The impact of creative organizational climate on the innovation activity of medical devices manufacturing firms in Hungary

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the impact of creative organizational climate on the innovation activity of medical devices manufacturing firms in Hungary. We applied a combined qualitative and quantitative research model, focusing on two firm’s case studies that are active in the above mentioned sector and differ to a substantial degree in their innovation activities. The connection between innovative climate and innovation was analyzed by comparing their organizational climate and perceptions of organizational members of innovation activities. Our findings revealed that classical models of creative organizational climate explain only partially the differences, although on the level of individual perceptions of climate and innovativeness we can find some connections. We found one factor that differentiated the two firms in terms of organizational climate in the predicted direction: the amount, quality, sincerity and depth of debates going on in the organization. The level of challenge (high involvement, commitment and challenging goals) and the time devoted to think about new ideas and innovative solutions (idea time) turned out to be contrary to the expectations based on previous research – although these results are less significant statistically. The results trigger further research into the sources of competitiveness in the Hungarian medical devices manufacturing sector.

Sustainability, creativity and innovation in project management – Model development for assessing organizational performance through projects

Today a number of studies are published on how organizational strategy is developed and how organizations contribute to local and regional development through the realization of these strategies. There are also many articles dealing with the success of a project by identifying the criteria and the factors that influence them. This article introduces the project-oriented strategic planning process that reveals how projects contribute to local and regional development and demonstrates the relationship between this approach and the regional competitiveness model as well as the KRAFT concept. There is a lot of research that focuses on sustainability in business. These studies argue that sustainability is very important to the success of a business in the future. The Project Excellence Model that analyses project success does not contain the sustainability criteria; the GPM P5 standard consists of sustainability components related either to the organizational level. To fill this gap a Project Sustainability Excellence Model (PSEM) was developed. The model was tested by interviews with managers of Hungarian for-profit and non-profit organizations. This paper introduces the PSEM and highlights the most important elements of the empirical analysis.

A sikeres növekedés és innováció feltételei (The condition of successful growth and innovation)

Kutatásukban a szerzők a sikeres innovációs-növekedési stratégiák beazonosítására törekedtek két dimenzió mentén: növekedési erőfeszítés és innovációs erőfeszítés. A sikert mint a radikális innováció piaci bevezetéseként definiálták. A szakirodalom áttekintése és kvalitatív kutatási eredményeink alapján azt találták, hogy a siker feltételei a következők: (1) „felkészültség”, azaz biztos szakmai tudás (know-what); a (2) „gyakorlás”, azaz a folyamatok tökéletes ismerete (know-how); a (3) „tehetséggondozás”, azaz a megfelelő kapcsolati tőke a hiányzó képességek, erőforrások és információk megszerzéséhez (know-who); és végül a (4) „tehetség”, azaz kreativitás, magas asszociációs készség, és innovatív ötletek. A vezető feladata annak felismerése, hogy mikor szükséges lassítania a szervezetre nehezedő növekedési nyomáson. A nyugalmi időszakban továbbra is fontos az innovációs képességek fejlesztése. Következetesen fel kell ismernie, hogy mikor lesz nagyobb a szétaprózott erőforrások és a megosztott figyelem költsége, mint a potenciális hozadéka. _______ In present research the successful innovation-growth strategies are identified along two dimensions: growth effort and innovation effort. The success is defined as the introduction to the market of a radical innovation. After reviewing the literature and conducting a qualitative research, authors found that the threshold condition of success are the followings: (1) “preparation”, that is expertise (know-what); (2) “practice”, that is deep understanding of processes (know-how); (3) “talent support”, that is access to missing resources; and finally (4) “talent”, that is creativity, innovative idea, and high association capability. This is the role of the manager to decide when the organizational growth should be slowed down. While the development of innovation capability is still important in times of slow growth periods, the manager must recognize that the cost of divided attention and fragmented resources is higher, than the potential return of the innovation.

Tudásmenedzsmentet támogató szervezeti megoldások (Knowledge management supported by organizational solutions)

A tudás a vállalatok egyre fontosabb erőforrásává vált, ezért tudatos megoldásokkal kell törekedni a szervezeti tudásban rejlő lehetőségek hatékony kihasználására. A tudás kezelésére irányuló tevékenységeket mind technológiai-informatikai, mind HR-, mind pedig szervezeti megoldásokkal lehet támogatni. Jelen cikkben a vállalatok szervezeti megoldásait elemzi a szerző: rámutat a szervezeti struktúrák, a szervezeti kultúra, a vezetői megközelítések (leadership) szerepére, valamint a kommunikáció különböző formáinak lehetőségeire. ______ Knowledge management activities became important part of knowledge oriented organisations, like software development companies. These activities can be supported by technological and organisational solutions. This paper concentrates on the organisational support factors of knowledge management activities in the software development industries, and examines the role of organisational design, structures, processes, communication and management support, while highlights the challenges.

Systemic country differences in the European innovation performance - Does institutional context matter?

The so-called "High Performance Working System" (HPWS) and the lean production are representing the theoretical and methodological foundations of this paper. In this relation it is worth making distinction between various theoretical streams of the HPWS. The first theoretical stream in the literature is focusing on the diffusion of the Japanese-style management and organizational practices both in the US and in the Europe. The second theoretical strand comprises the approach of sociology of work and dealing with the learning/innovation capabilities of the new forms of work organization. Finally, the third theoretical approach is addressing on the types of knowledge and learning process and their relations with the innovation capabilities of the firm. The authors’ analysis is based on the international comparison, both in regional and in cross country comparison. For regional comparison the share of ICT clusters in Europe, USA and the rest of the world was assessed. For the purpose of the cross-country comparison in the EU, the innovation performance measured by the index Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) was used in both the before and after the financial crisis.