Organizational Constraints on Innovation and Intrapreneurship: Insights from Public Sector

Abstract

Research on organizations has shown that the survival and growth of enterprises in dynamic business environments would depend largely on their ability to promote innovations within their organizations. The innovation process with its various stages of idea conception, development, implementation, and integration to the existing business portfolio is naturally an organizational process which inevitably requires intrapreneurial orientation among the employees. Above all, the entire process calls for an enabling culture and appropriate systems so that employees are motivated to take up intrapreneurial ventures. The aggressive efforts by companies from developed countries for capturing global markets, encouraged by the liberalized economic policies of the Indian government, have drastically changed the business scenario in India and probably the worst affected by such changes are the public sector companies in India. Whether in the private or public sector, companies are faced with only two options: innovate or perish! It is in this context that the present study was undertaken in large public sector corporations in India. The major objective of this study was to identify the organizational constraints against innovations. The best way to understand such issues is to interact with the innovators themselves because it is they who have experienced these constraints. The first step in the methodology, therefore, was to identify a few highly innovative projects from public sector organizations which was done by rating the innovativeness of 162 projects submitted for an innovation award in the petroleum sector. Thirty-one highly innovative cases were thus selected for a detailed study. A qualitative analysis of the cases brought out the following organizational constraints against innovation: Absence of failure-analysis systems (100%) Lack of patenting initiatives (97%) Lack of recognition for innovations in non-core areas (94%) Poor handling of change management (90%) Informal team formation (81%) Low emphasis on dissemination and commercialization (77%) Inadequacy of rewards and recognition (65%) Procedural delays (58%) Poor documentation and maintenance of records (58%) Easy access to foreign technologies (55%) Unclear norms on linking innovations with career growth (48%) Lack of recognition for contributions by support functions (45%) Ambivalent support from the immediate supervisor (39%) Inadequate systems for the promotion and management of ideas (35%) Lack of facility for pilot testing (29%). The study clearly shows that Indian organizations are yet to institute many systems and procedures required for supporting innovations. Although many of these organizations have formal R&D departments/divisions, it appears that R&D without the necessary organizational support is merely a ritual rather than the part of a proactive innovation strategy. R&D facilities and organizational support for innovation are not to be treated as independent arrangements but have to emerge from an overall innovation strategy as complementary systems supporting each other. Absence of such an integrative perspective and strategy seems to be the overarching constraint against innovations in Indian public sector organizations.

Intrapreneurship concepts for engineers: a systematic review of the literature on its theoretical foundations and agenda for future research

“…While in case of failure of innovative effort, intrapreneur will remain part of the same organisation. However, this failure can affect carrier progression (Manimala, Jose, & Thomas, 2006). The role of employee rights in the form of unions and labor laws plays a role in protecting the career of the employee.…”

Innovations Dissemination Approaches among Government Co-Operative Supporting Organisations in Tanzania

“…As a result change management challenge among such organisations including GCSOs is persistent. Manimala et al (2006) emphasised that some meritorious innovations may not be implemented and disseminated partly because of lack of adequate change management strategies on the part of the innovation facilitators. Such fault may be associated with resistance to change as management and staff are used to a particular style of doing their jobs.…”

The Comprehensive Approach for Creativity and Innovation—Enhancement and Sustainability in Social Enterprises

“…These autocratic organizations are more bureaucratic (Manimala, Jose, & Thomas, 2006;Dess et al, 2003) and having very rigid formal structure. The formalization is a form of control employed by bureaucratic organizations, refers to the degree to which a standard body of rules and regulations, procedures and performance instructions are developed to handle decisions and work processing.…”

“…Research and development is considered as the major source of innovations (Manimala, Jose, & Thomas, 2006;Alves et al, 2007). R & D activities not only carried out to develop new product and services but also to improve the systems and process.…”

“…There are always some groups in favor and against of innovations, but when organization at large evaluates the benefits and values to be generated through the innovations which decides the acceptability. There could be thousands of constraint/barriers to innovate but some of the broad barriers are important to know or at least to be aware of various possible constraint/barriers to innovation (Kolaskar, Anand, & Goswami, 2007;Manimala et al, 2006;Dess et al, 2003;Dougherty & Heller, 1994;Hostager et al, 1998;Klein & Sorra, 1996) in an organization are as below  Lack of collaborations with other companies in the same area or related to the area of operations.  Lack of collaborations with Universities, R & D labs, research (Social/Market) institutes.…”