An inventory of organizational innovativeness

The work environment is a crucial factor behind an organization's innovation output rate. This paper reports the development of an inventory of organizational innovativeness (IOI) that could be used to measure organizational effectiveness in innovation. It is based on a model of organizational innovation that is grounded on key concepts found in literature on innovation. The inventory comprises nine scales of measure and forty-six items in total. Data for IOI was collected through a questionnaire survey sent to members of an international professional engineering society in Singapore. All together close to nine hundred returns were received. Data analyses showed that the inventory is internally consistent and passes tests for validity. Further data analyses confirmed that on average the local work environment is more effective in carrying out tasks that are more routine than in innovating. They also showed that the local subsidiaries of non-indigenous multinational companies are using information technology more effectively in fostering innovation and integrating employees from different organizational units. At the individual respondent level, the data reveal significant differences in the perception of the work environment depending on whether a respondent is a manager or not. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.