Elements of Innovative Cultures

We have published our latest working paper – “Elements of Innovative Cultures”

Executive Summary:
Organizational culture is an important determinant of sustained innovativeness and financial performance. Though it is easy to appreciate the important role culture plays in making an innovation successful, it is difficult to change culture. One way of changing culture could be to identify elements of innovative culture and then imbibing the ones relevant to a given organization. In this paper, we have identified, based on past research, eight elements of organizational innovative culture: innovative mission and vision statements, democratic communication, safe spaces, flexibility, collaboration, boundary spanning, incentives, and leadership. We believe assimilating these elements of organizational culture will enable organizations to support and sustain innovative activities.

This paper will be made available to all sponsors of our research via our website – http://faculty.washington.edu/kdesouza/i4i.htm