Innovation and Change

Innovation and Change

Introduction

The change is evolution in the economic, technological, social, political, scientific, administrative, and above all, expectations of man. The change is important because organizations should comply with the requirements of the medium or environment, not to become obsolete and, therefore, inadequate processes enter and disappear. Changes are essential and vital elements of any business for various reasons. Change can be necessary to rectify the failure, any error or cultural decay. Changes will improve everything but it must be planned for its successful implementation.

Innovation is an essential element for any organization in order to survive, grow and significantly influence the direction of any industry. (Uljin 2003) One of the main challenges for an organization that is committed to innovation is to successfully undertake the process of changing to an innovative culture. This task is also spoken of as the challenge of generating an organizational “climate” with the increasing evidence of its positive link to innovation effectiveness (Leavy, 2005). According to Zien & Buckler (2004) successful companies create a culture where everyone participates in innovation and where it is seen as the fundamental way to provide value to customers. Innovation and change is an essential part of any business activity, but only some people recognize its importance and significance. Often, management fails to notice the implication of innovation and change, which becomes the reason of the change failure (Sutton 2001: 94).

This paper will discuss the concepts of innovations and change in an organization in details. Further this paper will highlight resistance to change, change management and leadership's role along with the importance of communication during change and innovation.

Discussion

Innovation

Innovation is the successful application of new ideas, techniques, methods and technologies in order to produce some measure of positive benefit over incumbent concepts. Innovation involves using creativity to produce solutions that differ from the status quo. Joseph Schumpeter highlights the importance of innovation in an organization. According to him, innovation is the key to tangible success in an organization. It is considered that innovation can only be in product features and modernization of the prevalent concept. However, Schumpeter suggested that innovation is not bound only to product development and enhancement if product features. Organizational innovation is not a straightforward linear process and the relationship between an organization's management and its performance on innovation is complex. Managing for innovation is intrinsic to the strategy, positioning and competitiveness of the organization, not additional to an organization's strategy. Innovation stresses the growing need for organizations to proactively address challenges of the future by undertaking radical innovation that will transform their environments. (Hamel 2006) Innovation can certainly be encouraged but cannot be directly created. Research on innovation has found that the most successful innovation is found to be based on strategy, is dependent on effective internal and external linkages and requires enabling mechanisms for making change happen, in a supporting organizational context (Tidd et al., 1997).

Organizational Change

The change is any modification that enables organizations to stay in a temporary space ...