Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Organizational Innovativeness and Ethical Organizational Culture

Research Methodology

Findings

Summary of the Results

Discussion

Research Limitations and Further Research

Conclusion

References

Abstract

This study participates in the discussion of the ethical culture of organizations by deepening the knowledge and understanding of the meaning of organizational ethical virtues in organizational innovativeness. The aim in this study was to explore how an organization’s ethical culture and, more specifically, organization’s ethical virtues support organizational innovativeness. The ethical culture of an organization is defined as the virtuousness of an organization. Organizational innovativeness is conceptualized as an organization’s behavioral propensity to produce innovative products and services. The empirical data consisted of a total of 39 interviews from specialist organizations. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the organizational ethical virtues of feasibility, discussability, supportability, and congruency of management are those that support organizational innovativeness. The findings also show which specific elements of these virtues and related organizational practices are important to innovativeness. In addition, this study showed that the features of organizational innovativeness are not necessarily dichotomous but rather follow the ideas of virtues and are versatile in nature.

Introduction

Innovativeness has an important role in organizations, as it has been found to be related to their performance, success, and continuity in the long term (e.g., Anderson et al. 2014; Calantone et al. 2002; Salavou 2004). In the current, quickly changing, business world organizations compete with new ideas that can eventually develop into innovations. The role of organizational culture for innovativeness has been shown to be important in previous studies (e.g., Bu¨schgens et al. 2013; Martins and Terblanche 2003; Mumford 2000; Mumford et al. 2002; Naranjo-Valencia et al. 2011; Sarros et al. 2008). Organizational culture can either hold back or promote a creative atmosphere, providing the positive environment necessary for the invention of new ideas (Hult et al. 2004; Martins and Terblanche 2003). In particular, an extensive list of both antecedents and barriers to innovativeness has been recognized in prior research (cf. Anderson et al. 2014). These studies have mainly only listed a set of organizational features that are of relevance for innovativeness instead of discussing the nature, content, and context of these features (Anderson et al. 2014). It can thus be said that previous studies have often simplified the characteristics of innovativeness by both making a dichotomy between antecedents and barriers and listing factors affecting innovativeness without a deeper explanation and understanding of these factors. Instead of repeating this dichotomous view and only listing the affecting factors, we argue here that the link between organizational culture and innovativeness is more multifaceted. For example, specific features of organizational culture might be both enhancers and hinderers of innovativeness. In this article, we focus on the ethical dimension of organizational culture, and specifically a virtue-ethics framework (Kaptein 2008; Solomon 2004) is used to study the ethical culture of an organization (Kaptein 2008) and its meaning for organizational innovativeness.