Thanks to all of you who commented on our post about Innovation as a Driving Force of Cultural Change. The answers are fascinating, and valiant, because, as Chris Ransford pointed out in his comment, “to do the topic justice a book-length analysis is required.”
I want to address that post, and your comments, with a bold assertion: organizations that consciously create “cultures of innovation” can indeed contribute to global cultural evolution.
First, as Sue Ochoa reminds us, definitions are important. Let’s start with “culture.” I like Hofstede’s definition: “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others.” This definition addresses G. Inbavanan’s point that within national cultures many sub-cultures exist. It also covers Ochoa’s two-part definition of culture. I like the wording “programming of the mind” because it makes clear why cultural change is so difficult. This “programming” suggests that the beliefs and values and behaviors of our cultures become “frozen” within us, and surrounding us. This freezing renders us blind to alternative viewpoints. In fact, we don’t even consider many or most of our cultural beliefs as viewpoints. To those of us within a shared culture, these are Truths, those things we do not question.
It is this blindness to our own cultural programming that makes cultural change so difficult. And, of course, the fact that cultures are ordered and arranged to grant privilege and power to a particular segment within it, and that segment fights to retain their advantage. When however, the market demands change, when those with power see the value in change, the opportunity is ripe. Take for example total quality management (TQM). TQM, a management philosophy developed in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, seeks to create an organization-wide awareness of programs for quality assurance serving the needs of both internal and external customers. Once the phrase “you manage what you measure” became frozen in the minds of corporate leaders, TQM, and it’s practice of benchmarking against criteria, was a cultural change corporations became willing to undertake.
As organizations are told “innovate or die,” the value of creating “cultures of innovation” becomes more apparent. Further, as I will demonstrate, the creation of those cultures requires awareness of cultural viewpoints, and the ability to see, value and integrate ways of understanding that differ from what we are used to. This is the seed of a cultural evolution away from frozen coordinates on Hofstede’s “dimensions” and towards a greater comfort with difference, and agility in moving through the dimensions with skill and finesse.
Let’s start with another definition: innovation. I see innovation as an outcome. As many of you respondents pointed out, innovations are products, services, processes, models — things firms do in a different way to better capture a market, or outdistance a competitor — to grow and survive in the long term. The problem with the term “Culture of Innovation” is that if we believe that we manage what we measure, and we’re managing our firm’s innovativeness, well, we will start counting our innovations. But those are outcomes, and don’t necessarily indicate the presence of a strategic, innovation-friendly, culture. They might, but it’s not guaranteed.
Innovations are discoveries resulting out of creative practices. Creativity expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1997) writes: “creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation. All three are necessary for a creative idea, product, or discovery to take place.”
An alternative phrase to “culture of innovation” is “innovation orientation.” I stumbled on the term in the article “Conceptualizing Innovation Orientation: A Framework for Study and Integration of Innovation Research” by Judy Siguaw, Penny M. Simpson, and Cathy A. Enz. The authors define “innovation orientation” as “a multidimensional knowledge structure composed of a learning philosophy, strategic direction, and trans-functional beliefs that, in turn, guide and direct all organizational strategies and actions, including those embedded in the formal and informal systems, behaviors, competencies, and processes of the firm to promote innovative thinking and facilitate successful development, evolution, and execution of innovations.” I believe this definition addresses Drew Marshall’s concern that “one organization’s approach to innovation may not necessarily be a fit for the next.” ”Innovation orientation,” however, incorporates strategic outlook, therefore should also include strategic competitive advantage. I’m not advocating for a cookie-cutter approach to innovation. Quite the opposite. I’m advocating for a knowledge structure that spurs innovation while carrying forward a strategic mission. This definition positions innovations as the output of a strategic culture, or a corporate culture that has been designed to promote innovations. In this way, what gets managed is the knowledge structure. Instead of counting patents and “innovations,” organizations would manage (and measure) the firm’s “knowledge structure,” which will prove much more important for long-term growth and continued innovation generation than numbers of patents will.
Corporate culture is a strategic construct, whether conscious or not. One must gain awareness of the current culture in order to change it strategically. This very awareness is the first necessary ingredient in creating an innovation orientation: the ability to see, value, and utilize alternatives. Once a leader decides to foster an innovation orientation, that leader takes the first evolutionary step: the ability to work outside their own programming, to recognize that they have, indeed, been programmed, and that other ways of seeing, knowing, and relating, are available. A culture of innovation, in my definition, is a corporate culture strategically designed to foster new products, solutions, models and processes.
Within this corporate culture are individuals, groups, leaders, and the organization as a whole. In the most creative environments, each of these individuals will grok the idea that they have been programmed to value certain things, believe certain “truths” and behave in certain ways. Then, that awareness will be built upon to incorporate the ability to recognize value in the ways others are programmed. Creative individuals possess tremendous fluidity when working in domains. They can demonstrate both high degrees of individualism, for example, while at the same time relishing and flourishing in collaborative contexts. They move adroitly from one end of the masculine/feminine dimension to the other. They have integrated the spectrum of dimensions that currently separate cultural groups (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Expertise in a particular domain will no longer be the most valuable asset in a human resource, but rather expertise combined with associative fluency, or the ability to recognize connections between domains and utilize different disciplines to create surprising outcomes. Groups that work best are not just collections of creative people, but of creative people with awareness of, and value for, difference.
The term “CQ” or “cultural intelligence” refers to the openness to difference described above. According to Csikszentmihalyi, creative individuals possess high levels of CQ, whether they know it or not.
Peter Senge (2006) wrote that “business is the locus of innovation in an open society…business has the freedom to experiment missing in the public and education sectors… It also has a clear bottom line, so that experiments can be evaluated, at least in principle, by objective criteria.” When we talk about “innovation orientation” and “cultures of innovation” and “creative environments,” we’re talking about places where integration, awareness and difference are highly valued. If this becomes the recognized source of value for organizations, I believe it can contribute to a wider cultural evolution away from cultures that are differentiated along dimensions and toward a global culture that recognizes, values and utilizes all points along the dimensions.
Summary:
Culture is a shared programming of the mind. Hofstede created his cultural dimensions to measure differences in values and behaviors across nations and predict the impact of those cultural differences on organizational behavior.
Corporate Culture is what makes a company unique. It is the shared programming of a company, and often includes the founder’s vision. In mature organizations, it is strategic.
Innovation is something new, and is an outcome, a product, of a creative process.
Creativity is a process of discovery.
Innovation Orientation is a knowledge structure that promotes innovative (creative) thinking.
Innovation Culture is a corporate culture strategically designed to foster new products, solutions and processes.
Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is a high level of awareness of difference combined with the ability to adapt to new cultural concepts.
In an innovative culture, high CQ is present, valued and nurtured. The economic demands on organizations to become laboratories of innovation will require workforces made up of individuals possessing high CQ. As high CQ becomes more and more valued, and in turn becomes part of business school training, the wider culture will begin to find greater flexibility along the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions over time.
Thank you for inviting me to read your article on “Cultures of Innovation and Global Cultural Change”. From my perspective, I see the following:
1. You have made a strong case for Organization culture and the degree of innovativeness of the organization. I am fully with you on this construct.
2. I am also with you on the reason for the difficulty experienced by people, organizations, and society when accepting Change – as it requires “re-programming of the mind”, both individual and collective.
3. Innovation for me is a process and the end result is a new product, service offering, way of doing, etc. If we reckon it as a “process” then it easily fits into the “culture construct”.
4. Patents etc., are one of the end result of Culture of Innovation. There has to be a tangible outcome. I do not believe in the concept of having something just because it sounds and makes one feel good.
5. I am not able to see the connect with the supposed impact on Global Culture, which was your original question in the LinkedIn group. When you see with my Asian lens, where culture has evolved over millennium, you will experience the difficulty that I am having with this idea.
6. I like the concept of “associative fluency” as that describes to me the reason why some individuals are different to the cultural constructs that they are part of. If we examine closely, it is such individuals who have brought seismic changes in our society.
In conclusion, and as my take on your original question, I believe that organizational cultures are far too minuscule to make an impact on Global Culture. Innovation will primarily be led by individuals, and an enabling culture can at best facilitate it.
Food for Thought: US of A would have the highest per capita patents filed and owned in the world. The Culture of US of A is highly individualistic symbolized by the protagonist in Ann Rand’s writings.
I think the intentional inclusion of CQ values would certainly stimulate innovation in that it would create environments that could listen to and value alternative view points more openly. I would suggest that Trompenaar’s cultural scales be incorporated as well.
Interesting blog, i have bookmarked it for future referrence.
Greetings from Tim.