Leadership and Organizational Structure for Innovation: A Case Study of Apple Inc.

This study discusses the importance of leadership and organizational structure for driving sustainable innovation within an organization. It applies key theories to the innovation of Apple Inc. and identifies issues faced by the organization. Suitable solutions are proposed and their impact on the competitive advantage of the organization is discussed.

Running head: ADVANCE INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
Advance Innovation Management
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Introduction
Innovation management is the combination of innovation management process and
change management. It is the business discipline, which is aimed at driving sustainable
innovation process within organization (Donate & de Pablo, 2015). This study will discuss the
topic leadership and organizational structure for innovation. Leadership and organizational
structure define the allowance of the employee generate and put innovative business ideas in
organizational decision making process. The study will discuss the key theories associated with
the topic and apply those theories on the innovation of Apple Inc. Apart from that, the study will
also identify the issues faced by the organization. On the other hand, the study will propose
suitable solution to Apple Inc. and discuss the impact of those solutions on the competitive
advantage of the organization.
Literature Review
Leadership and Organization Structure for Innovation
Leadership defines the philosophy and technique, which combines different styles for
influencing the employees in inputting creative and innovation ideas for leading organizational
innovation. Innovative leaders can make crucial addition to the traditional thinking for bringing
new ideas and product and service offerings in their organization. On the other hand, Mihalache
et al. (2014) opined that organizational structure formulates the way of interaction between the
managers and employees. Moreover, free flowing of opinions from the employees to high level
managers can foster creative and innovative ideas for leading organizational uniqueness.

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Theories Related Leadership and Organizational Structure
The types of leadership are extremely important for fostering innovative ideas and
thoughts targeted at organizational innovation. Anderson et al. (2014) pointed out that
transformational leadership adopts the philosophy to move towards the change, rather than
resisting or avoiding them. Such leaders thrive on changes and take excitement through the
prospects of evolving their organization into better place. Moreover, the leaders encourage the
employees and allow their innovative ideas for fostering creative ideas. On the other hand,
Camisón and Villar-López (2014) opined that contingent leaders properly understand the unique
needs of a particular situation and make unique decision that can best be applied to that situation.
In this way, such leaders are highly inclined towards make changes and innovation in their
organization as required by the specific organizational situation.
The structure of an organization defines the way of interaction between the management
and employees. Innovation is best explored in the organizations, where the employees can freely
communicate with the upper management and suggest their innovative ideas in for fostering
organizational innovation. According to Sarooghi et al. (2015), flatter organizational structure
allow for more decision making among different levels of organizations. In such structure, the
employees can directly interact with the upper level managers and suggest their innovative ideas
for fostering organizational innovation.
Theories of Innovation
Disruptive innovation fosters an innovation, which helps in creating new value network
and new market and ultimately disrupts the existing value network and market. Disruptive
innovation is something that is not the iteration of something and completely new to the market.

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On the other hand, Foss and Saebi (2017) opined that ambidextrous innovation foster the
innovation, which may have unique process, culture and structure. Moreover, such innovation
never intervene the core business process of an organization. Furthermore, in open or crowd
sourcing innovation, the organizations ser challenges for gathering and generating new business
ideas and allows the people either internally or externally for generating new business ideas.
Application of Leadership and Organizational innovation on Innovation of Apple Inc
Apple Inc. is considered as the most innovative company in the world. The innovation
strategy of Apple Inc. incorporates terrific new products and creative business models. Steve
Jobs was an as excellent leader of transforming the business ideas as per the situation, which
allowed the organization towards making brilliant business ideas. The app design of iPhone is
quite innovative in the market, which is followed by disruptive innovation leading to
replacement of many rivals (Herrera, 2016). Moreover, the lighting technology and superiorly
vivid feature of the products has led to high level of competitive advantage in the organization.
Even the current CEO of Apple Inc. Tim Cook, always allow the employees in organizational
decision making process and encourage them to put innovative business ideas. In this way, the
organization has become able to launch innovative products like Air Pods, Home Pods, iPhone X
and lot more with the open innovative generated through the innovative thoughts of the
employees (De Oliveira et al., 2015).
The organization also follows flatter organizational structure, where the employees of the
organization can directly interact with the upper level of management. In this way, the
organization maintains the agility and creativity in the decision making process. The ever
evolving ambitions and endeavors of the employees have helped the organization in launching

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the Apple Watch for providing a healthy life to the customers. Flexible organizational structure
improves the coordination and speed of communication among the employees leading to faster
implementation of innovative organizational decision.
Issues in the Apple Inc
Though Apple is quite successful in making innovation in their business model and offers
innovative products and services to the customers. The organization often fails to identify the
core needs and demands of the customers and incorporate them into their products. Moreover,
the organization has lack of capability to research the market properly and identify the core
market needs. In such context, the organization incorporates complex operating system in their
products, which becomes too much difficult for the ordinary people. Apart from that, the
organization often ignores the affordability of customers and charges too high price for their high
products (Herrera, 2016). This is the reason for which iPhone X has not gained high market share
in the developing countries.
Possible Solution
Apple Inc. should be more focused on market research for identifying the core needs and
demands of the customers. Apart from focusing on disruptive innovation, the organization should
consider the concern of general customers for meeting their customized needs and demands. The
leaders should be concerned with the customer preferences and changing customer needs. On the
other hand, the organization should also focus on affordability of the customers before setting
their product prices. Moreover, instead of setting too much high price, the organization should
set the price of the products as per the affordability of the customers. The price of the products
should be having affordable price increasing the sales volume.

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Affect of Solution
The products of Apple Inc. are having complex operating system, which is often not
understandable to the customers. Hence, the leader of the organization should encourage the
employees to conduct effective market research. In this way, the organization will be able to
recognize core needs and demands of the customers and launch the products that are even
understandable to the ordinary people. In this way, the organization will gain high level of
competitive advantage through offering customized products and services. Furthermore, Apple
Inc. should set affordable price for having high market share. Moreover, it will help the
organization have competitive gain over the emerging companies.
Conclusion
While concluding the study, it can be said that leadership and organizational structure are
extremely important for leading organizational innovation. Innovative leaders encourage the
employees towards fostering creative ideas and opinions. Flexible organizational allows in free
flowing of innovative ideas from the employees to the upper management for having high level
of organizational innovation. The leaders of Apple Inc. always consider the employees’
innovative ideas for making innovative organizational decision. However, the organization often
ignores the customers’ concern leading to failure of their innovation. Hence, the organization
should consider the customers’ concerns in the making successful innovative business decisions.
The organization should also set affordable prices for their products being market leader and
enhancing its market share over its rivals.

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References
Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A
state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of
management, 40(5), 1297-1333.
Camisón, C., & Villar-López, A. (2014). Organizational innovation as an enabler of
technological innovation capabilities and firm performance. Journal of business
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De Oliveira, J. H. C., Giraldi, J. D. M. E., Jabbour, C. J. C., Netto, C. F., & Betti, K. C. M.
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Donate, M. J., & de Pablo, J. D. S. (2015). The role of knowledge-oriented leadership in
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Foss, N. J., & Saebi, T. (2017). Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: How far
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Herrera, M. E. B. (2016). Innovation for impact: Business innovation for inclusive
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Sarooghi, H., Libaers, D., & Burkemper, A. (2015). Examining the relationship between
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