Adoption of Standardized Product Management as an Organizational Innovation
Pirinen, Kari-Pekka (2016)
2016
Tuotantotalouden koulutusohjelma
Talouden ja rakentamisen tiedekunta - Faculty of Business and Built Environment
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2016-09-07
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201608254454
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201608254454
Tiivistelmä
Innovations are a great source of sustainable competitive advantage for companies, and generating new innovations is intended to contribute to the organization’s effectiveness and competitiveness. Moreover, organizational innovations, which are inherently related to organizational performance and efficiency, have growing importance to companies in highly competitive global IT market. In this case study the adoption of new management innovations was interpreted as an organizational innovation, and used to assess the adoption process in the case company with the purpose of identifying process determinants and risks. The main research question was “what are the risks and challenges for adoption of organizational innovations in the case company?”. The case company is a large IT service provider operating in the Nordic Countries.
A theoretical framework was gathered based on literature review, in which five categories of variables were identified: Perceived characteristics of the innovation, characteristics of the adopter, innovation facilitation efforts, influence of social network, and environmental and external influences. Based on the framework, interviews were designed for the empirical study.
In the empirical study employees of the case company product management organization were interviewed, with the purpose of identifying how the innovation adoption process has been in the past, and how the current system related to proposed changes is seen. The results indicate that in the case company the factors related to organizational innovativeness, communication, change implementation, training, process control, and strategy related to implemented innovation were the most influential and obtained both, the greatest risk and opportunity.
Based on the research, improvement suggestions to the case company organization were proposed, which included development of organizational innovativeness and adoption process. Concrete measures included removing top down mandate, developing communication and training, proactivity from empowering employees and developing process controls, moving from mass-media communication to interpersonal channels, and using team leaders and champions to influence perceptions.
A theoretical framework was gathered based on literature review, in which five categories of variables were identified: Perceived characteristics of the innovation, characteristics of the adopter, innovation facilitation efforts, influence of social network, and environmental and external influences. Based on the framework, interviews were designed for the empirical study.
In the empirical study employees of the case company product management organization were interviewed, with the purpose of identifying how the innovation adoption process has been in the past, and how the current system related to proposed changes is seen. The results indicate that in the case company the factors related to organizational innovativeness, communication, change implementation, training, process control, and strategy related to implemented innovation were the most influential and obtained both, the greatest risk and opportunity.
Based on the research, improvement suggestions to the case company organization were proposed, which included development of organizational innovativeness and adoption process. Concrete measures included removing top down mandate, developing communication and training, proactivity from empowering employees and developing process controls, moving from mass-media communication to interpersonal channels, and using team leaders and champions to influence perceptions.