Management Innovation(hereafter, called MI) is broadly defined to be organizational systematically planned change and innovation to respond a variety of environmental changes. Assuming that MI may not achieve its successful implementation in only dependence on a powerful or excellent individual, this study focuses the implementing structure of MI that are various groups and teams which are responsible for initiating and managing MI. The implementing structure of MI (hereafter, called ISMI) has group structure which includes steering committees, support staffs, and action teams.
This study is composed of main research topics, additional topics, and case study. The main topics explore relationships among characteristics and activities of the ISMI and performance of the MI, and investigate that the relationships are different by some contextual and contingent factors (i.e., levels of analysis, types of ISMI, types of MI). The additional topics of this study are as follows: (i) the examination of characteristics and activities of the ISMI affecting the performance in the comprehensive (or radical) type of MI; (ii) the analyses of relationships among characteristics and activities of the ISMI and performance of the MI by the new four types of MI; (iii) the analysis of top management support; and (iv) the analyses of resistance levels and implementing directions. Finally, some cases of the MI implementation of Korean businesses are analyzed.
Thirty-nine hypotheses are generated and tested using data collected from 66 organizations which include 64 organization-level innovations, 96 project- level innovations, and 311 respondents. The four ISMI characteristics studied are professionalism, goal clarity, functional diversity, and position. The three ISMI activities suggested are strategic, managerial, and operational activities. By reliability and validity tests, professionalism is divided into innovative and functional professionalism. Position contains authority, leader position, and reporting level. Strategic activity is also composed of strategic planning and resource allocating. Further, performance of the MI project consists of project efficiency and effectiveness. Other variables of the performance are found to have unidimensional constructs.
Seven streams of the results are indicated. First, successful ISMI is something in common with key characteristics and activities, regardless of the types of ISMI: (i) goal clarity which refers to specific, clear, and shared goals of the ISMI; and (ii) operational activity which includes problem-solving, communication, and conflict-reducing. Further, successful support staffs make their efforts to enhance professional expertise, and successful action teams concentrate their efforts on strengthen strategic planning activity. Second, it is found that relationships among characteristics and activities of the ISMI and performance of the MI are different between the two types of MI, which are classified by the comprehensiveness of innovation targets (i.e., the local and comprehensive type). Although each characteristic or activity has positive effect on performance of MI in the local type, it does not have significant impact in the comprehensive type. However, goal clarity and operational activity have critical impacts on the performance, irrespective of the types of MI.
Third, this study find new four types of the MI classified according to the comprehensiveness of innovation targets and the use of information technologies (IT), which are 'simple improvement type', 'local support type', 'traditional innovation type', and 'total transformation type'. However, it is found that the analyses of relationships among characteristics and activities of the ISMI and performance of the MI by the new four types of MI show similar results with the analyses by the two MI types. Forth, one of the additional analyses is to examine the relationship of top management support to performance of MI. The result shows that top management support has a more significantly positive effect on the performance, in the MI types of the low-level use of IT rather than in the local support and total transformation type.
Fifth, top management support as well as characteristics and activities of the ISMI have significant effects on the performance in the low to middle- level resistance and the top-down direction. Sixth, case study of the eight selected organizations shows some implementation problems of the MI and dynamic changes of the MI types. Success factors of the changes toward the total transformation type are found to be continuous innovation efforts, use of various methods, and high-level use of IT. Finally, this study diagnoses overall problems of the MI implementation and develops future improvement plans, with summing up the current status of MI implementation in Korean businesses, the results of testing hypotheses and of analyzing additional topics, and the finding of case study. Especially, the two effective configurations of ISMI (i.e., close network and full integration) are suggested with the major strengths and potential weakness.
In conclusion, this study is the first attempt to explore successful characteristics and activities of the ISMI, using the comprehensive and contingent approach to consider two levels of analysis (organization and project-level), three types of ISMI (steering committees, support staffs, and action teams), and the types of MI. The findings of this study have some theoretical and practical implications. Finally, this study concludes with some limitations and recommendations for future research.
