Departments and Innovation Team Management - Essay Example

DEPARTMENTS AND INNOVATION TEAMS Affiliation DEPARTMENTS AND INNOVATION TEAMS Introduction Departments are the subdivisions of any organization that is working together to attain a joint group goal. The composure of these departments contains a mix of both the top and bottom in ranking. Each department under its stewardship will have its unique strategies and, therefore, the essence of goal alignment. This paper will thus focus at large on the different strategies deployed at the departmental level and which affect organizational innovations making the heads see the need to embrace up-to-the-minute ideas. (1)To what extent do departmental efforts to align goals affect the foundations of business intelligence for use at the departmental level? In a quest for goal alignment in an organization, the various departments within the business intelligence of the group face some effects. One major setback is of the great extent of information asymmetry involved as it is evident that various departments are involved leading to a varied opinion amongst each and every one of them (Pot, 2011). Taking the case of two standard departments in most organizations that are, the human resource and finance department. The human resource deals with many of the issues relating to the employees of an organization or company such as the management of benefits and new staff recruitment and may also team up with the management to reach a common goal. Whereas the finance department deals with organizing the financial and accounting affairs of the organization, for example, the proper presentation and preparation of reports. Having these two distinct units be aligned to a similar goal impedes the whole process thus negatively affecting the business intelligence foundations for use at the departmental level. The departmental effort for aligning goals can also affect positively the business intelligence for use at the corporate level (Schneider, 2013). This can be explained by the fact that, an organization operates as one whole unit. Through the system, information is enabled to all departments that allowed easier coordination of work within the organization. From the intelligence, leaders will make decisions that are aligned with the primary goals and objectives and recognize the efforts of all departments. As they operate with similar missions, the system performance becomes efficient, and goal accomplishment is made possible. Business intelligence can be briefly described as the strategies an organization adopts to achieve its purposes. In addition, the business intelligence, due to goal alignment can be affected by inhibiting the whole and could be more efficient information from being operational due to goals being set by top management, or the relevant authorities for various departments (Im, Montoya & Workman, 2013). This just tries to expose the fact that through aligning goals, the various departments’ of business intelligence is limited to only one particular channel set at that level. But despite being an essential process in any organization, its units are configured to achieve a common goal. The so set goal should be attainable by these different agencies that will provide a firm foundation for the business intelligence to be effective both at the departmental level and in the whole organization at large. (2)To what extent does department culture support or restrict efforts by innovative teams to address department needs? An organizational culture can be briefly defined as the fundamental assumptions about the world and values that provide guidelines in organizations (Schneider, 2011). A corporate culture can be described as two-faced about its effects by innovative teams to address departmental needs. This means that it can either support or restrict these efforts. Over the past years, the organizational culture has been able to be measured by the approach through which we look at its link with the general effectiveness of the culture. To begin with is an example of organizational culture traits that is a combination of consistency and mission. ,As we become flexibility around organization objectives, arguments on the firm’s best interests, and employees can quickly take the appropriate actions. In uncertain circumstances, likely benefiting organizational performance ( Kortoba et al, 2012). This combination thus supports the efforts of innovative teams as their views are given priority thus giving them the foundation to address various departmental needs. Another type of culture is the combination of consistency and involvement. This combination enables various individuals’ actions and decisions to be incorporated efficiently into a system. Innovative teams can then have new ideas that could find go through in championing their views. Also when the organizational culture traits of consistency and adaptability are combined the general performance of an organization is increased as these organizations can efficiently assess and respond to environmental changes (Hartnel et al, 2011). By saying environmental changes, we mean the innovative teams who may come up with something new for the organization and by it being adaptable it will help support the addressing of the departmental needs. Management should encourage corporate units that adopt a culture of innovation. Culture is what outlines the rules and regulations that monitor the operation of the business. How the individuals behave, say and do while in the organization is all elaborated by the group culture (Pot, 2011). Unsupportive cultures lead to the inefficiency of innovative cultures and it is key to every team management to adapt a culture that allows the incorporation of creative and innovative teams as it’s so clear that at some point change is inevitable. This change could be that of creative teams trying to express their needs on a department level. (3) Describe an example of supportive culture and an example of restrictive culture and explain how the culture has encouraged or prevented innovative teams Two primary cultures can be attributed to spur innovations among organizations, supportive and restrictive culture. Where one tries to motivate the nature of innovation among the leaders and employees, the latter is more of an obstacle to acceptance of the new ideas that emerge that would to change (Hartnell, Ou, & Kinicki, 2011). The daily behavior of leaders and employees in an organization is determined and control by the set standards that motivates and encourage on the usability of the new ideas that acts as pillars of change. These two cultures are driving force behind any innovation that leaders concur one of the major areas that spur growth within the organization. To begin with is a supportive task culture. A task culture is an essential tool in the work environment as it changes the individuals view on how to perform their jobs and allocate what kind of energy in performing the same jobs. The task culture comes hand in with task-oriented attributes at the top management level of an organization that impact on the organizations outcome through making aware its individuals that they can bring about change. A definite relation can be recorded through task-oriented job attributes such as the significance of the task, the complexity of the job and the responsibility. Therefore to fully implement a work culture it is important for an organizations individuals to be able to put in their full affective and physical capabilities (Schneider,Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013). It is also keen to note that to create a task culture, and there must be an efficient task leadership that mainly focuses on the clarification of an organizations expectations and its accountability. The work culture would encourage innovative teams to come up with up to task strategies to realize the organizations goals. When it comes to a restrictive culture, it is worth mentioning the ethical culture as it also tackles matters that are of relation to an organizations external adaptation altogether with its internal integration. Ethical culture is composed of patterns of shared understandings related to ethical norms that are behaviors deemed desirable and undesirable in the organization” (Im, Montoya & Workman, 2013). To hasten transparency and accountability in any corporates institution, the powers that be (government) may provide regulations may be due to fraudulent accounting procedures. By so doing it, inhibits the innovative teams in carrying out some particular operations as there are regulations, that they must be followed or else risk an arrest. Conclusion An organizations active performance depends on its innovative team and the kind of goals set to be achieved in a particular culture. Due to this, it is essential that management takes a keen interest in maintaining a suitable culture plus streamlining the goal alignment process to minimize as much as possible any incidences where their innovative ideas face obstacles. By so doing, it means a positive progress will be recorded by the institution as with innovations we must accept change thus a suitable process should be in existence to accommodate it. References Hartnell, C. A., Ou, A. Y., & Kinicki, A. (2011). Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: a meta-analytic investigation of the competing values frameworks theoretical suppositions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 677. Im, S., Montoya, M. M., & Workman, J. P. (2013). Antecedents and consequences of creativity in product innovation teams. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30(1), 170-185. Kotrba, L. M., Gillespie, M. A., Schmidt, A. M., Smerek, R. E., Ritchie, S. A., & Denison, D. R. (2012). Do consistent corporate cultures have better business performance? Exploring the interaction effects. Human relations, 65(2), 241-262. Pot, F. (2011). Workplace innovation for better jobs and performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 60(4), 404-415. Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M. G., & Macey, W. H. (2013). Organizational climate and culture. Annual review of psychology, 64, 361-388. Read More