An inventory of organizational innovativeness

The work environment is a crucial factor behind an organization's innovatio n output rate. This paper reports the development of an inventory of organi zational innovativeness (IOI) that could be used to measure organizational effectiveness in innovation. It is based on a model of organizational innov ation that is grounded on key concepts found in literature on innovation. T he 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 toge ther close to nine hundred returns were received. Data analyses showed that the inventory is internally consistent and passes tests for validity. Furt her data analyses confirmed that on average the local work environment is m ore effective in carrying out tasks that are more routine than in innovatin g. They also showed that the local subsidiaries of non-indigenous multinati onal companies are using information technology more effectively in fosteri ng innovation and integrating employees from different organizational units . At the individual respondent level, the data reveal significant differenc es in the perception of the work environment depending on whether a respond ent is a manager or not. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .