The Institutional Structuring of Innovation Strategies: Business Systems - Research Proposal Example

CRITICAL REVIEW Contents Contents 2 The dissertation research topic area and the reasons for your choice 3 The research question and the reasons for your choice 4 Results of an initial secondary literature search 5 Methodology / Content 6 When re-writing the research proposal, which sections for the research proposal did you find more difficult to write and why? 7 What do you consider to be the strongest section of your report and why? 8 References 10 The dissertation research topic area and the reasons for your choice Leadership has been a critical subject of study across different researchers and scholars. Innovation as a process has started getting more focus in recent times. This is mainly because of the focus of the companies across all industries is being shifted to more number of innovations to sustain themselves in the competitive and evolving business scenario. Innovation and leadership are topics which are complex and on which a diverse range of studies can be conducted. The connection between leadership and innovation can be clearly established in many organizations. Also the impact of different styles of leaderships can be evaluated in the innovation processes of different successful organizations. The relation between leadership and innovation within an organization is a broad topic which can be looked at from multiple angles. Innovation in today’s world is representative of the changes implemented in the organization. But change is a general term and signifies any random event or occurrence. Any change in the organization or outside the organization may not necessarily lead to innovation. But a leader can successfully drive the process of innovation by incorporating and directing the changes form facilitating innovation within the business. A leader and his successful leadership style are known to implement the changes in a proper manner to ensure that innovation takes place within an organization. Therefore an innovator is most of the times a person who possesses the qualities of leadership. The topic area includes the role of leadership in innovation, the difference between innovator leaders and managers, the different theories of leadership, and innovations in the real world. To establish the connection between leadership and innovation, real world examples of companies like Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation and many more can be considered. These companies are living examples which help the researcher to prove the proper connections between efficient leadership and a robust innovation process within an organization. It also helps to establish effective leadership as a major driving component of innovation in today’s world. This area of study has the scope of a number of allied works and future work can be based on this topic related to the different aspects of leadership, management and innovation and the connection between these factors. The research question and the reasons for your choice The research question should aim to answer whether there are established linkages between leadership and innovation. Both innovation and leadership cannot be produced in mass. Also, leadership and innovation are not guided by general standard principles though the two factors seem to be closely related. Since leadership aims to create a better future and focus on implementing changes for the betterment of the organization, leaders can be categorized as inventors in this sense. The research question would require the evaluation and assessment of other broad topics like the comparison between leadership and management, the parallels between leaders and innovators. The research question would also try to justify whether innovators and leaders are intersecting aspects of the one single phenomenon. The study of the different theories of leadership, how social and cultural factors affect leadership and innovation, leadership styles and the influence of the leaders in the development of products and services would be important in answering the research question (Schoorman and Davis, 2007, p.116) . It can be suggested that leadership is equipped to achieve proper organizational contexts that help in increasing the tolerance level of the organization towards experimentation, ambiguities and communication. The innovation process can be broadly categorised in two parts: the first one including the development of the innovation and the second part including the implementation of the innovation. Both these phases would seem to be majorly influenced by the leadership factor. It can be established in the study that transformational leadership is an excellent facilitator of innovation which can be derived from the business processes of different successful organizations in the present day scenario. Establishing the connection between leadership, different theories of leadership and innovations would be an important achievement in this field of study. There are many contrasting views on the link between leadership and innovation making the question a challenging one to answer and analyse from different perspectives. Results of an initial secondary literature search Different scholars and academicians have presented their work on the topics of innovation, leadership and the effect of leadership on innovation. Accordion to the work of Klein and Sorra (1996), organizational innovation (Klein and Sorra, 1996, pp.96-98) is the adoption of behaviour or a concept that is new for the organization. Lam (2004) has proposed in his work that there are specific linkages between the different forms of leadership and the degree of innovation management within an organization (Lam. 2004, p.60). Innovation can be necessarily considered as a natural outcome of effective leadership practices within an organization. Morgan and Berthon (2008) supports this idea by establishing the fact that the business performances are greatly driven by innovations and there is a positive correlation between the degree of proper leadership and the level of innovation in different organizations across all industries (Morgan and Berthon, 2008, pp.141-146). The innovation practices have been known to differ in different organizations according to the style of leadership and management in the organization. It is seen among the companies of across the world that effective leadership style and behaviour has been the main driver of innovative practices within the organization. According to the work of Stamm (2004), social and cultural factors highly influence the leadership styles. Therefore the leadership styles vary for companies located in different regions (Stamm, 2004, p.90). The varying degree of leadership also seems to influence a varying level of innovation in these businesses across different locations or the operations of a same company in different locations. Also, other literary works aim to find the answer to the question whether leadership is the major key to establishing a successful business and whether leadership driven innovations help to create sustainability and competitive advantage for the organizations. The distinction between leaders and managers and the different leadership traits, theories and styles have been studied in a number of literary works to understand the importance of leadership in the business world, Also, how the different aspects of leadership drives innovation in product and service development is a critical aspect of the study related to innovation and leadership. According to the work of Whitley (2000), the organizational structures and activities play major roles in supporting the leaders to encourage and implement the process of innovation within the organizations (Whitley, 2000, pp.451-452) Methodology / Content The research methodology proposed includes secondary research involving the collection of information relevant to the research report from the academic sources and the internet. T would be advisable to use different academic journals and books on the topics of leadership and innovation. Also the methodology should include using secondary resources like articles and publishing to understand the relation between leadership and innovation (Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt, 2001, pp.118-120). The use of questionnaires for sampling purposes is equally important. The primary research h done by the use of an open ended questionnaire would be useful for the primary research. The research methodology should include documenting the responses of a sample including the employees, managers and customers of some companies which have shown excellent leadership skills and innovations as well as some companies in which either innovation or leadership have been exclusively demonstrated. This would enable the researcher to understand the link between leadership and innovation and would also be helpful in finding the answer to the question that whether a strong and efficient leadership drives innovation within an organization. Both quantitative data and qualitative data would be more useful to conduct this research rather than the consideration of only qualitative data. The qualitative data would help to understand the behaviours, attitudes and feelings of the people associated with the factors of leadership and innovation in an organization. Understanding these factors would be critical for establishing sufficient connections between the established theories of leadership and innovation processes. Also, the sue of quantitative data would be useful with respect to the number of innovations in an organization and the changes in innovation processes with the changes in the leadership of the organization in different periods of the working of the organization. Conducting semi structured interviews to understand the views and the responses of the sample would also prove to be an effective part of the research methodology (Goffin and Mithell, 2005, p.56). The research methodology should include the semi structured interviews to be conducted for the respondents from companies across different industries. The inclusion of different types of companies belonging to a varying range of industries would be helpful in establishing the research question more strongly. The content should include the different theories of leadership, the processes of innovation and establish real life examples of organizations in which leadership has driven the innovation process. Also, examples of different organizations should be considered to understand the role that leadership plays in facilitating the innovation processes in these organizations. When re-writing the research proposal, which sections for the research proposal did you find more difficult to write and why? In my opinion, the research methodology part of the research report was the most difficult part to write down. This is because the research methodology related to this topic has major limitations. It is very difficult to collect the primary data from a varying range of heterogeneous sample from different companies belonging to different industries. Since the cultural and social factors are also known to affect leadership style and practices, therefore, companies from different regions have to be chosen for the sampling process. It would be difficult to carry out a proper sampling process in such a wide range of companies and locations. Therefore the sampling process would be lengthy and tedious. The methodology part is an extensive and complex part of a research report and the derivations are done from the data collected in this part. Therefore the responses of the sample should be ideal for indicating the real life scenario of the factors of leadership affecting innovation in the organizations. The analysis of such a mixed data would be difficult. Also, according to me the collection of qualitative data would be easier than the collection and analysis of quantitative data. But while taking the examples of existing companies, both quantitative and qualitative data would be important for a proper analysis. What do you consider to be the strongest section of your report and why? I think the strongest section of the research report is the choice of the topic area. According to me, both leadership and innovation are major factors that drive the success and performance of a business. Therefore, it is important to understand the connection between these two factors. The topic area is an interesting and challenging topic which can be researched and analysed from a number of dimensions. Also, the research made on this topic would have few limitations and a wide scope of future studies that can be done related to the topic giving it an extended vertical or horizontal dimension. Leadership has been an aspect of high importance in any organization through decades. Innovation on the other hand has evolved rapidly in the last decade with major importance being given to innovations in processes, products and technology by the companies in order to ensure sustainability ion the changing global business world. In this respect, how the leaders and managers of the companies drive the growth of innovation in the organizations is a very important study for consideration. This area of study would be a major source of knowledge and would also help to understand the real life situations by the consideration of the existing companies which have demonstrated effective leadership and a high degree of innovation within their organizations. The research question has a wide range of scopes and perspectives including the understanding of how leadership supports the complementary views related to the influence of leader innovators in the organizational context. Leaders sometimes act as the motivators who motivate their people through their transformation and charismatic behaviour. In other times, the leaders focus on coordination and cooperation in the organizational activities which influence the functioning of the organization. The chosen research area will also help to refer to bot these perspectives which facilitate innovation by two different approaches. References Goffin, K. & Mithell, R. 2005. Innovation management, strategy and implementation using the pentathlon framework. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Klein, B. & Sorra, H. 1996. The challenge of innovation implementation. The Academy of Management Review. Vol. 21(4), pp.96-98. Lam, S. 2004. Research on Technological Innovation. Management and Policy. Vol. 8(1), p.60. Morgan, J. & Berthon, M. 2008. Market Orientation, Generative Learning, Innovation Strategy and Business Performance Inter-Relationships. Journal of Management Studies. Vol. 45(8), pp.141-146. Schoorman, M. & Davis, B. 2007. An integrative model of organizational trust: Past, present, and future. Academy of Management Review. Vol. 32(2), p.116. Stamm, V. 2004. Collaboration with other firms and customers: innovation‘s secret weapon. Strategy & Leadership. Vol. 32(1), p. 90. Tidd, J., Bessant, J., & Pavitt, K. 2001. Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, 2nd ed. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Whitley, J. 2000. The Institutional Structuring of Innovation Strategies: Business Systems, Firm Types and Patterns of Technical Change in Different Market Economies. Organization Studies. Vol. 21(5), pp.451-452. Read More