Organizational Constraints

The article in the January through March 2006, volume 31 issue of Vikalpa Journal titled "Organizational Constraints on Innovation and Intrapreneurship: Insights from Public Sector" documents the key organizational constraints hindering innovation and intrapreneurship for public businesses in India. The research was conducted by professionals in the field of business management. In addition, at the conclusion of the study the researchers offered insights for improvement. With the results of the research many public organizations in India would be able to utilize

Change is both inevitable and necessary in an industrialized society. A lack of or unwillingness to adapt to change leads to failure. In order, for a company to survive and or compete successfully it must be creative through innovations. The objective of the research was to determine those factors that prove to be a constraint on businesses in India as it relates to innovation and intrapreneurship.

The methodology by which these findings were established was through collecting data obtained during interviews with those who had attempted to innovate. These innovators would be able to provide a first hand account of their attempts at innovating yielding a more accurate result. "The first step in the methodology, therefore, was to identify a few highly innovative projects from public sector organizations which was done by rating the innovativeness of 162 projects submitted for an innovation award in the petroleum sector" (Vikalpa, 2006). The following constraints were identified: absence of failure-analysis systems; "lack of patenting initiatives; lack of recognitions for innovations in non-core areas; poor handling of change management; informal team formation; low emphasis on dissemination and commercialization; inadequacy of rewards and recognition; procedural delays, poor documentation and maintenance of records; easy access to foreign technologies; unclear norms on linking innovations with career growth; lack of recognition for contributions by support functions; ambivalent support from the immediate supervisor; inadequate systems for the promotion and management of ideas; and lack of facility for pilot testing" (Vikalpa, 2006).

Researchers found that the most debilitating of all constraints organizations in India, in regards, to innovation and intrapreneurship were their size and being established. These organizations were more traditional in their operating systems. The main concern of these organizations was to focus on managing existing operations versus innovation and intrapreneurship. "Such systems become stronger and more pervasive as organizations grow larger which is a consistent finding of research on the link between organizational size and bureaucratization. This is probably the most critical barrier in large organizations in their attempts to promote innovation" (Vikalpa, 2006). The larger an organization is the less likely it is to be flexible, because the organizational culture prefers not to take risks. Systematically, large organizations are not set up to support innovations and intrapreneurship, because most do not have consistent policies in place. In order, for innovations and intrapreneurship