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Management article
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Reference no. SMR48405
Published by: MIT Sloan School of Management
Published in: "MIT Sloan Management Review", 2007
Length: 3 pages

Abstract

''When it comes to innovation, geography is destiny'', wrote the New York Times this past February. Not according to three business school professors, who say it''s corporate culture, not geography, that defines innovative potential. A February 2007 working paper, ''Innovation in Firms Across Nations: New Metrics and Drivers for Radical Innovation'', describes a global research effort that looked at 759 public companies from 17 of the largest economies and most populous countries in the world. The companies came from a set of nations that included developed nations such as the United States, Germany and Japan, and developing nations such as China and India, providing a cross-cultural look at the factors that drive innovation. This is an early look at a broader global research effort on innovation. ''There are a lot of different ways to organize. Some companies organize in a monolithic way, they open subsidiaries and they are all one solid culture. Some are highly decentralized, (wherein) everything is autonomous and each can have its own culture. We''re going to see which structure, format and culture works the best. ''In addition, this study only covered manufacturing companies'' innovations; other studies are forthcoming for services industries, says one of the authors. And, importantly, the researchers are working to convert their metric for innovation from a survey-based instrument to a broader measure backed by news reports and searches of public databases.

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Abstract

''When it comes to innovation, geography is destiny'', wrote the New York Times this past February. Not according to three business school professors, who say it''s corporate culture, not geography, that defines innovative potential. A February 2007 working paper, ''Innovation in Firms Across Nations: New Metrics and Drivers for Radical Innovation'', describes a global research effort that looked at 759 public companies from 17 of the largest economies and most populous countries in the world. The companies came from a set of nations that included developed nations such as the United States, Germany and Japan, and developing nations such as China and India, providing a cross-cultural look at the factors that drive innovation. This is an early look at a broader global research effort on innovation. ''There are a lot of different ways to organize. Some companies organize in a monolithic way, they open subsidiaries and they are all one solid culture. Some are highly decentralized, (wherein) everything is autonomous and each can have its own culture. We''re going to see which structure, format and culture works the best. ''In addition, this study only covered manufacturing companies'' innovations; other studies are forthcoming for services industries, says one of the authors. And, importantly, the researchers are working to convert their metric for innovation from a survey-based instrument to a broader measure backed by news reports and searches of public databases.

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