Organizational innovation: a psychologist's view

Discusses four traditional approaches to studying the innovative process: research, development, diffusion approach; social interaction approach; innovative organizations approach; and the organizational change approach. The author emphasizes the organizational change approach as probably the most useful for analyzing organizational innovation. It focuses on events within an organization as it undergoes change. Four stages have been identified: prior state, initiation, implementation, and routinization. There have been an increasing number of studies on implementation, in contrast to earlier research focusing on conditions for initiating change. Analyses using the organizational change approach employ the case study as the major research vehicle. This allows examination of decisionmaking changes over time, and focuses on events within the organization. The author has identified ten key organizational events that must occur if new practices are to become routinized. To influence innovation, the decisionmaker's efforts should be directed toward influencing the development of these events.