Regardless of the geographic location, business corporations are confronted by rapid change. To survive and profit from the
volatile environments organizations have to be alert and prepared to learn - meaning to meet changes in the environment with new strategies, products, processes, or services, i.e. innovation.
Creating an organization open
to
learning and innovation is an extremely difficult task, and therefore often neglected until absolutely necessary. Organizations are conservative by nature.Which means they prefer to use proven recipes and strategies that may not be relevant and applicable to the current conditions.
Organizations, especially the large bureaucracies in the public and private sector, often have structures that are not conducive to innovation and learning. Members of such organizations usually prefer to remain with the proven methods and traditional behavior rather than invest in uncertain strategies and methods.
Learning, therefore, requires constant effort to question those proven recipes and strategies through an organized process of cultural change. It also requires that the individual motivation to learning and innovation is embedded into the culture. The individuals as well as the organization as a whole need to be encouraged to learn and strive for innovation, which means there must be an openness to new ideas and concepts. The learning and innovative culture needs to be anchored in all parts of the
organization. It is specifically crucial in the field of R&D and those functions related to the decision making process on the direction in R&D, as well as the fast translation of results into marketable products. Creating a culture of learning in R&D
requires the management of specific tensions:
- disciplinary versus multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives;
- short-term versus long-term views;
- flexibility versus continuity;
- freedom of individual researchers and teams versus program coordination.
A balance of these tensions is usually needed to create a learning culture. However under certain conditions, like extreme pressure from short-term changes in the environment, an over-emphasis of one of the dimensions or an extreme concentration is acceptable without destroying the culture on learning and innovation. This of course can occur only if management chooses the concepts
mentioned above to change and adapt to a culture which permits the individuals involved to learn, understand and support the
necessary changes and emphasis.
25
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