeness because when people feel pressurized from external sources they do not feel like working innovatively. Whereas, people are motivated to work innovatively through their personal interest, the challenging work and satisfaction. The interrelatedness between the three key elements are given in the diagram below. The present scenario in DRAX is that they are facing severe competition from the small suppliers in the same field due to lack of innovativeness. By applying the model of Amabil, the company can carry out creativeness and innovation within the organization through interconnecting the three main elements- the domain skills of the people, the ability of the people to think creatively and through a sense of intrinsic motivation. Figure 2: Amabil Model for creativity
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10CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Source: (Amabile 2018 ) Change kaleidoscope Figure 3: Change Kaleidoscope Source: (Baird and Boak 2016) Hope Hailey and Balogun have developed the change kaleidoscope model of managing organizational change. The world is changing constantly and it is very important for the organizations to adapt to these changes and the change needs to be managed effectively in the organization. This model of change kaleidoscope is divided into two rings. The outer rings discuss about context of the organizational change that are- preservation, time, scope, power, capacity, readiness, capability and diversity. The inner ring discusses about the choices of design, start point if change, the change path, change intervention, the change style and the change roles. The time of the external ring represents the time limit within which the change
11CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP needs to be implemented, the scope discusses about the extent of the change that is goes into separation between transformation and realignment. The outer circle discusses about types of the change path- the adaptation, the revolution, the evolution and the reconstructions. The starting point for the change can be ether top-down or can be bottoms-up, or can be a pilot plan or there can a good practice pockets. There can be different types of the change style and change targets can be in terms of behavior, values and outputs. The change levers discusses about intervention needed for the organizational change. This model is used by the change agents to carry out the change properly. Since the DRAX company has decided to shift from traditional methods of working to making use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and other techniques thereby adapting to new techniques, the organization needs to adopt this model and needs a change leader to carry out all the change management operations effectively and to overcome all the resistance to changes. Peter Senge learning organizational framework Peter Senge developed the concept of learning organization to define an organization that is continuously engaged in learning for the purpose of transforming itself and it is also important to improve the skills and the knowledge of the members through learning (Gould, 2016). Many times people of the organization are ready to learn for the purpose of improving their capacity but the company sometimes not provides the structure for the same. The main elements of the concept are systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, carrying out shared vision and team learning. The systems thinking is the capability of the persons in the organization to look at things as a whole or from a broader perspective of understanding the working of the different parts of the whole. It is actually focused on seeing things from the long term view and that makes the process of feedbacks important. The people of DRAX are required to understand the long
12CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP term benefits of the technological change then they will not resist change. Personal mastery involves the process of acquiring not only the knowledge and skills but also helps in the spiritual growth of the individuals, understanding the vision properly, developing patient and much more. The mental models includes the deep rooted assumptions of the people and how they perceive the world and that determines their attitude towards things and behavior. Under this technique the people carry out learningful conversations between the individuals such that they can express their feelings and motivate others to do the same. Shared vision is the ability of the leaders to properly communicate their visions with the other members in the organization such that the entire organizations work effectively to achieve that one goal. The people at DRAX need to be communicated about the new visions of the board members such that they can carry out the change. Team learning is the process of developing the team capacity and aligning goals in order to achieve the objectives of the organization. It is dependent upon two other concepts of Peter Senge that is sharing vision and personal mastery. When team learning takes place it helps not only in developing the members but also helps the organization to grow and become successful. The story telling process Story telling is used by many organization as an innovative strategy and it has been seen that the storytelling process of organizations (Gratzl et al. 2016). It is difficult to carry put this model in the organization because most of the people of the organization do not know the concept of story-telling model. However, in order to implement the models, the following steps needs to be followed in the organization which includes engaging people for the process and educate the people about the same. This model can be applied in the DRAX Company in order to carry out the activity of innovation through story telling.
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13CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Figure 4: the story telling model Source : (Lee et al. 2015 ) Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the organizational innovation and creativity are very important for an organization to become successful and to gain a competitive advantage over others. However, there are many barriers before achieving the same such as- the cultural background of a person may affect the way they think of change, the environment in the organization affects their creativity to some extent and many other similar factors are there that affect the creativity of the people and the way they perceive the change. DRAX was known for using its traditional methods for carrying out the operations of the company but recently it has lost a huge portion of its market share because of lack of innovative strategies and the company
14CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP is also facing challenges from similar organizations. In order to overcome these challenges, the company has decided to carry out innovative strategies and carry out its activities in a more effective way. The organizational creativity and innovation can be improved by making use of different techniques such as using the different contemporary models of innovation, by brainstorming , by using six thinking hat technique and by creating an organizational climate that supports innovation on part of the employees and helps them to think freely. Recommendation Making use of the different models of innovation In order to overcome the organizational barriers such as the analysis paralysis and others it is important to create a proper organizational structure that supports organizational creativity. Peter Senge’s model of learning organization can be adopted by DRAX in order to create an environment where there can be team learning, shared vision, mental models, personal mastery and system thinking. By adopting this framework, the organization will become ready to carry out the technological changes that its board of directors had been thinking of doing in order to reposition itself in the market. The other models such as change kaleidoscope and Amabile model of creativity are the most appropriate models to overcome the problems faced by the organization. The change kaleidoscope model will help in carrying out the change through having a proper change path for the organization DRAX, by using proper interventions of change, selecting the change design and others. For carrying out all the above mentioned activities,achangeagentisneededsuchthattheactivitiesrelatedtocarryingoutthe technological change can be carried out in DRAX without any resistance from the employees or
15CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP other members of the organization. The Amabile model will help in improving the employee motivation by focusing on the organizations domain skills and others. Create an innovative organizational climate Since a hierarchy culture is followed by the country in which the organization maintains a top down style of management, it becomes an important responsibility if the company to create an innovative environment (Shanker et al. 017). People belonging to these countries will have assumptions and beliefs due to their culture that whatever the top management decides is correct and therefore tend to have a blocked mind and do not like to participate in any form of group discussions and even if they participate they fail to give any ideas (Dodge et al., 2017). The organization such as DRAX that is situated in UK that has the high power gap culture needs to adopt a culture of free communication and creative environment in the organization to help its people think creatively and innovate ideas. This type of an environment will also help the organization to vary out the changes in technology easily because when organization maintains a proper communication with the employees such as to inform them about all its decisions and taking decisions after consulting them, the members of the organization feel valued and engaged (Raj and Srivastava, 2016). In order to carry out climatic changes, the type of leadership required is that of a creative leader. According to the survey on leadership, it was found that an innovative climate of the organization and learning organization were the results of a creative leadership style of organization. When an organization has these types of leaders they support the individual learning of the employees as well as group learning and when all the people learn together it results in a learning organization. When people learn they can carry out their operations in a
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16CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP more skillful manner with the use of the knowledge gained during the learning process and this will help in the creation of a creative and innovative climate. Organizational climate refers to the perceptions that people hold about the organization and the way they interact with each other. A creative leader can encourage the employees for giving any creative ideas by properly communicating and interacting with them. For this, the leader should be able to give the authority and responsibility to the employees for carrying out any task. He should encourage and motivate the employees to take risks because without taking risks employee’s cannot think of creative ideas. The leader should create a climate of openness and trust in the organization only then the employees will be able to share their ideas freely with the top management. The following diagram shows how the organizational climate, individual and group behavior is affected by a number of factors such as leadership behavior, the culture if the organization, the vision and mission of the company and many other factors.
17CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Figure: organizational creativity Source: (Pelagio Rodriguez, Hechanova and Regina 2014) Brainstorming It is the oldest technique of innovation in which group discussion takes place (Rawlinson, 2017). Various solution are gathered for a problem by giving each member of the group a chance to give their ideas and the ideas given by all the members are recorded in way such as to find the ultimate solution of the goal. This technique of innovation allows individuals to thinking of the problems from a different perspectives and then try to find a solution. None of the ideas of the members are criticizes and this helps everyone to think and communicate freely without any risk of their ideas being neglected or overlooked. All the ideas are evaluated in order to arrive at a particular solution. In this technique, all the members are required to put their ideas in a paper
18CORPORATE INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP anonymously and then a ranking on the ideas is done. That idea which gets the maximum number of votes is selected and discussed In the next round. However, got this technique to be effective the facilitator must be a trained person. This technique can improve the innovativeness of the organization (Wolniak and Grebski 2018). Technique of six thinking hats It is a process of thinking creatively individually as well as in a group (Aithal, Kumar and Shailashree 2016). This technique was developed by Edward De Bono and involves the process of individual thinking and group discussion using the 6 different colored hats. Each hat shows a different emotions and directions and each member has to think from the perspective of each of the six hats. The six colors represent- the color blue represents managing, the color white represents information’s, the color red presents emotions, the color black represents discernment, the color green represents creativity and the color yellow represents an optimistic response. This process helps the group’s members to think individually s well as in a cohesive manner using the other persons hats. This technique can be used to improve the innovation and creativity in the organization. The problem that is being faced by the company presently is that it is facing severe competition from other small suppliers of alarm appliances and kin order to overcome this competition, the company needs to think creatively and develop new ideas for innovation that can provide a competitive edge to the company and help it in repositioning itself in the market. There are various other techniques for improving innovation in an organization such as the super hero technique (Dunne et al., 2016).
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