Organizational culture and innovation in a national context. Comparison of online companies in Russia and Finland
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi
Authors
Date
2018
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Information and Service Management (ISM)
Language
en
Pages
76 + 4
Series
Abstract
Innovation is essential for companies to stay competitive and achieve good performance. To drive innovation, it is important to create an organizational culture supportive of innovation. However, since organizational culture is affected by national values of employees, organizational culture that drives innovation might vary in different national contexts. To investigate this issue, eight online companies, four in Russia and four in Finland, were studied using semi-structured interviews. Results of the study demonstrate that online companies in Russia consider involvement and adaptability culture traits, particularly empowerment, capability development, tolerance of mistakes and creating change subtraits, as most important for facilitating innovation. National culture of Russia enforces relationship between involvement trait and innovation, but imposes challenges in terms of adaptability trait. In Finland, involvement and adaptability are also considered as most important, but most important subtraits are slightly different including empowerment, tolerance of mistakes, feedback and team orientation. National culture of Finland facilitates easier adoption of empowerment, but imposes some challenges for enabling tolerance of mistakes. The conclusion is that national culture enforces positive relationship between organizational culture trait and innovation, when organizational and national culture are aligned, and imposes challenges, when national culture contradicts organizational one. This study offers insight on organizational culture traits that drive innovation in a national context of Russia and Finland as well as on factors – culture communication and culture strength - that ensure effective implementation of innovation supportive culture. The study also suggests innovation orientation as one of the important consideration in developing innovation supportive organizational culture.Description
Thesis advisor
Tuunainen, VirpiFey, Carl F.
Keywords
innovation, organizational culture, national culture, Russia, Finland