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To survive competition, it is vital for firms to be innovative. As a firm's cultural predisposition, organisational innovativeness provides an environment that fosters innovations and thus actively supports new product or service development. The purpose of this study is to measure organisational innovativeness and its multiple dimensions from a cultural-strategic perspective on a multifaceted formative scale which we develop theoretically and by means of qualitative interviews. Furthermore, we empirically validate the newly developed construct by investigating how innovativeness and its dimensions translate into innovation success by examining the relationship between innovativeness and innovation performance in depth. Our findings suggest that a strategic focus on innovations, an extrinsic motivation system, openness in communication, as well as management encouragement are all dimensions of organisational innovativeness. Further, our results support the need for a proficient innovation process as a mechanism to systematically and continuously translate innovativeness into successful innovations. Innovation process proficiency fully mediates the relationship between innovativeness and innovation performance, while the contingency factor competitive intensity enhances this performance impact.

This research is an approach to connect creativity and multicultural experiences (MCEs): we give insights into how and what type of MCE influences people’s perceptive abilities such as creativity. We offer one of the first empirical examinations that links the perception of creativity concept to strategy of acculturation. This study addresses an often-mentioned research gap by examining laypersons’ ability to perceive different levels of creativity. For this, a sample of 195 participants from 26 countries with and without MCE was researched. Findings indicate that attitudes as well as personal and professional goals apparently influence people’s creativity perception. The acculturation strategy integration seems to be a determining factor in this respect. As MCE has become a firm part of many people’s CV, the present paper adds to an omnipresent phenomenon in today’s society, which is worth studying.

Successful new product development is of crucial importance for the survival of enterprises and for creating and securing competitive positions. In R&D performance in new product development is generally affected by interpersonal leadership. Empowering leadership, specifically, is suitable for this context, as the need for autonomy and achievement, as well as the cooperation of the followers, are taken into account through the support of the leader. However, so far no moderating effects of the context have been examined. Therefore, the present study examined the influence of the contextual factors of strategic, structural, and cultural orientation on the relations between empowering leadership and new product development performance in R&D. Additionally, a wide range of leadership behaviors with transformational and transactional leadership is taken into account in this study. Empowering leadership is assumed to have the highest impact on the R&D context. The moderating effects of the context were investigated in a quantitative design with 116 leaders and 371 respective followers from 32 R&D departments of various branches of industrial enterprises. The results confirmed a main effect of empowering leadership on new product development performance. Additionally, moderation analyses showed moderating effects on strategic and cultural orientation, while structural orientation had no moderating effect. It can be concluded that empowering leadership has a positive effect on new product development performance; nevertheless, the context in which leadership is practiced has to be considered.

Effective decision-making in innovation development is decisive for innovation success, but also poses a major challenge for companies. Building on the information-processing view of organisational design, this study investigates how companies should organise functional decision-making authority in innovation development to engender innovation success. Additionally, this research explores the interplay between the design of functional decision-making authority and organisational innovativeness representing an aspect of organisational culture. Based on two datasets garnered from a survey and an experiment with managers experienced in innovation development, the study demonstrates that the dispersion of decision-making authority across functional groups positively affects the performance of an innovation. Further, the results reveal that environmental turbulence positively moderates the effect of the dispersion of decision-making authority on innovation performance. Finally, organisational innovativeness leads to a higher dispersion of decision-making authority. This study offers important implications for managers seeking to organise functional decision-making authority in innovation development more effectively.

Although values in business have a long history, only recently has their pivotal role in innovation and its management become a topic attracting growing attention from both researchers and practitioners. Values-based innovation management is developing into a vibrant field of studies and practice with increasing relevance for innovation managers and entrepreneurs, providing a powerful toolbox of new methods and applications as well as having societal impact. We survey the state-of-the-art discussions in the field, including related concepts and methods and values-based approaches in areas such as innovation consulting and education, business modelling and entrepreneurship. As an introduction to the papers in IJIM’s Special Issue on Managing Values for Innovation, this editorial paper revisits and repositions some widespread assumptions about the nature, functions and potential of values in innovation contexts. We show to what extent values are an inevitable moment of innovation-related activities, requiring contributions from diverse stakeholders in normative, strategic and operational management dimensions. We illustrate their practicality to promote rather than handicap innovation and clarify their potential to change and assume different meanings rather than being static entities. The explanatory power of a values-based approach, its generative potential and its emancipatory impact motivate further research and development. Future avenues for research and development include impact management studies, attention to different levels of values and advancing the methodology and available tools to manage values for innovation in order to achieve more desirable outcomes.

Values-based management and evidence-based innovation management both improve a company’s innovation performance. However, there are no systematic studies of how combining values-based and evidence-based innovation management influences the innovation culture in mid-sized B2B companies. In this exploratory case study, we describe how a longitudinal analysis of innovation culture and a values-based initiative were combined in a 7-step approach, which was applied in a global mid-sized B2B manufacturer of drug-delivery systems and pharmaceutical components over a three-year period. The results of the longitudinal innovation culture survey and the analysis of front-end innovation key performance indicators provided insight into the positive impact of new normative company values on the organisation’s innovation culture as well as on the effectiveness of the idea generation process. The exploratory case study demonstrates how a customised combination of values-based and evidence-based innovation management elements can systematically strengthen an organisation’s innovation culture and the effectiveness of its idea generation process.

This research examines the links between national culture, entrepreneurship, networks and innovation. Both networking and entrepreneurship are seen as central to the innovative capacity of smaller firms. At the same time, the cultural environment in which such firms operate will influence the ability of entrepreneurs to develop new products and processes. We consider these problems by examining five SMEs in the United Kingdom (UK) and five in Portugal. All 10 companies are manufacturing-based and operate in "traditional" (low-technology) sectors. The case studies are utilised as a means of identifying the problems confronting owner/managers in such companies as they try to access newer technologies. We conclude that Portuguese managers are less likely to have been exposed to management education and tend to place greater reliance on family members for creating networks. Hence the options for innovation tend to be much narrower than small firms in the UK.