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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
BUSINESS RESERCH MBL 925R ASSIGMENT 01



A RESERCH PROPOSAL TO INVESTIGATE LEADER FOCUSED ON INNOVATION WILL SEE
OPPORTUNITY IN GOOD AND BAD TIMES AND AS SUCH WILL BE ABLE TO LEAD
ORGANISATIONS RESILIENTLY THROUH CRISIS AND PROSPERITY





DANIEL DESALEGEN BERHANU
ID.NO 77890434



May 2014

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 3
LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................... 4
Factors contributing Innovation and organizational culture .......................................... 5
Methods used to address Innovation and organizational culture problems ................. 6
Research conducted on the problem of Innovation ..................................................... 7
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES ............................................................ 8
POROPOSED METHODOLOGY AND VARIABLES OR KEY CONCEPTS ................... 8
LIMITATIONS OF THE PROPOSED METHODOLOGY ............................................... 10
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...................................................................................... 10
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROPOSED STUDY ............................................................ 11
LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 12








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INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study to investigated to leader focus on innovation to see the opportunity
in good and bad times to lead organizations. The investigation finds out leadership, innovation
and organization culture are closely related .leadership always has some focuses own brining
about a batter future also investigate the formulation of competitive strategy with the use of
Chang -orientated behaviors such as monitoring the external environments and also core
competence innovation. Leader supports team and individuals as they turn their creative efforts
into innovations leader as a facilitator and manages to achieve organization's development goal.
Revenue growth, innovation, and talent management are the three major business challenge of
the organzation are facing beyond building leadership capability and the organization today use
leadership development initiative to support organization change, build a mindset and culture for
innovation and help leaders implement strategies, to communicate vision, mission and core
values.
In addition to the propose of moderating and mediating variables (intervening variables),
identified three factors where the findings are ambiguous. The three new factors that may
mediate or moderate the relationship between leadership , innovation and organizational culture.















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Literature review
Burns and Stalker (1961) published their influential work on management and innovation. Since
then, much work has been done on leadership in innovative endeavors which has lead to the
conclusion that leaders are an essential element in the promotion of organizational innovation
(Hemlin, 2006a; Hlsheger et al., 2009; Mumford et al., 2002). We have now come to the point
where more and more research is being directed into understanding when leadership is effective,
i.e., under which circumstances at the individual, team and organizational levels, and how
leaders influence innovative outcomes, i.e., the various processes and mechanisms of influence.
These are the variables that moderate and mediate the relationship between leadership and
innovation.

Innovation in organizations as an outcome of individual, team, and organizational efforts joined
to produce a new product, process, or service that is potentially attractive to a market. Innovation
is then the result of a number of activities performed at different levels of the organization and in
its external world. Find the following definition of innovation useful: the implementation of a
new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or
a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations
(OECD, 2005:46).

Sometimes innovation and creativity are used interchangeably in the literature (Basadur, 2004;
Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). However, creativity is commonly viewed as idea generation (ideation)
while implementation of ideas is innovation (Amabile et al., 1996; Anderson et al., 2004; Scott
and Bruce, 994). Our focus is on innovation studies, but we also examine research that
investigates innovation in terms of creativity when it is clear that innovation was the goal.

Leadership is an integral part of innovative organizational performance for at least two reasons.
First, in a top-down process, leaders manage the strategic innovation goals and activities of their
organizations. Leaders may set these goals and direct these activities by managing time,
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facilities, money, and knowledge resources (Drazin et al., 1999), by setting and managing
individual and team goals, by defining expectations for creative performance (Shalley and
Gilson, 2004), by managing rewards (Mumford and Gustafson, 1988), and by granting autonomy
to individuals and teams (Hemlin, 2006b; Hunter et al., 2007).

Second, leaders construct the environments that favor creativity and ultimately innovation
(Hemlin et al., 2008; Shalley and Gilson, 2004). Much of the leadership research focuses on the
essential leadership actions in this construction of context and opportunities that promote the
bottom up process of innovation. Leaders encourage intrinsic motivation (Avolio et al., 1999),
facilitate problem solving (Tierney et al., 1999), foster a positive team climate (Anderson and
West, 1998), and establish and maintain high quality work relationships with team members
(Olsson et al., 2008; Scott and Bruce, 1994).

Thus, the leader orchestrates the dual process (a) of providing support to teams and individuals
as they turn their creative efforts into innovations (leader as facilitator), and (b) of managing the
organizations goals and activities aimed at innovation (leader as manager) (see Hemlin, 2006b).

Factor contributing Innovation and Organization culture
Even in more stable times, strategy execution often fails because companies neglect to take into
account the inevitable inertia within the organization best represented by the slogan, Culture
Eats Strategy for Breakfast. An analysis of several studies correlating organizational
performance with culture using the Denison Organizational Survey found that culture is an
important predictor of organizational performance. (Discovery Learning, 2007). We find the
following definition of innovation useful" Innovation involves implementing something new that
adds value or quantifiable gain. It requires many skill sets, usually those of a team." It should be
no surprise that in these uncertain times, innovation is the buzzword du jour (again) and remains
critical to an organizations top and bottom line. Without new sources of value whether thats
defined in terms of quantity of revenue or quality of life most organizations eventually wither
and die. The world around them changes and competitors emerge to provide the same offerings
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more effectively or efficiently. (Research by Soo et al. 2002) concluded, The greater the amount
of innovation, the greater the market and financial performance.

The development of effective creative leadership is a two-step process. First, leaders individually
and collectively must get in touch with their own creative thinking skills in order to make sense
of and deal with complexity. Second, rather than develop skills for the management of
creativity (a control mindset), organizations must develop a creative leadership culture a
climate that promotes and acknowledges the creative process. Authors and researchers Teresa
Amabile (2010) and Goran Ekvall (1999) speak authoritatively and elegantly on this topic.
Amabile talks about Management for Creativity. Ekvall in several publications describes the
statistical significance of leadership in creating (or not!) an environment that nurtures creativity.

A creative leadership culture recognizes and skillfully manages the tensions between several
interrelated and seemingly polar opposites. Major among these is the tension between traditional
business thinking and innovative thinking. (Center for Creative Leadership 2012)

Method used to address Innovation and Organization culture problem
Without continuous innovation, organizations sputter and die. Nonetheless, most organizations
practice innovation in a haphazard manner, apparently hoping that it will happen. In a recent
survey we conducted, tow -thirds of the respondent said they had no formal program to
encourage the search for and development of new products, customers, or markets. (David
Wilkins Et al 2013)

CEOs and leaders throughout organizations know they need to change the way they work. As
they seek to drive results at a tactical level, leaders are looking for new rules of the road to give
them a competitive edge and fuel new industries, markets, products and services. Strategic
supremacy is highly dependent on an organization's ability to create and bring to market new
products more often and quickly than its competitors do. We view new product creation as the
fuel of corporate longevity (David Wilkins Et al 2013) .The result is a unique process called
strategic product innovation, which makes new product creation a learnable, reputable process.
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This process can be used by any organization to create and commercialize new-to-the-market
products, which leverage the company's driving force and areas of excellence, and to generate
new revenue strums, which allows the company to grow faster than its competitors. This
conscious, repeatable, business practice consists of the following four stapes (David Wilkins Et
al 2013):
Creation. Carefully monitor the 10 sources in your business environment, which are
listed in the next chapter, from which you can create a broad range of opportunities for
new-to-the-market products.
Assessment. Measure the new product opportunities in term of cost, benefits, strategic
fit, and difficulty of implementation. These criteria will let you know which opportunities
should be pursued further-and which should be abandoned.
Development. Once a commitment is made, try to anticipate the critical factors that will
cause the new product to succeed or fail in the marketplace.
Pursuit. Develop a specific implementation plan that promotes success and avoids
failure.
Research conducted on the problem of innovation
Many organzation have formal subunits with primary responsibility for research and
development of new product and services, and some organization also have subunits with
responsibility for continually assessing and improving work process.
Many good ideas die before having a chance to be tested, because it is not possible to gain
approval for them in an organization where traditional ways of doing things are favored, or
where there is no good process to determine the value of new ideas. Sometimes important
discoveries are made in an organization but their are made potential value is not recognized.
(Finkelstein 2003; Smith and Alexander, 1988)
An important leadership function is to encourage and facilitate external acquisition of relevant
knowledge. New ideas and knowledge also be acquired from a Varity of outside sources
including: Publication on result of applied research, books or articles describing practitioner
experiences, and observation of best practices used elsewhere (David Wilkins Et al 2013).

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES
This study is poised towards providing answers to the following questions:
What are the key business challenges in your organization?
Do you explicitly use leadership development initiatives to support innovation?
Does organizational culture have any effect on innovations?
How leaders influence innovative outcomes?
To what extent does organizational culture affects innovation?
Do the systems and processes put in place support the strategic plan of company?
In order to answer the research questions and achieve the objectives of the study, the following
hypotheses are advanced and will be tested in the course of this study.
H0: There is a relationship between leadership and employee innovative behavior
H1: There is a relationship between leadership and individual, team innovativeness
H2: There is positive (Negative) relationship between organizational culture and
innovativeness.
H3. Relationship between leadership and innovation

POROPOSED METHODOLOGY AND VARIABLES OR KEY CONCEPTS
After considering the different aspects of the innovation, leadership and organizational culture
described above, a choice had to be made as to which model and measurement technique should
be selected for the purpose of this study. It is decided that a quantitative approach to the
measurement of innovation, leadership and culture should be adopted, due to the levels of
objectivity required for this research and the ability to make comparisons between leadership,
organizational culture and levels innovations. Using quantitative techniques is also necessary to
determine whether any statistical relationships exist between the leadership profile and the
innovativeness.
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The Denison model (Denison, 1990) was the only model that placed a strong emphasis on the
strategic orientation of the organization. In addition to this, the model focuses not only on
internal behaviors but also defines interactions with the external environment. One of the key
advantages of using this model is that a questionnaire was designed called the Innovation
leaderships and organizational culture survey, which measures the key dimensions of innovation
as reflected in the model. Because a quantitative approach to measurement will be followed in
the research, it is preferable for the model to have an associated valid and reliable questionnaire.
Quantitative measurement also requires the assessment of more visible organizational innovation
cultural traits and, thus, the focus of the model on observable management practices and
behaviors' is appropriate for this study.
The scale used in the Denison innovation organizational culture Survey is a five-point Likert
scale. The numbers of the scale can be defined as follows:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Neutral
4. Agree
5. Strongly agree
The innovation leadership and organizational culture Survey is a self-report inventory. It can
either be administered in a paper-and-pencil format or electronically via the Internet. Instead of
sending the questionnaires to the leader's and followers via mail or electronically, special
sessions will be set up with each department of the company to explain the rationale behind the
use of the questionnaire by using a standardized presentation to provide the leaders and follower
with instructions for completing the questionnaire. A paper-and-pencil version of the instrument
will thus be used with no time limit for completion. Leaders and follower will be asked to
complete the questionnaire with the administrator present and to hand it in before leaving the
room.
The responses of the participants on the 47- item innovation leadership and organizational
culture Survey will be captured onto an Excel spreadsheet by a data capture and will then be
verified. The data will then be sent to consulting who will upload it onto their database for
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scoring and for comparison against the norm group. Reports will be produced for the
organization. In addition to this, a perceptual measure of innovation will be employed.
The innovation leadership and organizational culture innovation performance data of the
company will then be correlated with their mean scores on each of the innovation leadership and
organizational culture dimensions.
LIMITATIONS OF THE PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The limitations that may influence the success of the research project are as follows:
Gathered information from several different organizations, our empirical evidence is
based mainly on individuals and team experience of innovation in a single organizational
setting.
rooted in more fundamental issues related to the nature of knowledge transfer more
broadly
This study will employ perceptual measures of innovation and organizational culture in
the quantitative analysis.
Inability to access the innovation leadership and culture of the organization of various
companies over a period of time using the same measuring instrument.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The aims of the research will be communicated to the participants or research subjects.
Participation in the research will be voluntary.
The participants will provide informed consent before proceeding with data collection.
Information provided by participants will be treated as confidential at all times (i.e. no
information regarding any particular subject will be released).



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SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROPOSED STUDY
Organizations want to obtain the commitment of their employees. Management would like its
employees to identify with the values, norms and artifacts of the organization, hence the need for
organizational Performance.
Leaders formulate competitive strategy with the use of Chang -orientated behaviors such as
monitoring the external environments, assessing threats and opportunities, identifying core
competencies, proposing innovative strategies, and evaluating alternative strategies .some type of
programs and systems for monitoring the external environment can be used to help detect threats
and opportunities and identify an appropriate strategy for the organization.
Many different type of improvement program, management system, and structural forms can be
used to influence organizational effectiveness (Yukl and Lapsinger, 2004) most program have as
the primary objective the improvement of adaptation, efficiency, or human capital.
Leaders need to explain and imbibe its innovation in its employees; this will enable the follower
to get familiar with the organizational culture. During this competitive strategy of explanation,
the follower learns about the organizational culture and decides whether he can cope with it or
not. This means that each organization is a learning environment. It is the proper understanding
of the innovative culture that they performance of the followers in the organization.
Because of these contradictory results, the question of whether innovation and organization
culture improves or worsens employees performance is still worthy of further research such as
the one to be undertaken in this study. The impact of innovation leadership and organizational
culture on follower's performance in the Company has received adequate research and
development attention to the organzation. Thus, there is a major gap in the relevant literature on
innovation leadership, which has to be covered by research. This research attempts to fill this gap
by studying the situation of innovation leadership and organizational culture to the companies.



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LIST OF REFERENCES
Denison, D.R. 1990. Corporate culture and organizational effectiveness. New York: John Wiley
Davidson, G.M. 2003. The relationship between organizational culture and financial
performance in a South African Investment Bank. Master of Commerce thesis. University
of South Africa. Pretoria
Hofstede, G. and Bond, M.H. 1988. The Confucius connection: from cultural roots to economic
growth, Organizational Dynamics, 16(4):4-21.
Brian Leavy (2005), A leaders guide to creating an innovation culture,
Strategy& leadership, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Vol.33, No.4, 33-45
Edgar H.Scheln (1986), what you need to know about organizational culture,
Training & Development Journal, Jan, Vol. 40, Issue 1, 31-34
David and Jonathan (2012), Becoming a leader who fosters Innovation
David Hort (2009 center for creative leadership), How to use Innovation to lead effectively, work
collaborative and drive results.
YUKL (2013), leadership in organization
David and Greg (2013), Leadership pure and simple.