Understanding the relationship between organisational culture and open innovation

Abstract

Different cultural traits of organisations, such as the orientation towards flexibility, risk toler-ance, and reflexivity have been found to influence their innovation performance. However, the relationship of corporate culture to openness of innovation activities has been largely over-looked, except for early studies on the so-called not-invented-here (NIH) syndrome and few newer studies. Our contribution aims at closing this gap. Drawing on a survey of more than 250 Swiss companies, we relate different constructs of organisational culture to the openness of technological innovation activities. We find that openness varies considerably by company size, age, and group membership. A complementary relationship between internal R&D and open-ness prevails. Out of six cultural constructs we find the strongest correlation between a rule and plan-oriented culture and the degree of openness of process innovations. Moreover, spontane-ous decision-making and action relates negatively to procuring innovation support act