INNOVATIVE CULTURE 1

Innovative Culture

Ivette Sanchez

South Texas College

ORGL-4342 Organizational Change

Dr. Jennifer Guerra

05/18/2023
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Change is most of the time not accepted by people positively. It is a process that most do

not want to face since, by nature, we are all afraid of change. Resisting change is an issue that

most employees have in common because they feel comfortable the way they are, and they don’t

want to risk that. With time, most organizations are going to change because change is needed

for a company to survive. However; it is important to understand that what leads to change is

mostly the competition among the similar organizations. A key component of organizational

change is innovation, or innovative cultures. This is a very powerful dimension since the way a

change can be done, is by being creative and using innovation to create new ideas on what can

help the organization succeed or survive.

Creativity and Innovation are two things that go on hand, but they are not the same thing.

People thinking this is the same thing is a very common mistake since they confuse both terms.

“Creativity is the process of generating something new; while innovation is the application of

creativity to a new product or service that has value” (OCC Dimension Innovative Culture). In

other words, creativity is the new idea or new concept, and innovation is taking that idea or

concept to create a product that could be used for a benefit of the organization and create change.

You need creativity to have innovation, and vice versa. If you don’t have the idea you don’t get

to get the new product, and if you don’t work on the new product then the idea is worthless.

There is innovation in every product that an organization sells and in any aspect of the

organization, which include employee related issues along with corporate related issues.

Something that all organizations have in common is that if something is getting on

demand for customers, they will end up getting the product or a similar product to gain

customers too. The necessity of getting the products will lead them to innovation. Just as Plato
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observed: “necessity is the mother of invention” (OCC Dimension Innovative Culture). If a

company needs something, they will get into the process of creating an idea and make it a reality.

What Plato meant by these words, is that if as things are being needed, humans will find a way to

create or invent a way to do it and make it happen. That’s how all things in history have been

created, by the necessity of us, humans. However; “creativity is a necessary, but not sufficient

condition for innovation” (Focusing on Organizational Change).

There are many aspects of organizational culture that includes innovation and consist of

the growth of the organization. These are combinatorial play, cultivation of diversity thought,

ubiquity of weak ties, organization-wide ability to look long term, tolerance of ambiguity and

failure, and collaboration within and across teams. Combinatorial play refers to employees

combining new ideas in different ways and play with them to see if they work in real life.

Cultivation of diversity thought means that creativity and innovation are more likely going to

happen if diversity of thought is accepted. Ubiquity of weak ties consists of strong ties that help

encourage flexible working conditions and external networking so that innovation can happen.

The organization-wide ability to look long term help the organizational cultures to exploit

and explore markets and help the organization grow by always being on top of the new stuff, or

innovations. The tolerance of ambiguity and failure refers to being aware that occasionally things

will not turn right, and failure will be in the picture and knowing how to accept that helps with

creativity and innovation being possible. Collaboration within and across teams means to give

the organization the opportunity to succeed by taking into consideration the ideas of the whole

personnel, not only one person. Having more ideas and people thinking for a certain goal for the

organization gives more chances of getting something right by them sharing their thoughts and

creativity. (Focusing on Organizational Change).

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Innovation helps organizational change happen while the steps followed are consistent

and the idea gets to an end. Innovation is not a matter of luck how many people believe, but a

process that has several stages to conclude positive outcome and bring out a new product for a

company. The fact that there is a new concept that could benefit the organization even if it is

risky, contributes to the organization’s growth and development. Innovation has to be present

very often in all types of organizations since there are always new things coming out, and the

competitors could get the “idea” before you, and that is where you can lose customers, or power

as an organization.

There are four different types of organizational cultures and each one lead to the same

purpose, which is moving forward for innovation and creating a change. Hierarchy, market, clan

and adhocracy are these cultures, but the most recognized to be considered helpful for innovation

is adhocracy. On this type of culture, there is an ability to adapt quickly to any type of change.

The employees of the organization accept change more easily and contribute to the growth of the

company. Having a team that contributes to the organization’s success is a plus for the company,

since nowadays there are employees that just work for themselves, thinking about the paycheck

and not the company as is. When there is adhocracy in an organization the employees have a

sense of trust for their supervisors and rarely disagree with the decisions being made because

they also contribute to them. It is a concept where they follow rules and it doesn’t mean that they

don’t have a voice, because employees have the right to take initiative and work on solving

problems as they believe is the best way. “It gives employees who are closest to the action

permission to do their work and solve problems as they see fit” (Boatman, n.d.) This type of

culture is totally opposite to bureaucracy, which is a strictly patterned structured culture.

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Adhocracy culture is a key to innovation since here is where the open mindset turns into

action. The employees can give their opinion and their point of view on what they believe would

work best for a company that they already know. The market is so wide now that most

companies will end up selling items that they never that they would before, just to stay alive in

retail. Innovation gives the chance to all types of organizations to take change into action by not

wanting to lose business and always trying to stay on top of what is new. Customers will run for

that innovated product to every store until they find it, sometimes not considering if the price is

too high. If there is a new technology product, they will end up looking for it at all places. One

example of a company that created change by innovation is Spectrum. This is a very recognized

internet provided that ended up increasing their sales by innovating and making a business

growth plan. This company was only cable and internet company, but in June 30, 2018 they

decided to include a mobile virtual network operator service (Google, n.d.) This is a process of

innovation that took the company to another level and gained and retained more customers. The

purpose of this innovation was to increase profit, attract new customers (retain actual customers)

and to make the company survive due to the competition being so strong.

Innovative culture relates directly to organizational change because every time there is an

innovation, a change will occur. There are chances that not all changes might work the way they

were expected, but, in advance, the organization is trying not to stay behind and to continue on

the market. It is better to try the best ideas thinking on the growth of the company and not so stay

just stick to what it used to be, and resist change. An organization will succeed by having the

right team, which includes from regular associates to top management members. Giving them the

right to speak up and contribute to the company will help on not letting the organization die.

There is too much competition nowadays, but that doesn’t mean that a company will fail.
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However, what they need to do to try to stay on board is to adapt the innovative culture and be

familiar with the concept and welcome the ideas of all team members.
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REFERENCES

Focusing on Organizational Change. (n.d.).

OCC Dimension Innovative Culture. (n.d.).

Boatman, A. (n.d.). Adhocracy Culture: A Full Guide.

Spectrum Mobile Launch. Google. (n.d.).