The Innovation Value Chain and Organizational Culture

This paper presents the findings of a study of the relationship between organizational culture and innovation. The particular contribution of this study is mainly its focus on the Innovation Value Chain (thus how organizations generate new ideas, convert them to products or services, and subsequently spread these) and how this might be related to organizational culture. The theoretical basis was therefore the Innovation Value Chain of Hansen and Birkenshaw (2007) and the X Model of Organizational Culture of Smit, Ludik and Forster (2008). Data was collected from more than 400 respondents in 7 organizations in Ireland. The findings reveal that in particular the ability of organizations to convert ideas into new products or services can be explained by variance in the ability of the organization to Strategize, Adapts, Coordinate and Relate to each other (for instance through team work) and that there are moderate to strong relationships between these elements.