The Role Played by HR in Corporate Culture

Despite organizational culture may be influenced by the events taking place in the exogenous environment, the full accountability for shaping and developing corporate culture should invariably rest with an organization founder and management (Who develops, shapes and controls organizational culture?). The identification of the organizational values and of the type of behaviour individuals should exhibit in the workplace as well as the adoption of a metaphor aptly summarizing, explaining, reinforcing and in many respects linking all of these components together, so as to help individuals to establish a clear line of sight between them, should be in fact invariably regarded as a typical business founder responsibility.

Corporate culture is increasingly assuming a greater importance to employers, who are learning from experience that this cannot be merely considered as a discretionary organizational component, but rather as the founding pillar of organizational strategy, whose pursuance it is essentially intended to support, sustain and ease. Business culture requires hence the constant employer attention and active control in that its unintended derailment might produce irreversible, harmful effects on the execution of an organization strategy and ultimately upon the business stability.

Corporate culture, nonetheless, is not only exposed to the pressure coming from the exogenous environment, but it is indeed also sorely subject to the effects produced by the occurrences taking place in the endogenous environment. Amongst these, particularly detrimental to an organization may prove to be the deliberate or inadvertent employee attempt to alter or reinterpret the culture fostered by the business founder. This circumstance is likely to occur when a business founder leaves the organization and when the management diverts its attention away from the importance of consistently and continually fostering the culture originally developed and nourished by the business founder.

The executives and managers of an organization should be particularly cautious and vigilant from this point of view and should do whatever they can to prevent employees from influencing corporate culture, whether their reinterpretation or redefinition may threaten to derail the founder original vision and spirit. This may prove to be a definitely daunting feat to perform in that this employee initiative may be actually triggered by the business management incapability to firmly, convincingly and consistently foster and sustain, for a wide range of reasons, the existing culture. Yet, in some instances, managers might not become aware of the problem until it may be too late, let alone to resolve it once clearly emerged.

The role of HR

The first question to ask is whether HR actually has a role in corporate culture. Since culture is essentially concerned with the organizational values, shared beliefs, individual behaviour and the norms stemming from these, which definitely affect individuals at large, and HR is essentially concerned with people, it can be contended that HR unquestionably has a role to play in corporate culture.

This role, notwithstanding, should not be intended in the sense that HR should be fully involved in the definition and identification of the right or most suitable culture in that, as discussed earlier, this should be indeed invariably regarded as a specific founder duty. Being in charge of the development of human capital management practices and in its strategic advisory role, HR is in a commanding position to competently support an organization founder in developing his/her vision and translate this into corporate culture, but can hardly act as a substitute for the founder in this instance.

Taking heed of the circumstance that culture supports strategy execution, to which this should be hence strictly interrelated, it may be argued that corporate culture is somewhat of in between strategy execution and human capital management. It essentially contains the guiding principles for employers to attain competitive advantage over their competitors building on their most valuable resource, that is to say human capital. As such, corporate culture aims at fostering the behaviour which the employer considers as the most appropriate to achieve competitive edge and hence at developing the organization distinctive approach to “the way we do things around here.”

It can be hardly believed that an organization may achieve competitive advantage whether its management does not foster a corporate culture enabling the business to effectually execute its strategy. The success attained by the organization will contribute in turn to reinforce the individual belief that the behaviour endorsed by the management essentially represents a recipe for success. HR should thus, first and foremost, support the organization management so as to ensure that each manager properly fulfils his/her duty (Table 1 – The role of HR in Corporate Culture).

Table 1 – The role of HR in Corporate Culture

The role of HR is hence that to support managers in fostering the “official” corporate culture and avert that this may be reinterpreted or altered in any way by employees or by the business management itself. Whereas HR does not play a particularly significant, if any, role in culture development, it should play a remarkable role in ensuring that the business culture is correctly fostered and implemented within the organizational premises. The role of HR is hence to ensure and secure that the culture developed by the founder becomes and is perceived as strong by all of the employees.

Managers clearly play a remarkable role in the consistent enactment of a business culture and need hence to be supported by HR during the accomplishment of this particularly significant task. Newly appointed managers, especially whether recruited from the external environment, should be properly and thoroughly informed about the business culture’s features and implications. The role of HR can be regarded to this extent as that of the guarantor of an organization culture and of its consistent and proper enactment.

The responsibility of HR, notwithstanding, cannot be limited to secure that a business management appropriately fosters the culture developed by the founder; neither can be it intended as an exclusively advisory capacity. To be regarded as strong and genuinely shared by all the employees, irrespective of the beliefs and values underpinning this, corporate culture needs to be pervasive and reflected in every organizational component and aspect. Whether individuals are put in a position to identify and recognize their company culture in all of the aspects of their day-to-day activities, insofar as to establish a clear line of sight between the rhetoric and practice of their company culture, these are likely to genuinely embrace and support this.

The most important role of HR is therefore that to ensure and secure that the tenets and ideas underpinning organizational culture are properly and visibly reflected in the organization human capital practices. In many important respects, the development of HR policies underpinned by the values put at the basis of organizational culture will also enable organizations to foster consistency and integrity within the organizational settings and provide employees clear evidence that their employer actually talks the talk.

The set of behavioural norms stemming from corporate culture are typically unwritten; with the passing of time individuals might thus lose sight of the original tenets put at the basis of corporate culture, whether these are not identifiable and recognizable in all the aspects characterizing their daily working life. Human capital policies clearly inspired by corporate culture enable individuals to constantly identify the link existing between corporate culture and organizational success and in many respects help employers to translate into written norms this type of norms, which are by nature typically unwritten. Irrespective of their personal appreciation of these norms, individuals will be able to understand that the employer is expected them to behave in a given way in order for the organization to attain the desired level of performance and yield the desired results.

Appropriately and timely reflecting organizational culture and its changes on HR policies enables employers to attain two significant objectives at once: promote consistency and integrity, and favour visibility of corporate values and beliefs.

As discussed above, nonetheless, corporate culture can be hardly regarded as a stable organizational component; in contrast, it is highly likely that this evolves and changes over time. Some of the changes taking place in the exogenous environment, which may affect an organization culture, might sometimes gone unnoticed at board level, but this should never ever happen at HR level. HR needs to be extremely vigilant in this sense and immediately detect the extent of the impact that a change taking place in the external environment may potentially have on organizational culture and thus on human capital practices, and assess whether this change might in some ways affect organizational climate and performance.

Despite the role of HR is not that of developing corporate culture, this may play a role in shaping and moulding it by supporting the employer when some amendments or adjustments are required. According to its scale, a required change in corporate culture is clearly likely to make an impact on individuals; assessing and estimating the seriousness of this impact as early as possible is absolutely important to timely develop the appropriate plan of action enabling the employer to resist the restraining forces to its implementation eventually arising. Yet, some changes might also make a direct, remarkable impact on HR policies, which accounts for this assessment gaining further and considerable significance. The role of HR in corporate culture, under these circumstances, is hence sorely critical.

Whereas more often than not the advisory role of HR in corporate culture is limited to suggesting employers how to transform their vision into corporate culture, under some circumstances, to wit: when corporate culture needs to be amended and adjusted to suit the changed circumstances, the role of HR may become more important, insofar as this to propose employers which changes introduce to corporate culture. The role of HR will still clearly continue to be an exclusively advisory role, but would gain more significance in this case by reason of HR being in a position to propose employers likely effective options in that being able to immediately envisage the likely effects and consequences eventually produced by the anticipated change.

For more pervasive the role of HR in organizational culture might in these instances be the final responsibility and thus decision will invariably rest with the business founder. Under no circumstances an employer might convincingly and credibly embrace and foster a culture this does not totally approve and feel to be fully part of his/her frame of reference. For employers, it is not indeed just a matter of rhetoric, but rather of practically behaving so as to provide day after day employees an inspiring example.

Employers’ request for HR support clearly depends on the credibility, professionalism and strategic contribution HR has been capable to respectively gain, show and make over time. The more effectual and efficacious HR support has proved to be, the more willingly employer will accept HR contribution in this delicate subject. Corporate culture definitely represents a dramatically important organizational feature, which can make or break the effective execution of organizational strategy; it is unlikely that employers might hence accept to talk about this aspect with HR, whether this has not previously shown to fully have the standing, capability and expertise to effectively and properly support the employer in dealing with this subject. After all, it is also unlikely that any other organizational function within a company might have this capability and expertise so that HR should undoubtedly ensure employers to have an overarching knowledge of corporate culture and of all the effects and side effects its changes can potentially entail.

Longo, R., (2015), The role played by HR in corporate culture; Milan: HR Professionals.

How corporate culture supports strategy execution

It is an axiomatic fact that strategy execution and corporate culture play a remarkable role in the attainment of organizational success. From the chronological point of view, it can be argued that the significance of corporate culture emerges in between strategy formulation and strategy execution. Organizational strategy can be in fact properly developed on paper, but whether this is not also appropriately executed with great or sufficient precision it is hardly imaginable that an employer might ever be able to successfully point in the right direction and achieve its scope, that is to say successfully pursue its intended strategy. The most effective and appropriate KPI to asses corporate culture can be hence identified with its capability to support organizational strategy and more in particular its consistent and successful execution.

 Table 1

The values, beliefs, behaviour and “the way we do things around here” fostered within a business by an employer in that considered crucial to the attainment of its objectives clearly vary from organization to organization. The fact each company has a different corporate culture peculiar to this and only this should indeed represent the distinctive characteristic of each organization, somewhat of its DNA. In the unlikely event of two or more organizations fostering exactly the same type of culture, nonetheless, even remarkable differences between these are likely to emerge by reason of its different execution.

It can be very pragmatically concluded that the efficacy of corporate culture sorely depends on how helpful and supportive this proves to be of strategy execution. To be deemed appropriate and coherent with the employer’s wants and expectations an organization’s culture essentially needs to ease and favour the effectual strategy implementation process.

Every business founder concentrates and focuses his/her efforts on fostering and promoting a type of culture peculiar to his/her organization so as to enabling this to achieve competitive advantage. Notwithstanding, it can be identified some features and components, which whether properly underpin corporate culture, should contribute to considerably increase employers chances to successfully implement their strategy.

Table 2

Readiness to change

The speed change occurs in the exogenous environment habitually requires employers to introduce changes into their organizations at the same pace. The fact that employees may oppose and resist change, albeit this is necessary for their organization to stay afloat and remain competitive in the relevant market, and the delay in its implementation this habitually entails are likely to have a remarkably negative impact on strategy implementation.

Individual readiness to change should be hence considered as one of the main underpinning pillars of corporate culture and should be invariably inspired by concepts like dynamism, energy, adaptability and innovation. The metaphor of the organization as a chameleon might prove to be effective to properly convey the message. This species of lizards has adapted to live in trees and developed the ability to change the colour of their skin to match their surroundings and escape predators’ attention (though this theory has been relatively recently opposed by some scientists who sustain that the change of the colour of their skin is rather used by these reptiles to communicate and control their body temperature). Since for modern organizations gaining and maintaining competitive edge is crucially important, as chameleons these should aim at constantly growing throughout their lives. Being informed of what occurs in the external environment and about their competitors’ moves is clearly of pivotal importance, too; as chameleons, hence, organizations should be able to simultaneously look at two different directions with a 360-degree view and promptly focus on what they see.

Organizational culture cannot and should be not, nonetheless, only based on a defensive and adaptive approach; employers should attach great importance to their employee capability to come up with new ideas, develop new approaches and anticipate future trends, and should thus encourage everyone within the business to contribute in this sense. Innovation must be hence invariably regarded by employers as an additional important pillar of their organization culture; the most appropriate metaphor organizations can use to convey the message might hence be that of the innovative chameleon.

Clarify and spell out the intended objectives

Individuals are habitually willing and in many respects keen to accept and genuinely embrace change whether these understand and recognize the need for its introduction and the benefits it is intended to bring. Making clear what the reasons for change are and why this is actually necessary for the organization to maintain or expand its presence in the market would clearly help an employer to gain its employees’ support and active participation during the processes of change and strategy execution.

The direction identified by a company should enable this and its people to achieve success and in turn secure employees job stability. The circumstance strategy is implemented and change is eventually introduced to support the process, essentially with the aim of deriving a benefit to the organization, regardless of which this might be, has to be clearly outlined and explained to employees from the outset. It is indeed absolutely necessary that these become fully aware of the positive implications associated with the introduction of change and of how significant their support is in order for their employer to successfully pursue its intended strategy.

Employers must invariably avert talking the talk and do not walking the walk; employees would sooner or later find out whether these have supported their decisions with deceitful arguments and should such circumstance occur the consequences would definitely be disastrous and more often than not irreversible. First and foremost, employers need to gain their employees trust and confidence, which can definitely be regarded as a key prerequisite to establish an effective communication channel with individuals. Openness, transparency and trust should be thus invariably considered as features strongly characterizing corporate culture, but clearly not exclusively “on paper.”

Communications

Communication is of paramount importance more than usual; it essentially represents the only means enabling employers to provide employees a clear-sighted vision. All of the individuals composing the employee population need to have crystal clear ideas of the strategy identified by their employer, should gain a good understanding of how it can enable the organization to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage and thus genuinely back this. The establishment of an open, two-way communication channel can clearly facilitate the process.

Corporate culture, consistently with the aim of inspiring, building up and winning employee confidence and trust, should promote a transparent, honest communication ensuring employees to have their say. The aim of communications should not be hence limited to unveil and share with all the employees the plan of action developed by the employer, but should rather aim at enabling the employer to involve and bring on board all of its employees. Corporate culture should encourage employee continuous contribution and active participation, and encourage employees to continuously come up with and suggest new ideas.

Every individual should feel to be active part of the process and commit his/her contribution to the overall outcome produced by the organization as a whole.

Learning

In order for employees to actively become part of the process these have to be first and foremost put in a position to effectively contribute to organizational success. Involving in the pursuance of organizational strategy individuals who do not have the skills and capabilities required, would clearly produce counterproductive effects. Inasmuch as corporate culture needs to foster individual participation, commitment and contribution to organizational success, this has to encourage individual learning. Employers should thus invariably ensure and secure their employees to have access to the programmes enabling them to gain and expand the capabilities and knowledge necessary to effectually play their role.

A skilled employee population may indeed help employers to reverse the trend in terms of change in that knowledgeable and capable individuals may actually come up with new, ingenious ideas anticipating external pressures and proposing change from within. This circumstance would certainly be ideal, change would not be in fact imposed by others, but proposed by employees, which would thus perfectly know the benefits associated with its introduction and would instantly and naturally become change advocates.

The same result in terms of employee participation should be indeed ideally achieved also in those circumstances in which change is proposed by employers by reason of the pressure exerted by the exogenous environment. Involving employees in the project from the outset and establishing an appropriate two-way communication channel should definitely help employers to successfully perform the feat.

Reward

It can be contended that the old saying “money talks” still definitely holds true. Irrespective of the awareness managers may or may not have, the decisions they make in terms of reward clearly communicate and convey a precise message to employees, a message which individuals more often than not receive clearly and promptly. Whether corporate culture fosters individual participation and involvement, and some individuals behave as desired by the employer and yield the expected results, these need to be openly recognized. The introduction of this mechanism not only reinforces the importance of concepts like consistency and integrity within the business, but may also help employers to sustain and consolidate corporate culture and the tenets underpinning this.

Organizational culture should obviously foster individual commitment and participation, but it should also promote at the same time the employer willingness and readiness to recognize those who support the business in its quest to pursue its intended strategy and attain the desired objectives.

HRM Model

Consistency should be showed at all the organizational levels and layers, corporate culture should be thus consistent also with the HRM model adopted by the employer. It is not indeed just a matter of consistency; the HR management model underpinning the organization human capital practices should also noticeably support and sustain a company culture in that this is also essentially concerned with favouring and easing the attainment of the employer desired objectives.

Management commitment

Individuals will never commit to support their employer and let alone try to go the extra mile whether the organization management does not lead by example. The management commitment has hence to be gained from the very beginning and has to be sorely visible.

The role played by mangers in developing and shaping organizational culture is clearly much more than simply considerable. They have the responsibility to provide employees with a vision, support individuals during their working activities and make decisions about individual growth and hence future.

Mangers can definitely make or break corporate culture so that before appointing a new manager employers should definitely ensure that these have what it takes to properly perform their role and genuinely and truly support the organization strategy and culture. The findings of many studies reveal that bad management is indeed one of the most recurring causes for employees leaving their organization. Notwithstanding, managers are appointed by employers so that the responsibility for individuals leaving their organization ultimately rests with them. The circumstance an organization appoints the wrong person to fill the wrong position has to be essentially regarded as an employer blunder and whether after having made such a huge mistake employers do not take appropriate action it is likely that these will be called to pay for it anytime soon.

***

The great significance of organizational culture for strategy implementation and thus organizational success can be taken as axiomatic. The type of culture fostered by a company founder should be first of all consistent with and peculiar to the specific type of strategy this intends to pursue, the objectives this aims at attaining and the behaviour this expects individuals to exhibit. Nonetheless, employers should invariably shape and develop their businesses culture taking heed of some core, founding pillars such as readiness to change, flexibility, innovation, learning, recognition and open communication. On top of these components business founders, with the help of the organization management, should identify the other values and beliefs which they consider important to gain and maintain competitive advantage over their competitors.

Longo, R., (2015), How corporate culture supports strategy execution; Milan: HR Professionals.

Advancing a model for innovation pervading corporate culture

It is an axiomatic fact that corporate culture is at the heart of every organization and that the fortune and misfortune of every business is, at least in part, invariably depending on this organizational feature. The ruthless competition nowadays characterizing every market and the need for employers to constantly come up with new, brilliant, viable ideas to be subsequently transformed into something practically contributing to a business competitive edge, account for innovation being increasingly considered by every firm as a significant, critical value.

The most effective means employers can have recourse to in order to elicit employee contribution and participation to the endless process of generating new, creative ideas, by reason of the remarkable influence it exerts on individual behaviour, is that to embed innovation into organizational culture (Embedding innovation into organizational culture).

To be successful and attain in practice this ambitious and demanding objective, organizations have to carefully investigate and identify the most appropriate and effective plan of action. Nonetheless, the desired aim can be attained only whether all of the parties involved, that is, the employer, managers and employees will all contribute to and take actively part in the process. Organizations have to therefore first and foremost secure their management dauntless, truly commitment to the project; hence, with its help, that of the entire staff.

Table 1

The Employer’s role

To elicit innovation in the workplace the first activity, directly in charge of the employer, is concerned with ensuring that all of the employees have the right attitude and knowledge necessary to put forward new, significant ideas. To achieve this objective organizations have to actually adopt two different, parallel initiatives: one directed at the new hires and the other one at the existing employees. These activities are clearly intended to respectively adapt and redress the organization recruitment and learning practices.

Recruitment

In order to ensure that newcomers fit a business culture underpinned by innovation the HR function must, amongst the other things, investigate whether candidates have the required attitude and hopefully skills. Recruitment specialists should hence assess whether individuals have “creativity characteristics”, that is to say some specific “personality traits like intelligence, knowledge, risk taking, inquisitiveness, energy” (Martins and Terblanche, 2003) and imagination, and are truly open to continuous learning and frequent change.

At this stage, recruiters have to put particular emphasis on assessing candidate attitude, rather than current skills; whilst skills and capabilities can be in fact trained and gained, changing someone’s attitude definitely represents a far trickier feat.

Since innovation is very much associated with problem solving too, recruiters should also explore whether candidates have a keen interest towards this specific activity, which is habitually coupled with the attitude to overcome obstacles and problems (Price, 2007).

Diversity

An additional significant objective which can be achieved by means of recruitment is securing the business a diversified employee population. Diversity is broadly considered as a powerful driver of innovation on its own in that people with a different background and experience can not only contribute new perspectives and ideas, but also favour the activation of processes prompting all the members of a group to come up with new creative and innovative ideas (Bresnahan 199, Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998, cited by Martins and Terblanche, 2003).

To this respect, Paletz et al (2014) warn about the different effects that a multicultural environment can potentially produce upon individual creativity. Social relationships within a multicultural environment can in fact potentially either trigger conflict, preventing thus individuals to think in an innovative and creative way or support the process and help participants to yield better results. The significance ascribed to cultural differences can thus make or break innovation and creativity in the workplace according to the circumstance that this is perceived as a likely cause for conflict and hence as a threat or as an enriching positive value.

Conflict can and to some extent has to arise; notwithstanding, this has not to be perceived as divisive and threatening individual diversity and freedom, but rather as an effective means to the innovation and creativity end. Diversity has to be fostered by employers within the organizational settings as an unquestionable value and, enabling social relationships amongst individuals of different backgrounds, as a powerful way of generating brilliant innovative ideas.

Employees need to genuinely embrace the idea that conflict, whether properly expressed and managed, can ease social relations and creativity; differently, individuals will be caught in the trap of the groupthink syndrome. The risk is not only that individual creativity may be stifled, but that even though employees may come up with genuinely good and viable innovative ideas, these would refrain to express them for fear of proposing something which might not be appreciated by the rest of the team or, more in general, not meeting the expectations of the other members of the group.

Employers, managers and HR must definitely foster diversity and multiculturalism in the workplace as a significant organizational value and as an effectual means to elicit innovative ideas.

Learning

Inasmuch as employers have to ensure that new hires fit their corporate culture and have the distinctive, necessary traits required to contribute innovative ideas, businesses should also do whatever they can to enhance their current staff ability to generate new, creative suggestions. Innovation is by no means an abstract intangible concept, ideas have to be subsequently transformed into viable sustainable projects leading to new products, services, processes, procedures or problem solving techniques, which need to have a practical application at reasonable costs. Innovation is thus definitely about an extremely challenging feat. Creativity, imagination and to some extent fantasy are required, but in order to employees being able to judge the practical use and sustainability of their ideas, it can be averred, knowledge will never be enough. To develop and boost individual contribution to innovation learning is therefore clearly of paramount importance.

Employers fostering a learning organization’s culture should find it fairly easier supporting organizational culture with innovation. The development of this type of culture, as for instance proposed by Gephart (1996), entails in fact the preparation and execution of a plan of action essentially based on some of the elements typical of an innovation culture such as: openness, trust, support, reward, experimentation and risk taking.

Continuous learning should definitely be at the basis of every innovation culture. Notwithstanding, learning has not to be intended as a means exclusively aiming at enabling employees to acquire technical and specialist knowledge. Gaining creative thinking abilities is clearly extremely important too as well as fostering an inquisitive approach and favouring relations amongst staff and between clients and staff in order for these to learn from the others (Martins and Terblanche, 2003).



Since long-lasting learning is mostly gained by individuals by means of direct experience and the practical application of what has been learned in theory, employers should invariably make extra efforts to offer employees as many opportunities they can for these gaining additional skills, expand their capabilities and use these in practice (Price, 2007). This objective can be indeed attained in many ways, the easier and possibly most effective being represented by offering individuals opportunities for internal and, whether applicable, international mobility.

Individuals coming from a different organizational area or unit can see and analyse a new role from a different perspective and could instinctively come up with new brilliant ideas aiming, for instance, at improving internal processes and procedures and solving the specific problems associated with doing a particular job. The worst comes to the worst it will enable individuals to gain a clear understanding of the activities performed in the other units of the organization.

By enabling individuals to fill a different position for any given length of time, internal mobility can prove to be an effective means to enable employees gaining additional skills and capabilities whilst expanding their expertise. Yet, offering individuals such opportunities may also effectively help employers to meet employees’ expectations as developed by these on the basis of their psychological contract. Gaining new competencies and expanding the personal background is indeed nowadays considered by a growing number of individuals as a particularly significant caveat of their unwritten psychological contract.

Horizontal and short vertical assignments can clearly effectually contribute to expand and develop individual capabilities, but can at the same time enable employers to test employee attitude towards new roles, higher degrees of autonomy and leadership.

Despite individual expectations are based on the assumption that the more they know, the more marketable they essentially are, on the other hand widening their field of expertise make feel individuals to be perceived, as it is, as more important by their current employer, too. It could hence be concluded that for employees marketability can be invariably coupled with job stability, irrespective of the specific identification of the employer: present or prospect.

Cooperative teamwork

Without a doubt, producing new ideas can be regarded as a difficult process entailing remarkable efforts and a broad knowledge. Assessing whether an idea can have viable practical applications can also require a wide range of specialist and technical expertise. Teamwork can hence show to be the most suitable approach to boost innovation. Individuals with different background, knowledge and expertise, by means of the synergy they can yield brainstorming and working together, can clearly achieve more positive and remarkable results than those produced by each of them working in isolation, by reason of the limited knowledge and vision some of them might have of the practical uses of a new technology or idea.

Cross-functional teams which favour specialist and social relations between the people in charge of developing new ideas and those who will execute these, can effectually support employers in leveraging innovation and ensure a more reliable and valuable output (Tushman and O’Reilly, 1997).

Freedom and autonomy

The process of eliciting creative, innovative ideas can be activated only by letting individuals feel that their employer really trusts them and gives them the necessary degree of latitude. Rather than posing and imposing restraints hence employers should favour individual empowerment and let employees make decisions about the means they deem appropriate to attain the pre-identified, pre-agreed objectives. This process is defined by Judge et al (1997) as the “chaos within the guidelines.” Individuals are given a high degree of freedom, but these have to perform their activities and adopt the approaches and procedures they consider suitable to attain the final purpose according to the guidelines previously agreed with their managers.

Excess of rigidity, nevertheless, could show to be a barrier to success so that in the event individuals working on a project should consider necessary and beneficial adopting a different approach, these should submit their case to the relevant manager and gain his/her approval before implementing the different method.

Arad et al (1997) identified the existence of a distinctive link between autonomy, freedom, empowerment and innovation. It could be described as somewhat of a virtuous circle: individual autonomy in decision-making generates people empowerment, which in turn ultimately positively influences employee capability to contribute innovative ideas. Yet, in order to favour employee ownership of the innovation process, in some organizations individuals proposing new ideas are automatically appointed as the project manager of the innovation team and are given the latitude to choose the members of the project team.

Tushman and O’Reilly (1997) maintain that the speed decisions are made impacts employee contribution to innovation in the workplace. In this case, however, the pace decisions are made does not relate to the process of generating new, creative ideas, but rather to their implementation. In order to effectually foster and favour innovation the decisions about a new project have to be made quickly and the actions identified to attain the practical result executed as promptly as possible.

Whether individuals can see a clear line of sight between their propositions and the final results yielded by their implementation these can find further motivation to contribute new ideas, whereas employers keep momentum.

Competitiveness

Teamwork, autonomy and freedom can clearly contribute to increase the degree of internal competition. Every individual within any given team might tend to stand out from the rest of the group to show his/her ability and skills. A high degree of competitiveness can indeed arise also when different groups work simultaneously in projects having the same or similar final aims. Internal competition might be a priori negatively perceived by employers, but it has not to be; whether properly managed, competition can in fact effectively favour and support innovation.

Findings of a research carried out by Nÿstrom (1990) revealed that in many innovative business departments competition is perceived and deemed as a significant and distinctive value of organizational culture. This is essentially due to the circumstance that competitiveness, or rather, constructive competition ultimately leads to an increased level of knowledge. Individuals who want to shine within a group gather as much information as they can both in the endogenous and exogenous environment, hopefully generating an expanding-knowledge-related knock-on effect. During the group meetings, the level of conversation is thus likely to increase, making employees progressively feel the more and more incline and comfortable to openly share information and ideas.

Ability to manage conflict constructively

Inasmuch as competition can definitely boost innovation, whether improperly managed it can seriously hamper it and jeopardize the efforts made by an employer to this end.

Managers’ ability to effectually and constructively handle conflicts is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, this ability is not exclusively required in order to control the possible negative effects produced by competitiveness. Many of the features necessary to support and foster innovation in the workplace are in fact prone to generate internal conflicts: diversity, multiculturalism, teamwork and the possibly limited resources which can be made available by an employer can all account for conflict to emerge. Notwithstanding, this has not to be perceived as a negative aspect as long as managers are able to control conflict in order for this to be a source itself of new, innovative ideas and contribute to stimulate individuals debate and creativity.

The composition of a group which should hopefully allow for people of different background, expertise and education working together, can easily lead and should indeed hopefully lead, to divergences and different viewpoints, which can sometime be the fruit of the analysis, assessment and interpretation of the same information from different individuals. The problem is by no means associated with the activation of this process, but rather with the how it has to be managed to the benefit of innovation. As averred by Martins and Terblanche (2003), it is crucially important to understand the different individuals’ way of thinking and offer employees training sessions in “constructive confrontation.”

Risk Taking

Innovate and ensure that a new idea can be converted, at a reasonable cost, into something practically significant and valuable clearly entails taking some risks. It is indeed hardly believable that innovation might ever be pursued, and let alone achieved, averting risks and experimentation, which are indeed an intrinsic part of innovation.

Whether employers want to effectually foster innovation and creativity these have to encourage research and testing and consequently allow individuals to experiment and take some risks. An organization management should never exercise a strict and tight control on employees since this will unquestionably hamper rather than enhance innovation.

A clear limit should however be drawn and the business management should invariably watching, with discretion, that this line will never be crossed. According to Filipczak (1997), warning employees that risks can be taken only provided that these do not damage the business, might hinder innovation and contribute to refrain employees from being creative. Though employers’ pursuance of innovation necessary entails the acceptance of the side effects and risks eventually associated with this, it cannot be overlooked that the main aim and objective employers want to attain by fostering innovation is gaining competitive edge and not jeopardizing the business stability and reputation. Individuals can and have to be encouraged to take risks but in a controlled, rather than in an uncontrolled way. Managers must not exercise strict controls over individuals, but should at the same time ensure that in every instance the level of risk taken by individuals is acceptable according to the risk management practices (appetite and tolerance thresholds) implemented within the organization.

Tolerance of Mistakes

Testing, experimenting and risk-taking are intended to produce good and positive results hopefully in the first instance. However, it is possible and under some circumstances also likely, that something might go wrong. Mistakes, miscalculations and faults can clearly always occur; once again, what matters is that these are eventually properly managed and addressed.

Employees need to feel at ease when testing and experimenting the effects of their suggestions. Innovating is everything but a straightforward process so that mistakes have not to be intended and used as a means to punish employees, but rather as a valuable learning experience. To some extent, it can be even argued that faults may be considered as a means to an end, it is in fact learning by mistakes that ideas can be improved and the final purpose fulfilled.

Since mistakes can be related to many aspects and phases of the innovation process, these should hopefully be differently grouped and the actions taken to overcome these recorded into a lesson learned book, which could be used by the same group and other groups within the business for future reference.

Efforts, Resources and Time

Researching, experimenting and testing in order to ultimately coming up with creative, feasible, innovative ideas definitely require efforts, resources and time. Employees need to regularly have the possibility to concentrate and focus on these activities, but these can do it whether and only whether the employer gives them the required resources and time. In many innovative organizations employees can regularly devote a fraction of their time, usually 10 to 15 per cent, to the development and implementation of their ideas.

Filipczak (1997) claims that employers’ focus on downsizing and productivity can jeopardize innovation by reason of the increased level of pressure employees would be forced to bear and the hard work the existence of these circumstances usually entails. Whereas it is glaringly evident that employees would not be put in a position to contribute any innovative ideas whether prompted to only focus on their daily activities by reason of downsizing, it can be considered rather questionable the circumstance that innovation should be introduced to the detriment of productivity.

Innovation should invariably hamper neither productivity nor quality, nor should it expose employers to risks these might not be prepared and willing to accept. Despite under some circumstances organizations activate downsizing initiatives in order to favour productivity, these could also decide to renounce to execute downsizing plans in favour of innovation and to maintain current productivity. More in general, the decisions about staff rightsizing should be made in order to support innovation and at worst preserve productivity, but not to the detriment of this. In any case employers might be prompted to face a cost, but whether this should enable them to introduce innovative ideas and keep unaltered their productivity level these should better opt to hang it.

Time is definitely important but employees clearly also need the tools and the necessary spaces where to meet and work, also practically, to develop and implement their plans.

Reward and Recognition

Whereas failure has to be used as a valuable learning experience, success has to be properly celebrated. Albeit leading to two different results failure and success can be indeed both considered as a valuable learning experience. Whilst employees who have failed need to be supported and helped to find solutions to overcome problems and avoid future negative outcome, individuals who have actively and successfully contributed to the development of innovative ideas need to be properly rewarded. Nonetheless, this does not really mean that the individuals, who have actively contributed to innovation though not directly yielding immediate positive results, might not be rewarded, too. This should eventually not be tantamount to rewarding for failure, but should rather be regarded as a way to keep gaining momentum and provide stimulus to enthusiastic individuals, keen and eager to actively contribute to the innovation crusade.

Reward practices are actually introduced by employers to support their business and foster the desired behaviour. Organizations essentially foster innovation to pursue organizational strategy and ultimately gain competitive advantage; rewarding and recognizing individuals who have contributed to the attainment of this end by developing new ideas is consequently sorely appropriate and consistent with the intended objective. What matters is that the worthiness of the award is proportionate to the significance of the contribution made by each individual or group and that successes and contributors are respectively properly celebrated and gain visibility within the firm.

The management role

The role of managers is clearly paramount insofar as it can be averred that managers’ attitude to innovation represents the most decisive factor for the successful implementation of an innovation culture within a business (Reed, 2009). As claimed by Tushman and O’Reilly (1997), organizations whose managers actively support an innovation corporate culture have indeed stronger cultures. Management support to innovation has to be intended in the sense of acknowledging and accepting ownership for innovation. Whether managers do not accept this ownership, all the projects aiming at introducing and developing innovation are in fact drastically destined to end in miserable, total failure.

The role of managers is indeed crucially important throughout the process. Not only managers have to take ownership of the process, but these also have to support, advice and tutor the employees along the process. Managers must inspire individuals providing them a clear vision and eliciting individual inward, self-motivation.

One of the most important aspects which managers have to be ready to handle from the outset is that associated with the decisions they have to make in terms of reward and recognition. Whether employers want organizational culture to be underpinned by innovation, these have to reward people contributing to the process; as suggested by Arad et al (1997), whether innovation is rewarded, innovation will became firm part of individual behaviour.

Whereas success and not failure has to be celebrated, the situation is different as for regards reward. As discussed earlier, managers should propose reward and recognition measures for people who have produced successful ideas, but also in favour of those who have devoted efforts to test, experiment and implement ideas whose final stage of the process did not produced the expected positive outcome (Shattow, 1996 and Kanter, 1983).

As for the means and approaches to have recourse to in order to reward people, managers should refer to the reward practices existing within the business as possibly amended and updated in the light of the quest for innovation commenced in the organization.

Communication

Communication is of paramount importance as usual. Notwithstanding, in this instance communication is not only intended as a means to connect employers to employees, but first and foremost as a means to connect employees, managers and the different areas and units of an organization the one with the others (Frohman and Pascarella, 1990; Kirkpatrick, 1995; Shattow, 1996 and Filipczak, 1997). It goes without saying that also in this case the contribution of the business management is of remarkable significance; management “open doors” are in fact crucial to foster innovation (Bresnahan, 1997).

Since the mechanism behind innovation might be complex and not invariably obvious, face-to-face should represent the preferred approach to communication (Ahmed, 1998). Managers have to favour this process creating occasions when people can exchange information and experiences, and debate about their plans and expected results.

An open communication channel between employees and managers can only be activated whether this is built and consolidated on mutual trust. As discussed earlier, disagreement and conflict may invariably be around the corner; however, this has not only be accepted but also exploited as an additional leverage to innovation. As maintained by Martins and Terblanche (2003), by enabling individuals to expose dilemmas and paradoxes, disagreement can indeed help individuals to foster open communication and ultimately favour reciprocal trust.

A three-stage process

The introduction and development of an innovation culture essentially entails the unfolding of a constant, continuous process. Pandey and Sharma (2009) divide the process into two main stages: development and implementation.

The first phase of the process is concerned with research and investigation; it is hence devoted to the identification of viable alternatives to current products and procedures and is as such very much associated with discovery and risk taking. The second stage is concerned with the practical realization of the innovative products and the implementation of the new procedures designed during the first stage. It essentially aims at developing in practice what was previously planned in theory. During this phase, ideas are tested, refined and executed again until the final outcome can be deemed satisfactory and meeting the initial expectations.

This two-phase approach is actually most closely and strictly related to the pure and to some extent technical innovation process. In order to consider it as a comprehensive overarching process to which employers can have recourse to in order to introduce, achieve and execute an innovation culture it should also be introduced an additional pre-stage, that is to say preparation.

Before activating the process, it is necessary to ensure that all of the employees would welcome and are ready for it, and that the organizational settings have been appropriately prepared and equipped to favour its unfolding. Since, as largely discussed earlier, it is part of the process, for instance, giving individuals the time to focus on innovation and work on innovation-related projects as well as reward individuals for their contribution to innovation, employers should also consider reviewing and amending their internal policies as appropriate before officially launching any specific initiatives.

Table 2

Omitting this stage would mean taking it as an axiomatic fact that corporate culture is already favouring and supporting innovation, whereas this may not invariably be the case (or could hardly be the case). Taking as a reference the saying habitually used before the start of a race “ready, steady, go!”, neglecting this additional stage would be like jumping to the “steady” and “go” elements of the saying, skipping the “ready” stage. The “ready” phase of the process should be entirely devoted to the review of the recruitment and selection practices, or rather, of these and of all the other relevant polices. During the preparation phase, the employer should ensure that everything is ready for individuals to concentrate on innovation in terms of the fundamentals included in the model proposed in Table 1.

The innovation culture paradigm

Innovation can be clearly fostered more easily in some firms, rather than in others. Organizations where corporate culture supports competitiveness, employee readiness to change, open communication and the learning organization model there clearly is a higher degree of readiness, and thus better chances to successfully foster and promote innovation.

Change never represents a straightforward objective to achieve, firms which want to introduce an innovation culture and whose current model is rather distant from the ideal one might prefer to have recourse to an incremental, rather than to a revolutionary approach to innovation culture. Whether this should be the case, since innovation culture could also be intended as a combination of different sub-models, which whether simultaneously implemented should produce a synergic effect in perfect adherence with the bundling style, employers might decide to activate a progressive approach to innovation starting from one of the models included in the innovation culture paradigm showed in Table 3.

Table 3

This aspect is indeed of remarkable importance in that every initiative and activity an employer intends to pursue can be hindered or eased by corporate culture which, as it is frequently said, eats strategy for breakfast (Does culture eats strategy for breakfast?).

Longo, R., (2015), Advancing a model for innovation pervading corporate culture; Milan: HR Professionals.