The Influence of Corporate Culture on the Creation of
Radical Inventions in Companies: A Literature Review
Written by Roosmarijn Goosen, S2974339
University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Course:
Master’s Thesis BA, EBM723B20
Track:
Strategic Innovation Management
Supervisor:
W.W.M.E. Schoenmakers
Co-supervisor: P.J. Steinberg
Date:
20-02-2020
Word count:
18.209 | 14.431 without references
ABSTRACT
This research aims to create a literature overview of both radical invention and corporate culture and assesses how the latter influences the creation of radical inventions in organizations. Eighteen components of corporate culture were distinguished and for all these eighteen components the relationship with radical invention was researched by investigating the current literature. In addition, advice is given on how much focus each component requires in order to create a high level of radical invention within organizations. The most important components that were found are: agility; collaboration; corporate values and corporate guidelines. On the other hand, the least important components were: execution; corporate philosophy and subcultures. Empirical research is needed to verify whether these conclusions can also be made in a real-life setting.
1. INTRODUCTION
Innovation is a hot topic nowadays in the corporate world as well as the academic world, but often neglected is the process that comes before innovation: invention. A process which is an important part of the daily activities for a high number of companies and is seen as a core capability, which is highly important in the creation of profits in today’s competitive market (Schmookler, 1954).
Invention is defined as an act of creation or the development of a new idea (Schumpeter, 1934). It can be seen as the first part of the innovation process where new ideas are generated. Innovation itself is defined as “The generation, acceptance and implementation of new ideas, processes, products or services” (Thompson, 1965, p. 2) and is thus next to the invention of ideas also focused on the commercialization of these ideas. This can likewise be observed in the equation developed by Govindarajan and Trimble (2010): “Innovation = ideas + execution''. There is thus an important dissimilarity between invention and innovation: “The making of the invention and the carrying out of the corresponding innovation are, economically and sociologically, two entirely different things’’ (Schumpeter, 1939, p. 85). Both invention and innovation are highly desired firm outcomes to create a competitive advantage (Roberts, 2007) and are thus highly important for organizations. Nonetheless, without invention, there would be no innovation (Weber, 2012), which makes it important to understand what factors stimulate the creation of inventions in order to create both inventions and innovations. This thesis will therefore focus on the invention of new ideas (i.e. invention).
a radical invention, there is nothing to incrementally improve (Mokyr, 1990), which makes radical invention tremendously more important. One good radical invention can be seen as the start of a new trajectory for a company (Christensen & Roosenbloom, 1995; Christensen & Bower, 1996) and is seen as the start of a stream of many more (incremental) inventions (Dahlin & Behrens, 2005; Ahuja & Morris Lampert, 2001). In addition to this, radical inventions, compared to incremental ones, are more associated with market power and exceptional profits (Ahuja, Morris Lampert & Tandon, 2008). For these reasons, the focus of this paper will lie on radical invention.
Because of this significance of radical inventions, it is important to study what companies can do to create the best possible level of radical invention. Current literature shows that numerous factors can influence radical invention like: whether a company is a new entrant or incumbent (Foster, 1986); if the company recombines familiar technology (Arts & Veugelers, 2014); what the turbulence of the company’s environment is (Fontana et al., 2012) and what different parts of the search process it uses (Jung & Lee, 2016). However, there are many more factors that can influence radical invention, as it is a highly desired firm-outcome which makes research on this topic voluminous.
culture influences radical invention. Tellis, Prabhu and Chandy (2009) do show that corporate culture is a strong driver of radical innovation, which in the end leads to a positive financial performance. Even though innovation and invention are not the same, it is expected that a similar relationship could be found for radical inventions, as invention and innovation often go hand in hand. Therefore, having the right corporate culture in place could lead to a higher level of radical invention.
In order to research this, the following main research question of this paper is developed: “How does corporate culture influence radical invention in companies?” To research this question, two sub-questions are formulated, to assess all aspects of the main research question. To understand how corporate culture can influence the level of radical invention, we have to understand what corporate culture is and how it is shaped. So a logically derived sub-question is: “What are the different components of corporate culture?”. Next to this, we want to know which components of corporate culture are best for the creation of radical inventions in companies. To research this, the following sub-question was composed: “How important is every component of corporate culture in order to create radical
inventions?”.
To research these (sub)questions, first both radical invention and corporate culture will be researched into more depth. Next, multiple components of corporate culture will be formed, based upon existing literature. After this, all components will be researched on how they might influence the creation of radical inventions. This will lead to a conclusion in which researchers and managers can see which components are important for the creation of radical inventions and which are less important.
2. METHODS
2.1 Planning the review
For this literature review, mostly WorldCat.org, via the University of Groningen has been used as the main source for articles. For this only English peer-reviewed papers were utilized. In addition, Google Scholar was used as a supplement source of information, in which both papers and books were considered. Furthermore, some webpages were used to find specific information (e.g. Geert Hofstede’s country rankings). SmartCat was used first of all, as it permits the use of advanced search terms, using operators like AND, OR and NOT. A first explorative article search was performed, to find the most important articles about both topics (corporate culture and radical invention) and to get a sense about what the topics are, how they are defined and what corporate topics they are associated with.
2.2 Conducting the review
A first primary search for relevant articles was aimed at the main topic of corporate culture and radical invention, which gave the following search terms: “corporate culture” AND “radical
invention” OR “breakthrough invention”, and “organizational culture” AND “radical invention” OR “breakthrough invention”. This showed no relevant results, which confirms the
research gap on the chosen topic.
The following step was to determine which components corporate culture consists of, in order to perform the rest of the literature review. To accomplish this, the following searchterm was used: “corporate culture” OR “organizational culture” AND “component” OR “types” OR “dimensions”. This did show some results, on which the components of corporate culture in this literature review are based.
Once all the components of corporate culture were selected, WorldCat.org was used again to search for the relationship between each component and radical invention. The results for these searches can be found in table 1.
Component of corporate culture
Search term for SmartCat Number of
results
invention” AND “Agil*”
2. Collaboration “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Collab*” OR “Teamwork”
29
3. Customer “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” “Customer”
8
4. Diversity “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Divers*”
26
5. Execution “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “execut*”
18
6. Innovation “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “innov*”
42
7. Integrity “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “integ*”
30
8. Performance “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “perform*” OR “reward*”
45
9. Respect “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “respect*”
13
10. Corporate philosophy “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Corporate philosophy”
1
11. Corporate values “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Corporate value*”
6
12. Corporate mission “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Corporate mission”
1
13. Corporate principles “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Corporate principles”
4
14. Corporate guidelines “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Corporate guidelines”
1
15. Corporate history “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Corporate history”
11
16. Founder of the company “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “Founder company”
4
17. Country of origin “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough
18. Subcultures “Radical invention” OR “Breakthrough invention” AND “subcultures”
0
TOTAL:
245
Table 1: Search terms with accompanied number of results
In total, 245 articles were found from the search on all the topics researched in this paper. As can be seen, in some cases the specific component of corporate culture had not been associated with radical or breakthrough invention before in the researched database. In this case, other associations were developed. Take for example the component of agility, which did not yield any results when searching for its original search term. In this case, Google Scholar was used, to analyse whether there were factors that are closely related to present agility (e.g. flexibility), and how these factors relate to radical invention.
After reading titles and abstracts it became clear that not all articles were usable, depending on the topic of the article. If the topic of the article was not something in line with either radical invention or the component of corporate culture, the article was disregarded. For instance, the component “respect” was often used in another context (e.g. “with respect to”), which makes them not usable for this thesis. Also in these cases, where no articles were identified as usable, Google Scholar was used to analyze which factors are related to this component (e.g. teamwork), and how this relates to radical invention.
2.3 Reporting and dissemination
literature research could be done, with a relatively good number of articles. The reporting of all relevant information will be done in the following sections.
3. THEORY
The next chapter will discuss in detail what radical invention is, what its characteristics are, why it is important and how they are created. Next, corporate culture will be discussed, and why this is important for invention. Finally, different components of corporate culture will be discussed and why these components are chosen for the current article.
3.1 Radical invention
To understand what radical invention is, we first have to understand what exactly invention is itself. Invention is the first part of the innovation process, in which novel ideas are developed (Schumpeter, 1934). A high number of industries experience an ongoing stream of invention, but only a handful of these inventions are radical or breakthrough and have the ability to remodel the current state of affairs (Dahlin & Behrens, 2005). This remodeling is due to the fact that radical inventions are the groundwork to many subsequent inventions (Tratjenberg, 1990), as they become preferable over the existing technologies that are in use.
Dahlin and Behrens (2005) explain that radical inventions do not only involve being adoptive, but also have two other common characteristics: being novel and unique. Novelty relates to something that has not been done before. This can be either done by the recombination of existing factors into a new one (Fleming, 2001) or by introducing an existing element into a new environment (Hargadon & Suggon, 1997). The second characteristic, uniqueness, refers to the fact that the invention is dissimilar from current inventions. The radical invention should be a unique occurrence to time and setting (Dahlin & Behrens, 2005). The last factor of a radical invention, being adoptive, explains that it should influence future inventions, as also explained by Tratjenberg (1990). Even though the initial invention is not always the end product, with a few incremental adaptations, it might still change the future technology (Dahlin & Behrens, 2005). In summary, a radical invention should thus influence past, present and future.
process comes with a high level of risk (Fleming, 2002). Individuals thus require a lot of freedom to be able to create a radical invention: “if inventors are punished for failure or rewarded only for steady, incremental work, it is very unlikely that they will individually take the risks likely to add up to a single breakthrough” (Fleming & Szigety, 2006, p. 347).
In conclusion, radical inventions can thus be seen as the small amount of inventions that are able to remodel the current way things are done, are novel, unique and adoptive and creates a high level of uncertainty. To combine this in one definition is best done by using the statement of Dahlin and Behrens (2005), that says that radical inventions influence past (novelty), present (uniqueness) and future (being adoptive, but also being able to change the future and high levels of uncertainty fall within this category). This definition will be used in the remainder of this article.
3.1.1 Importance of radical invention
Research on the importance of radical invention already started early with the work of Schumpeter (1934). He explains that radical invention is a first-class manner to create an advantage over large companies that get their competitive advantage from economies of scale. By creating a radical invention, the status-quo will be changed, which will turn the current technologies outmoded (Schumpeter, 1934). This way a firm can alter the current structure of the market, gain market power and generate notable profits (Ahuja, Morris Lampert & Tandon, 2008). In addition to this, radical inventions are associated with organizational growth and value creation (Schumpeter, 1942; Scherer & Harhoff, 2000). This way, the organization that created the radical invention will now possess a competitive advantage (Schumpeter, 1934). This importance of radical inventions for organizations makes it practically a highly important subject to research, as it creates a managerial desire to generate these radical inventions.
3.1.2 The creation of radical inventions
idea-generation stage, the higher the probability that it will end up with an innovative strategy - one that breaks the rules of the game” (p. 4). Creativity is important as it is seen as a capability to create new combinations (Nelson & Winter, 1982), and the recombination of familiar components in new ways in its way is seen as the main source of radical inventive success (Arts & Veugelers, 2014). To stimulate creativity, other organizational factors should be in place as well. For example, corporate flexibility is highly desirable in an organization that focuses on creativity (Ekvall, 1996). On the other hand, too much bureaucracy will stifle the level of creativity (Cummings, 1965). It is thus highly important to have an organizational environment that favours a high level of creativity in order to create a high level of radical inventions.
Aside from creativity, there are also other factors that positively influence the creation of a high number of ideas. Managers who exert pressure have a negative influence on the amount of radical inventions (Fleming & Szigety, 2006), while intrinsic motivation is suggested to positively affect radical inventions (Amabile, 1988). Next to this, the size of an organization could be an influencing factor on the level of radical invention within an organization. Current literature, however, is scattered on the manner it is influencing breakthrough inventions. On the one hand is the argument based on the work of Schumpeter (1942), who explains that larger organizations are more likely to create radical inventions as they can enjoy the benefits from economies of scale with a large number of resources in place. Being dominant in the market, as most large companies will be, is essential in managing the risks that come with radical invention (Acs & Audretsch, 2005). On the other hand is the work of researchers that illustrate that small companies are preferable when it comes to the creation of radical inventions. These small organizations lack the bureaucratic rules that large organizations do have, which makes them more flexible in taking risks and easier to change when needed (Scherer, 1991).
Even though some of these aforementioned aspects are related to corporate culture (e.g. organizational size in Wei, Liu, Zhang & Chiu, 2008), it remains unclear whether radical invention as a whole can also have an influence on the creation of ideas and thus radical invention. This underlines the theoretical importance of this research, as it will give a more complete view of the subject.
Corporate culture has been defined by multiple researchers, but often similar components can be found. It is often seen as a set of values and beliefs that employees of an organization share and that changes over time (Deshpande & Webster, 1989; Gordon & DiTomaso, 1992). However, it can also be seen as a process which is highly dynamic as it is the result of interaction between employees, which can be found in an organization's structure, norms and routines (Schein, 1985). Another definition can be found by Claver, Llopis, González and Gascó, (2001, p248): “organizational culture is a set of values, symbols and rituals, shared by the members of a specific firm, which describes the way things are done in an organization in order to solve both internal management problems and those related to customers, suppliers and environment”. This definition is similar to the one Calori and Sarnin (1991, p. 50) give, although is the latter one more simplified: “basic assumptions, values, norms of behaviour and their more visible manifestations.” In general, all definitions show what is important for a company and how this is acted upon. It is often a multidimensional and social concept, which is developed only in groups (Tharp, 2009). For this thesis, the definition of Calori and Sarnin (1991) will be used, as this incorporates both values and behaviour. This wide view of corporate culture is important as it covers more possible points of contact with the creation of radical inventions. This way, this paper can cover more aspects of corporate culture than only choosing a value- or behaviour-driven definition, which creates a model in which a high number of aspects are incorporated and researched. This will thus cover a larger area of hitherto under-researched aspects.
3.2.1 Importance of corporate culture for radical invention
Whether corporate culture has an influence on the creation of radical inventions has not been researched yet, so it is difficult to say what exactly the importance of corporate culture for radical invention is. Nonetheless, current literature does show that corporate culture is a strong driver of radical innovation (Tellis, Prabhu & Chandy, 2009). In addition to this is the work of Chandy and Tellis (1998), who describe the importance of a willingness to cannibalize, a trait that lays in the culture of a firm, to be of an influence on radical innovation. Furthermore, Govindarajan and Kopalle (2004) found a positive relation between a strong customer orientation, which they see as a component of corporate culture, and the development of radical innovations.
in the creation of radical innovations, but it remains unsure whether the same relationship is present for radical inventions. Innovation does include invention (Govindarajan & Trimble, 2010), but it is important to separate invention and innovation as they are different in essence and might have different determinants (Mohr, 1969). There can be made a case for both ways, but the importance of corporate culture for the creation of radical inventions should become clear after the literature research on the different components of corporate culture.
3.2.2 Components of corporate culture
Therefore, a more recent pool of literature should be researched, in which the focus is solely on the creation of components of corporate culture and in which all aspects of corporate culture are mentioned. This means that the components on the one hand, have to deal with norms, values and beliefs, but on the other hand, also incorporate the behaviour of people in a firm, as followed by the definition of Calori and Sarnin (1991). To my knowledge, none of the current research has done exactly this, as it often focuses on only one of these dimensions. Therefore, the choice has been made to combine two articles. This combination leads us to the second reason why these two articles are chosen; the two articles genuinely show the essence of corporate culture when they are combined. To better understand this, both of the articles, with their corporate culture dimensions will be first briefly explained. Afterwards, it will be discussed why these articles combined show the true essence of corporate culture.
The first research is that of Sull, Sull and Chamberlain (2019), who developed an online tool to measure the corporate culture of 500 companies based upon reviews that employees gave. They developed the “Big Nine'', containing the most important values that corporate culture consists of, which are agility; collaboration; customer; diversity; execution; innovation; integrity; performance and respect. These components are based on the day-to-day behaviour of employees in organizations. These nine components are explained further in table 2, as how they are defined by Sull, Sull and Chamberlain (2019).
Component of corporate culture
Explanation
Agility Employees can respond quickly and effectively to changes in the marketplace and seize new opportunities.
Collaboration Employees work well together within their team and across different parts of the organization.
Customer Employees put customers at the center of everything they do, listening to them and prioritizing their needs.
is disadvantaged because of their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or nationality.
Execution Employees are empowered to act, have the resources they need, adhere to process discipline, and are held accountable for results.
Innovation Company pioneers novel products, services, technologies, or ways of working.
Integrity Employees consistently act in an honest and ethical manner.
Performance Company rewards results through compensation, informal recognition, and promotions, and deals effectively with underperforming employees. Respect Employees demonstrate consideration and courtesy for others, and treat
each other with dignity.
Table 2: Big Nine as explained by Sull, Sull & Chamberlain (2019)
The other division of corporate culture is made by Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006). They say that corporate culture is an important component of corporate identity, but also find many components of corporate culture itself: corporate philosophy; corporate values; corporate mission; corporate principles; corporate guidelines; corporate history; founder of the company; country-of-origin and subculture. These components are further explained in table 3. Melewar and Karaosmanoglu developed these components based upon a literature review, as well as 32 in-depth interviews they held with directors, senior managers and lower level employees from 20 companies.
Component of corporate culture
Explanation
Corporate philosophy Is associated with the fundamental values and assumptions of a company created by senior management.
and ideologies that guide the company’s culture. Corporate mission Pertains to the reason for the existence of the company. Corporate principles The rules that have an influence on essential corporate actions
such as targets, values and the mission of an organisation
Corporate guidelines Explain the significance of corporate principles to all levels of the hierarchy within the organisation.
Corporate history All past events that happened in the organization. Founder of the company Person who founded the organization.
Country-of-origin The national culture the organization is originated from. Subcultures Smaller groups with a shared culture within an organization,
based upon a different interpretation of history and management communication.
Table 3: Components of corporate culture as explained by Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006)
In my opinion, the combination of both of these articles really show the essence of corporate culture. As said before, in this thesis, the definition of corporate culture in the article of Calori and Sarnin (1991) is used, which is “basic assumptions, values, norms of behaviour and their more visible manifestations”. This definition highlights that both the values as well as the behaviour of employees is seen as corporate culture, which can also be seen back in the combination of the article of the Sull et al. (2019) and the article of Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006). On the one hand we have the article of Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) which covers the basic aspects of the company, like its mission or history, which influences how employees behave. On the other hand we have the article of Sull et al. (2019) that shows the actual behavior of the employees that are based on the basic aspects that Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) describe. This suggests that the two articles together complement each other in such a way that they provide a good description of the factors which compose corporate culture. Only choosing one of them would give an incomplete view about corporate culture.
day-to-day behavioral values, some important components of corporate culture, like corporate history (Schein, 1985), are not present. This is where the article of Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) comes in. The components of Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) have been used in other recent work as well (e.g. Melewar and Skinner, 2018; Maťová & Dvořáček, 2014), which too confirms the usability of this paper. The choice for this article is based upon the fact that the components are highly different than the ones in the article of Sull et al. (2019), but also still shows what corporate culture is. This way, using both articles, the complete definition of corporate culture is covered.
Lastly, a reason for why both articles are extremely relevant is that both of the articles base their components on what they hear directly from employees, which is where the corporate culture really is (Belias & Koustelios, 2014).
To see which factors managers should focus on, a closer look will be taken on all eighteen selected components of corporate culture to see how they are related to radical invention, as not all components will be similarly related. After this, conclusions can be made about which factors should be focused on, based on the type of strategy an organization wants to focus on.1
4. RESULTS
In the next section, all eighteen components of corporate culture will be discussed and we will indicate if the current literature shows whether a component is important for the creation of radical inventions or not. First the nine components of Sull et al. (2019) will be discussed, which are the behaviour-based components of corporate culture. Next, the nine components of Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) will be described, which are seen as the value-based components of corporate culture.
4.1 Corporate culture based on behaviour
The following section illustrates how employees should behave and act based upon the corporate culture components of Sull et al. (2019). The current literature on each component will be
1
discussed and an investigation will be done on the multiple behavioral components of corporate culture and how these are important for the creation of radical inventions.
4.1.1. Agility
Agility is seen as how flexible a company is and how it responds to change. Agility and innovation are highly related, as they both deal with change (Harraf, Wanasika, Tate & Talbott, 2015). Even though the current literature does show a small research gap on the direct relationship between agility and radical invention, there are researchers that connect the two topics. For example, when a firm wants to act on radical invention, it should be willing to cannibalize itself (Chandy & Tellis, 1998; Govindarajan & Kopalle, 2004) which shows how agile a company should be in order to operate in radical invention. In addition to this, radical invention creates a high level of uncertainty in companies, and having a dynamic capability, like organizational agility, would be undoubtedly essential for these organizations (Teece, Peteraf & Leih, 2016). Their work is especially important as they describe that being agile is not needed for the standard type of risk, which is more associated with standard innovation, but only with the most uncertain uncertainties, the ones that are especially found in radical inventions (Teece, Peteraf & Leih, 2016). Also earlier work of Schumpeter (1912) describes the importance of agile entrepreneurs in the act of recombination and creative destruction. This also relates the fact that agility is not only dealing with external change, but also includes being able to introduce changes yourself (Nagel & Bhargava, 1994; Voss, 1994). Overall, agile organizations are often considered to be skilled in the creation of new ideas (Hauschildt & Schewe, 2000), which makes being agile highly desirable for organizations that want to act in radical invention.
4.1.2. Collaboration
Another factor that stimulates the creation of new ideas in teams is diversity. More people create more divergent ideas which will create a greater knowledge-pool from which new ideas can be generated (Collins & Loftus, 1975; Paulus & Yang, 2000). Schoenmakers and Duysters (2010) also found support for this idea in which radical inventions are more-often based on a broad, existing knowledge pool.
However, individuals can create breakthrough inventions as well. Social inhibitors, like freeriding (Olson, 1965), social anxiety (Camacho & Paulus, 1965) or the presence of production blocking (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987) can make collaboration problematic. In the case someone is working individually, these factors will not be present, which makes the creation of ideas easier. This way, more ideas will be generated, which can be of either good or poor quality, but the chance of inventing a breakthrough idea will be higher compared to working in teams (Fleming, 2007). Nonetheless, the creation of ideas by a sole inventor is largely a myth, as most radical ideas are invented by at least two individuals together (Lemley, 2012). Collaboration thus might be positively related with breakthrough invention, depending on the presence of inhibiting factors. Once the inhibiting factors are controlled for, teams often generate more radical inventions than lone inventors as there is a higher recombinant opportunity (Singh & Fleming, 2009).
In addition to in-firm collaboration, organizations can also choose to collaborate on a higher level with stakeholders. Coopetition (i.e. collaborating with competitors) is positively related to having a radical inventive capability (Quintana-Garcia, Benavides-Velasco, 2004), as long as a good appropriability regime is in place (Ritala & Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2012). Also collaborating with universities is found to be positively related with the level of radical inventions in an organization as it increases the chance of finding breakthrough information (Walsh, Lee & Nagaoka, 2016). Being an open organization when it comes to inventions is thus suggested to be beneficial for the creation of radical output (Inauen & Schenker-Wicki, 2012), but only when a good appropriability system is in place and when there are no inhibiting factors that make the collaboration troublesome.
The relationship with a customer can be either positively or negatively related to the level of invention in organizations. On the one hand, it is important to know what your customer wants, because without actual demand, an invention is pointless. An invention should always create value for a customer, as they will be the ones that buy the actual product. Literature shows a positive relation between the creation of radical ideas and the degree of customer involvement (Lukas & Ferrell, 2000; Walsh, Lee & Nagaoka, 2016) as it allows an organization to acquire market knowledge (Lo, Wang, Chien & Hung, 2012). However, on the other hand, only listening to the customer often will not create radical inventions, as customers are not familiar with these ideas and thus become resistant towards novel product and services (Heiskanen et al., 2007) or they do not know what they truly want (Silverstein & Robinson, 2015). In addition to this, too much customer involvement could lead to an information overload, which makes it more difficult for the firm to make use of these relationships (Yli-Renko and Janakiraman, 2008).
Important to note is the difference in the type of customers. The work from Von Hippel (1986) describes for example how lead-users are users that have current needs that become commonly accepted only months or years into the future, which gives them forecasting-capability. Also Lettl, Herstatt and Gemuenden (2006) describe how customers can create radical inventions when their needs are not met in their day to day lives. In their paper they give an example of a surgeon developing a completely new design and material for an implant for hernia patients. This shows experts having an problem-induced motivation to change the way things are currently done (Lettl, Herstatt and Gemuenden, 2006). Of course there are also customers who are less involved with the product development, often seen as laggards or skeptical about radical inventions (Rogers, 2003). These customers are seen as less flexible and will thus probably be less useful when it comes to the co-creation of radical inventions.
Hence, there should be a fine line between incorporating customer-needs into your product and following your own path of invention. Furthermore, it is important to listen to the right customers, preferably inventive lead-users.
4.1.4. Team diversity
present (Aggarwal, Woolley, Chabris & Malone, 2019). The relationship between diversity and idea creation can be seen as an inverted U-shape, in which a moderate level of diversity is good, but too much diversity will be counter-productive for the creation of new ideas (Dayan, Ozer & Almazrouei, 2017) However, a higher level of diversity is also to be argued to increase the variance of the outcome in a way that both successes and failures occur more often and will in the end lead to a higher chance of creating a breakthrough invention (Fleming, 2007). Fleming considers a diverse team at its best, when the depth of knowledge, rather than the breath, is high, such that there is not too much diversity. A diverse workforce, when used correctly, can thus highly stimulate the creation of breakthrough inventions (Fleming, 2007).
In addition, there can also be a diversity in the background of individuals working on an invention. The fact that individuals of a research and development (R&D) team are diverse in the field they are familiar with, can enhance the creation of breakthrough inventions (Adner & Levinthal, 2000; Carbonell & Rodríguez-Escudero, 2013). The reason for this is the possible combining of ideas that previously had not been associated before (Martin, 1984) or the use of ideas from one field into another (Schon, 1967). Especially when there is a diversity in the technology fields of individuals, it will be beneficial for the initiation of a breakthrough (Kelley, Ali & Zahra, 2013). This thus suggests a positive outcome when focusing on technological diversity. However, there are mixed results: Leten, Belderbos and van Looy (2007) found an inverted U-shape relationship between diversity and firm performance and Plunket, Cassi, Gallié and Mérindol (2013) even found a negative relationship, suggesting that specializing works better for the creation of radical inventions. It is thus difficult to say whether the diversity in the background of individuals is positively or negatively related to the creation of radical invention and further research is needed to come to a well-supported conclusion.
4.1.5. Execution
highly important as innovation shows the whole process from idea to commercialization. This is also shown in the equation that they created in which innovation is equal to ideas plus execution; creating ideas and execution are thus separate concepts (Govindarajan and Trimble, 2010). Hence, for the invention of (radical) ideas, execution has a less important role as it is more focused on creating a new idea rather than a whole complex process. Also, an execution-capability will not be as useful in the creation of radical ideas as it will be novel and unique to the existing projects done by the company (Dahlin & Behrens, 2005). Hence, a focus on execution is more important for companies that want to innovate and not focus solely on radical invention.
4.1.6. Innovation
It makes sense that an innovative focus is highly important for a company when it wants to create a radical invention; even though it is not the same, the two concepts are highly related as invention is part of innovation (Schumpeter, 1934). When an innovative focus is present in a company, it will focus on elements like being recipient to change, organizational learning and innovative behaviour (Škerlavaj, Song & Lee, 2010). These are all factors that are also valuable when an organization wants to act in radical invention. Also, when an innovative focus is emphasized throughout the whole company, individuals outside of the R&D department might also feel inclined to participate in invention, and quite possibly invent a radical idea themselves. Anyone can be creative, as long as you have the right connections (Hargadon, 2003). However, when an organization wants to focus on radical invention, there might be other factors that are important, which are not present in an organization that only has an innovative focus. A focus on radical inventions namely needs factors like an excessive focus on creativity (Fleming & Szigety, 2006), a tolerance for risk and a willingness to cannibalize (Chandy & Tellis, 1998), which will not be the case for firms that create more standard innovations. It is thus suggested that a focus on innovation is good as a basic layer, and considerably better than an organization that has a more rigid and non-inventive focus. However, there are also other factors that need to be considered when an organization wants to focus on radical invention, like a willingness to cannibalize, which should not be undermined by organizations.
Integrity is a complex, ethical concept that is associated with morality, honesty and doing the right thing (McFall, 1987). No direct relationship has been found in the current literature between integrity and (radical) invention. Ethical behaviour, and thus integrity, is associated with authentic leadership, in which personal values are highly important (Skinner, Smith & Swanson, 2018). Although leadership can be associated with invention, it is the leaders that are open-minded and curious about the external world that are associated with breakthrough invention (Deschamps, 2005) and not the authentic leaders. Also, integrity among members of a team might be needed in later steps of the innovation process in a way that the idea stays within the company and will not be leaked towards competitors. This all suggests a relatively negative relationship between integrity and radical inventions.
Another way to look at the relationship between integrity and radical invention is by considering trust as one of the most important components of integrity (Brenkert, 2015). Trust is an important factor in collaboration as it prevents inhibiting factors like free-riding and opportunistic behaviour (Aarikka-Stenroos & Sandberg, 2007) and will thus lead to more creativity and radical invention. In addition to this positive view on integrity is the work of Fuerst and Schotter (2011), who argue that strategic integrity management is an extremely important capability for companies as it will increase their competitiveness as it challenges the company’s current status quo, which is highly important for radical invention. In addition, the case study of Yamanouchi (1989) about Canon shows that the organization developed a breakthrough invention in an organizational culture in which integrity was highly important.
All in all, both literature streams have a say on whether a focus on integrity is beneficial for the creation of radical inventions or not. Overall, the arguments in favour of a focus on integrity are in my opinion stronger, especially as it enhances trust, so integrity is considered as a good thing for creating radical inventions.
4.1.8. Individual performance
1942; Fleming, 2001). However, when they do succeed, radical inventions are highly valuable and desired (Ahuja & Morris Lampert, 2001). In order to compensate for this risk, a well-considered compensation system is needed to create the highest performance rate; companies should give valuable rewards to individuals that match their risk-taking behavior in order to create a high individual performance (O’Connor & McDermott, 2004). Of course, more risky behaviour will lead to more failures, but there are ways to limit this high level of failure, like testing their developed ideas in an early stage to increase its recombinant exploration (Fleming, 2001). Also, it will be desirable to have a division in the compensation given to members of an R&D team and individuals of other parts of the company, in which less-risky behaviour will be preferred. This way, the performance will go up, which will lead to more radical invention, while having a lower risk of failure.
4.1.9. Respect
4.2 Corporate culture based on values
The following nine components of corporate culture can again be divided into two groups. Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) demonstrate that corporate philosophy, corporate values, corporate mission, corporate principles and corporate guidelines are all highly interrelated and are hard to consider exclusively without the other components. In addition to this, these elements can be adjusted by active management, based upon the type of culture an organization desires to have. The second group of components are relatively easier to distinguish, but are harder to change. Especially corporate history, the founder of the company and the country of origin are elements that are mostly non-changeable. Subculture also falls within this group, and even though it is easier to change compared to the other elements, it is still a clear distinguishable component of corporate culture.
4.2.1. Corporate philosophy
first aspect of a corporate culture (Abratt, 1989), it is a highly important construct, but as it is relatively easy to change, it does not necessarily need a high level of focus in order to create radical inventions.
4.2.2. Corporate values
Corporate values, together with beliefs show how individuals of the organization identify themselves (Van Riel & Balmer, 1997). It includes the everyday language, rituals, beliefs and ideologies of the individuals of a company (Pettigrew, 1979). Individual values are often persistent; they are often highly integrated in someone's system (Inglehart & Baker, 2000) as they already start to develop at a young age. However, values can change. For example, when an individual gets older, he or she might find other work values of greater importance (Cherrington, Condie & England, 1979). When it comes to corporate values, it is remarkably difficult to modify them (Mueller & Straatmann, 2014) and is often paired with complex learning processes (Wiener, 1988). Nevertheless, it is possible to change a traditional and mature organization by introducing functional values of innovation to make the organization more flexible (Wiener, 1988).
can (Lee, Fabish & McGaw, 2005).
On the other hand are corporate values that are possibly less important for the creation of radical inventions. Values that are associated with more inflexible firms that are in a lower degree able to create such game-changing inventions, are often seen as more traditional values. For instance, organizations that highly value financial performance will be more likely to invent incremental ideas, instead of radical ones (Koen, 2004). When an organization wants to focus on the creation of radical inventions, it should thus create an environment in which values that enhance radical inventions, like integrity and teamwork, are emphasized, while values that have a negative influence, like a focus on financial performance, should be disregarded.
4.2.3. Corporate mission
From the interviews that Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) held, it became clear that corporate values, principles and guidelines are all entrenched in an organization's corporate mission. Corporate mission is thus a considerably broad, but also highly important concept and without it, a company would not exist (Abratt, 1989). It can be seen as a promoter of the goals it wants to achieve (Klemm, Sanderson & Luffman, 1991), and can vary greatly from company to company; It can range from becoming the biggest company in your industry to being completely environmentally-friendly. For innovative firms, a corporate mission could be to create a breakthrough invention that completely changes the way current practices are done. In this case, the organization’s corporate principles and guidelines can be changed in a similar way, such that through all layers of the company it becomes clear what the company wants to achieve. This way, the behaviour of the organization can be altered in such a way that it is appreciative for invention.
change -and risk- are inherent to innovation. Our motivation-system will strongly reward successful risk-taking, while not penalizing an innovative idea that did not work” (p. 94), “small and fluid teams” (p. 94) and “We value diversity and will create workplaces where people with diverse skills, perspectives, and backgrounds can exercise leadership and help those around them release their full power and potential” (p. 94). As this company is in possession of over 350 patents (Justia Patents, 2019), it is clear that these are important factors in a corporate mission in order to create radical inventions.
4.2.4. Corporate principles
The corporate principles of an organization show some general “rules” on how an organization acts, which is thus highly related to its governance (Tricker, 2015). It shows what the organization finds important and how goals should be achieved. McKinnon, Gowland and Worzel (2005) give an approach on how an organization should act, based upon whether the company wants to focus on the development of an idea (i.e. innovation) or focus more on the discovery of an idea (i.e. invention). They suggest, for example, that an organization should put development as part of its business and integrate it in its strategy. On the contrary, the discovery of a new idea should happen in a separate business unit, as it gives more freedom (McKinnon, Gowland & Worzel (2005). Markides (1999) describes important principles that companies followed when a high level of creativity is desired for the creation of a breakthrough invention. The main principle that is considered by him is that the organization's goal should always be to create as many ideas as possible so that there is a luxury of choosing the one that is capable of changing the rules of the game. In addition to this is the principle of flexibility, as it should be able to respond or create changes in the environment (Markides, 1999). Similarly, Radjou, Prabhu and Ahuja (2012) describe important principles in the creation of a breakthrough invention. They mention for example “devote yourself to world-changing ideas”(p. 4), “seek opportunity in adversity”(p. 5) and “fail fast, fix fast, learn fast”(p. 5).
4.2.5. Corporate guidelines
Even though (corporate) guidelines and principles are similar, they are essentially different concepts. Corporate principles are more general expected behaviours, while corporate guidelines are the actualization and interpretation of these principles and thus show more specific “rules” on how all levels of an organization are expected to behave (Melewar, 2003). In a way, the corporate guidelines explain how the corporate principles should be acted upon (Melewar & Karaosmanoglu, 2006). Once the right corporate principles, as discussed above, are in place to create a high level of radical invention, the only thing left to do is to adjust the corporate guidelines in a similar way. These guidelines can be focused on multiple factors; In order to create more radical inventions, there can for instance be guidelines to get as much creativity out of people as possible. Cropley (2006) suggests a few of these guidelines that facilitate creativity, like “ Encourage going beyond the rules, but do not accept or reject ideas simply because they oppose the Zeitgeist” or “Provide an environment where "deviance" is accepted” (p. 130). These guidelines give individuals a nudge in the right direction. Besides, a principle that is focused on a higher degree of flexibility could be accompanied by some guidelines as well. Yukl and Mahsud (2010) describe in this essence guidelines like “Keep people informed about the progress of change and maintain commitment for it” and “Monitor external changes and identify emerging threats and opportunities” (p. 87). Many more guidelines can be developed, but these are often highly firm-specific.
Most of all, it is important that all aforementioned factors (i.e. corporate philosophy, values, mission, principles and guidelines) are aligned with each other, as they are highly related. Once one of these components is changed, it does not make sense to not focus on the other components of corporate culture as all factors should focus on the same goal.
4.2.6. Corporate history
the creation of new ideas difficult. Take for example the case study of Danneels (2010) about Smith Corona, formerly one of the world's biggest typewriter manufacturers. He illustrates that people associated Smith Corona only with typewriters and that it turned out to be a huge failure when the company tried to innovate with other products. This failure in turn lead to a focus on cutting cost and a high number of employee lay-offs, which is not preferable for the creation of radical ideas (Koen, 2004). It is thus highly important to consider your past when you want to do something different in the future (Danneels, 2010). In addition to this, Rowlinson and Hassard (1993) show that when an organization wants to alter its corporate culture without keeping its history in mind, it will get itself in big trouble. On the other hand, when an organization does include its corporate history and its appropriate events, it might be able to differentiate itself from its competitors. Next to this, in a period of change, the corporate history can give a feeling of reassurance (Rowlinson & Hassard, 1993). Corporate history is thus considered important to focus on when changing a corporate culture in such a way that it favours radical invention.
A factor which might influence whether corporate history is of importance or not, might be the age of the company. Older firms often have difficulty in altering its current and successful routines (Birkinshaw, Bessant & Delbridge, 2007). When organizations have a long history of routines on how work is normally done, they are less likely to act in radical invention, as they would cannibalize their own technologies compared to new entrants, who are more keen to develop radical ideas (Tushman & Anderson, 1986; Henderson, 1993). However, other researchers (e.g. Eggers & Kaul, 2018) consider incumbent firms to be better in the creation of radical inventions as they possess a significant quantity of existing knowledge and capabilities. Moreover, Ahuja and Morris Lampert (2001) show that established firms are highly capable of creating radical inventions once they overcome the familiarity-, maturity-, and propinquity traps by experimenting with novel, merging and pioneering technologies. It is thus not easy to say whether firms with a small history or a longer corporate history are better in the creation of radical inventions, as both arguments are strong. However, both should be able to do so when the organization has a clear understanding of what its corporate history is and that it can either positively or negatively influence the creation of radical inventions, depending on what this history is.
It is argued that the founder of a company has a high influence on how organizations work as this is where the creation of culture begins (Schein, 1985), and is highly associated with an organization's history (Rowlinson & Hassard, 1993). From the interviews that Melewar and Karaosmanoglu (2006) conducted, it also became clear that often the founder of an organization has had a high influence on how work is currently done in this organization. Even though the founder of a company cannot be changed, the amount of emphasis on this person on the other hand is changeable. Depending on which factors this founder finds important, current management can choose whether to focus on these items or not. If the organization is founded by someone who is an inventor him- or herself, it could work inspirational, by telling their own story (O’Connor, 2002) and create more inventions in the organization as well. This idea was also considered by Schein (1985): “Firms are created by entrepreneurs who have a vision of how the concerted effort of the right group of people can create a new product or service in the marketplace” (p. 209). This often means that an organization is focused on how to deal with change or other invention-related factors, because there was a founder with a certain vision (Rowlinson & Hassard, 1993). There are also cases in which the founder of the company is solely focused on creating new ideas, that there would be an externally recruited CEO to handle other business practices (Oksanen & Rilla, 2009), which underlines the importance of radical invention even more. On the other hand, a story of a founder can also work counter-productive. If the original companies base is completely different than the company it wants to become, it does not make sense to relate the founder of the company to the current practices.
The age of an organization might also affect the influence of this component of corporate culture on the creation of radical inventions. It can be assumed that when an organization is relatively younger, a founder will be highly active in the organization and thus influence corporate outcomes, while an organization in which the founder is no longer in the picture will be less influenced by this person. Schein (1995) gives a good example of such an organization in which an founder is highly inventive and creates an atmosphere in which this is possible, by for instance allowing free experimentation. However, while the organization grew and became older, the founder lost influence, as more individuals entered the organizations with other ideas which overshadowed the founder’s principles (Schein, 1995).
The country an organization originated from, can influence the level of radical invention as well as how an organization identifies itself (Rowlinson & Procter, 1999). To identify how the country of origin can do this, we can look at Hofstede's (1980) cultural dimensions. When it comes to radical inventions, one of the most important dimensions is that of uncertainty avoidance. Breakthrough invention is accompanied by a high level of uncertainty and risks. In the case a country has a low uncertainty avoidance, it is considered to be desirable for radical invention. Countries like these are Singapore, Sweden and Denmark (Hofstede Insights, 2019). While on the other hand, individuals in countries with a high uncertainty avoidance, like Russia, Greece and El Salvador (Hofstede Insights, 2019), are less likely to participate in radical invention. Prior research also showed this negative relationship between uncertainty avoidance and invention (Shane, 1992). Also the individualism vs. collectivism dimension of Hofstede (1980) is highly related to what is already discussed in section 4.1.2. about collaboration.
Another argument in favour of a focus on the country of origin can be found in the work of Kelley, Ali and Zahra (2013). They found that breakthrough inventions are more likely to come from patents from the same country. This is related to the fact that geographical closeness can foster technological spillovers (Jaffe, Fogarty & Banks, 1998). This means that some locations, where these spillovers happen more easily, are more desirable for creating radical inventions (Kerr, 2010), as these breakthrough ideas may arise from others ideas (Kelley, Ali & Zahra, 2013). The proximity of universities in a certain location, for instance, is associated with new start-ups and R&D facilities (Malecki, 1986; Nelson, 1986). Companies can thus choose to locate an R&D facility in locations like these, in order to create a higher chance of discovering a radical idea.
However, it should be noted that nowadays, with a high number of multinational companies and a high level of globalization, the influence of the country of origin on a firm's practices is declining (Melewar & Karaosmanoglu, 2006). Nonetheless, this does not necessarily mean that the location of an organization does not have any influence at all, as regional invention still happens in these times of globalization (Verspagen & Schoenmakers, 2004). It is thus important to consider what the country of origin is, and whether other locations might be better in the generation of radical inventions.
As radical inventions mainly happen within the R&D department (Von Stamm, 2003), this section will focus on how subcultures are of influence only within this department. With the notion of subcultures as a component of corporate culture, Melewar & Karaosmanoglu (2006) want to show that not all individuals of an organization share the same, consistent and stable values; organizations often are a patchwork of different values (Balmer & Wilson, 1998). These subcultures are often based upon department designations and geographical separation (Robbins, Judge, Campbell, 2010; Greenberg & Baron, 1997). These different subcultures can make radical invention harder as it might cause conflicts between individuals from different subcultures (Anheier & Isar, 2007). Nonetheless, as radical inventions mostly happen within the R&D department, these conflicts will probably be less apparent. As Hofstede (1998) shows, subcultures are often formed based upon how complex the tasks of individuals are, ranging from routinized and standardized work to skilled and specialized work. Individuals performing the latter type of work, labeled as a professional subculture, score similar on cultural dimensions, like a more pragmatic style of work (Hofstede, 1998). As inventive individuals are culturally similar within the R&D department, conflict within this subculture is suggested to not happen as quickly as would happen between subcultures.
On the contrary, the work of Jung, Nam, Lee and Kim (2016) show that these can also originate between R&D professionals. They divide inventive individuals based upon how they perceive their individual freedom and group cohesion. Moreover, they find that these subcultures emerge because of different types of individual research and research fields. Furthermore, they show that there is an important difference in job satisfaction between different subgroups (Jung et al., 2016). Successful management of these subcultures is needed as otherwise it could negatively affect learning and innovation (Schein, 1996). This successful management entails little to no conflicts by clearly mapping different subcultures and discussing how much variety is present and how much is desirable (Hofstede, 1998).
Whether different subcultures exist between individuals collaborating on a radical invention might also differ per organization; larger organizations tend to have more subcultures (Pratt & Beaulieu, 1992). Therefore it is important to observe what the circumstances are per organization and look whether subculture-management needs a high or low amount of attention.
To create a clear guide on what components of corporate culture are important, table 4 has been developed. In this table, all components received a rating from 1 to 5 stars, based upon how the existing literature rates their level of importance for the creation of radical inventions. This means that for every individual component of corporate culture, it was examined what the existing literature suggests to be its relationship to radical invention. For some components, there were only arguments in favour of a focus on the component, which resulted in a five star rating. Nevertheless, most components also included arguments opposed to a focus on the component, which resulted in a lower number of stars. In these cases, the arguments in favour and against were weighted against each other and a conclusion was made on which arguments were stronger, more convincing, and larger in number. This last criteria was developed by calculating the percentage of positive articles and relating this to an amount of stars. For instance, a component that had 85% or more of the articles in favour of a positive influence on radical inventions received four stars. When this percentage was lower than 60% it received three stars and two stars if this percentage was lower than 40%. Based on these ratings, the most important components were found to be agility, collaboration, corporate values that enhance radical invention and corporate guidelines, while execution, corporate philosophy and subcultures were seen as the least important components of corporate culture.
Component of corporate culture Importance (1-5 stars) Possible remarks 1. Agility ★★★★★ 2. Collaboration ★★★★★
3. Customer involvement ★★★★☆ (Lead users) ★★☆☆☆ (Laggards and other customers)
Lead users could be very helpful in the creation of radical inventions, but other customers are not as important
4. Team diversity ★★☆☆☆ (Low diversity) ★★★★☆ (Moderate diversity)
★★☆☆☆ (High diversity)
There is an inverted U-shape in which a moderate level of diversity is prefered
6. Innovation ★★★★☆
7. Integrity ★★★★☆ Important for good collaboration 8. Individual
performance
★★★☆☆ Important to have a good reward-system in place which matches rewards to risk-taking behaviour, after this, not as important to focus on
9. Respect ★★★★☆ Important for good collaboration 10. Corporate philosophy ★★☆☆☆
11. Corporate values ★★★★★ (Values that enhance radical invention) ★★★☆☆ (Other values)
A focus on values that enhance radical inventions, like a customer focus and teamwork are important. A focus on other values is less important
12. Corporate mission ★★★☆☆
13. Corporate principles ★★★★☆ Should influence the roots of radical invention
14. Corporate guidelines ★★★★★ Gives direct orders to individuals and it thus highly effective 15. Corporate history ★★★★☆ Considered to be important, but
dependent on the age of a firm 16. Founder of the
company
★★★☆☆ Can on the one hand work
inspirational, but on the other hand counter-productive if it is not related to radical inventions 17. Country of origin ★★★★☆
18. Subcultures ★★☆☆☆ Only important to notice whether there are multiple subcultures within the R&D department. If so: make conflict as little as possible
Table 4: Components of corporate culture and their level of importance for radical inventions ★☆☆☆☆ → Not important at all and no attention should go to this component.
5. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Key findings
(Kono, 1990). The last component that is considered as less crucial is subcultures. The reason for this is the contradicting literature on this topic, as some researchers suggest a positive influence of subcultures on the creation of radical invention (Hofstede, 1998), whilst others suggest that conflicts will result in a negative influence on the creation of radical inventions (Anheier & Isar, 2007).
These results are in line with the predictions made in the beginning of this article that expected that corporate culture would have a similar positive relation with radical inventions as radical innovations have (Tellis, Prabhu & Chandy, 2009; Chandy and Tellis, 1998; Govindarajan and Kopalle, 2004). Furthermore, this article highlights the importance of corporate culture in the process of creating a competitive advantage (Barney, 1986), as the creation of radical inventions is also associated with creating a competitive advantage (Schumpeter, 1934; Roberts, 2007). Hence, this article fits well within the current literature on these topics.
5.2 Theoretical implications
Theoretically seen, this article tried to give a more complete view on both radical invention and corporate culture. First of all, a complete overview of different components of corporate culture has been given. As there are multiple articles that have tried to distinguish between different components of corporate culture (e.g. Hofstede, 1980; Deshpande & Farley, 1999; Cameron & Quinn, 2006), we attempted to make a model in which all basic, important components of corporate culture are included. These components can be used for similar research, but with a different dependent variable than radical invention. Furthermore, these components can possibly be used as a way to classify organizations, based upon their score on all the components of corporate culture that are given in this article.
Secondly, we now know more about the roots of radical invention as this paper shows that multiple components of corporate culture influence the creation of radical invention. Primarily, agility, collaboration, corporate values that enhance radical invention and corporate guidelines turned out to be of high influence on the creation of radical inventions in organizations. Further research should thus focus on these components as they are considered as the most crucial components that influence radical invention.
