Meditation, learning, organizational innovation and performance

Purpose-This study attempts to investigate (1) the effect of meditation experience on employees’ self-directed learning (SDL) readiness and organizational innovative (OI) ability as well as organizational performance (OP), and (2) the relationships among SDL, OI, and OP. Design/methodology/approach-This study conducts an empirical study of 15 technological companies (n = 412) in Taiwan, utilizing the collected survey data to test the relationships among the three dimensions. Findings-Results show that: (1) The employees’ meditation experience significantly and positively influenced employees’ SDL readiness, companies’ OI capability and OP; (2) The study found that SDL has a direct and significant impact on OI; and OI has direct and significant influences on OP. Research limitation/implications-The generalization of the present study is constrained by (1) the existence of possible biases of the participants, (2) the variations of length, type and form of meditation demonstrated by the employees in these high tech companies, and (3) the fact that local data collection in Taiwan may present different cultural characteristics which may be quite different from those in other areas or countries. Managerial implications are presented at the end of the work. Practical implications-The findings indicate that SDL can only impact organizational innovation through employees “openness to a challenge”, “inquisitive nature”, self-understanding and acceptance of responsibility for learning. Such finding implies better organizational innovative capability under such conditions, thus organizations may encourage employees to take risks or accept new opportunities through various incentives, such as monetary rewards or public recognitions. More specifically, the present study discovers that while administration innovation is the most important element influencing an organization’s financial performance, market innovation is the key component in an organization’s market performance. Social implications-The present study discovers that meditation experience positively