Defining Organizational Culture for Entrepreneurs

Abstract

It appears that innovation, and how an organization can acquire it, is the key to being competitive in the New Product Development (NPD) marketplace. Knowledge that leads to innovation in products, unlike specialized scientific knowledge areas (for which there are designated labor markets to exploit the needed skills), is not home grown, is not the focus of any curriculums in our educational institutions, and is not associated with our typical project management processes. An organization must make a deliberate, on-going effort to develop innovation. If organizations can capture lessons learn from NPD experiences, and develop the characteristics that make the NPD projects successful, then the whole organization will have a better competitive posture. Organizations must have senior management that set clear goals and encourage employees to participate in the decision making to be successful on NPD projects. Since all decisions in traditional organizations are made by managers without the input of their employees, it becomes evident why traditional management approaches are not successful on NPD projects, which must be a collaborative effort. To encourage organizational innovation, NPD project success factors such as maintaining effective supplier relationships, tracking the location and capabilities of innovation clusters, maintaining collaboration between marketing and engineering teams, and implementing a progressive organizational structure, should be implemented.

Keywords: NPD, new product development, success factors, innovation, organizational learning, innovation in products, supplier relations, innovation clusters, progressive organizational structures, collaboration, organizational culture

JEL Classification: D81, L10, M13, M14, O31, O32