Originality level and the innovating process in organizations

Abstract

Drawing upon the literature on adaptation vs. fidelity in organizational innovations, this article explores a dimension labeled originality, ranging from ‘origination’ when the organization develops a first-time solution without following a prior example, to ‘adaptation’ when it modifies prior solutions to fit its own situation, to ‘borrowing’ when it finds many well-developed solutions and copies one with little change. Previous studies suggest that to originate a complex innovation will be more costly and risky than to borrow one, and that the innovating process will appear more disorderly. Some empirical data on adoption of urban innovations were examined by a method of ‘quantitative case histories’, in which 2000 brief episodes were coded on type of innovative function (or stage) and on time of occurrence. For innovations of low or medium originality the functions followed an orderly sequence of search, design, appraisal, commitment, and implementation, but for innovations of high originality the functions more nearly coincided, were more prolonged, and had the most overlap, except for one anomaly. A final section speculates on how factors associated with successful innovating – such as prominence of various actors, features of innovating stages, and tactics or strategies – may vary at different originality levels.