Towards Increased Innovativeness through Organizational Culture: A Case Study of a Finnish Construction Company

In the Finnish construction business innovation management is considered to be difficult. Throughout the related literature producing innovations in construction industry is generally agreed to be tougher than in other industries. Its cyclical nature and project based way of working are not ideal for innovation management processes. There is a need to examine at a more detailed level innovativeness in the construction companies and especially the manager's abilities to manage innovative organizational culture. It appears that lacks in managing culture and people with difficulties to understand key elements of innovativeness in organizational context seems to be a barrier towards increased innovativeness. The main finding is that the organization in the case company is too homogeneous. These aspects connected to a shattered organization structure will create strong subcultures in the organization which seems to be the true obstacle in innovativeness. This paper focus on how managers should manage organizational culture to reveal innovativeness in the case company.