Executive Summary
Roche Diagnostics Middle East experiences issues with creativity, which could be caused by organizational barriers to innovation. The present report applies the interactionalist model of creativity and innovation to identify and explain organizational creativity setbacks. Based on the analysis, the paper also provides four recommendations for improvement. The results show that the company should improve its internal structure, implement transformational leadership, develop organizational culture, and introduce more training and development opportunities. Applying these changes would enable the company to create a healthy environment for creativity and innovation, while also improving employee performance and motivation.
Introduction
Creativity and innovation are crucial to ensuring a firm’s competitive position in the market. However, as was discovered in the previous assignment, the chosen company experiences some issues in the area of individual creativity. One of the possible reasons for it is the lack of an appropriate organizational culture of creativity and innovation. Problems related to leadership and human resources management and development can hurt organizational creativity climate.
There are also some social barriers to creativity and innovation, such as poor team relations, impaired workplace communication, and more. Therefore, it is essential to appraise the chosen company in terms of structure, leadership, and HRM/D to determine the causes of individual and organizational creativity setbacks.
The present report will seek to apply the theoretical concepts and models learned in the course to analyze the organizational creativity climate in Roche Diagnostics Middle East. The document will also provide a set of valuable recommendations, which will help the company’s leaders to support and enhance creativity and innovation in the workplace, thus improving performance.
Analysis
The different theoretical models of creativity and innovation differ in the way they portray their relationship with other organizational variables. For example, the investment model relates more to individual creativity, as it states that one’s creative performance is linked to intellectual abilities, knowledge, and other personal factors (Sternberg & Lubart 1995). According to this model, organizations that strive to create a positive climate for creativity and innovation should focus on developing the skills and knowledge of their workers.
The investment model is somewhat related to the interactionalist climate model since they both include an individual creativity component. However, the interactionalist model views creativity as a combination of social, individual, and environmental influences. The social influences include leadership, management, and teams, whereas organizational factors are the structure, size, strategy, resources, and culture (Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin 1993).
Lastly, the individual components of creativity are personality, motivation, expertise, and creativity skills (Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin 1993). This model provides a comprehensive look at creativity in the workplace, which is why it can be applied to the case of Roche Diagnostics Middle East.
From the viewpoint of the interactionalist creativity climate model, the organization fails to provide the environment necessary for creativity and innovation. There are evident problems in all three components of the environment. Firstly, there are certain problems with the organizational structure, as the company is understaffed and there is no clarity in terms of roles and tasks. The structure has shown to have a significant influence on team performance, individual learning, and motivation (Närman, Johnson & Gingnell 2014; Rao, Mellam & Manohar 2015). These effects are evident in the target company.
Due to understaffing, managers give additional tasks that are not compensated and hurt employees’ performance of their regular duties. This shows a problem with resources and culture, which are also important variables in the organizational component of creativity.
Secondly, there are issues in HRM and leadership, which affect organizational creativity and innovation, too. The management follows an autocratic leadership style, which impacts employee motivation and job performance (Burnes & Bargal 2017). This means that the managers rely on their authority rather than on internal systems that contribute to creativity, such as rewards and recognition schemes. Also, the managers show poor attitudes toward employees’ work and the lack of recognition and support of employees.
This impairs the social aspect of creativity and innovation while also not allowing the workers to develop personal creativity skills. Given the shortage of resources and understaffing, it would be helpful for the management to use a different leadership style that would increase the motivation of workers and allow for more innovation. The transformational leadership style would be a more helpful alternative, as it promotes motivation and creativity through the use of non-material rewards and contributes to organizational culture (Tushman & O’Reilly 2002).
Incidentally, the third problem that is obvious in the company is the lack of a strong organizational culture. According to Zien and Buckler (2002), creating an organizational culture that focuses on creativity and innovation can help companies to develop these qualities in their workforce. This is largely because a healthy organizational culture helps employees to be more confident when expressing ideas (Tushman & O’Reilly 2002).
A healthy organizational culture could also help to improve staffing rates by reducing stress and increasing retention. The components of an appropriate organizational culture would include a focus on personal and professional development, two-way communication between employees and leaders, and a large number of opportunities for employees to improve their skills and show creativity.
The culture in Roche Diagnostics Middle East lacks all of these features, which contributes to the weakness of its organizational component of creativity. Although there is some flexibility in roles and tasks, the uncertainty and structural issues put additional pressure on employees and make them struggle with new assignments. The managers and leaders, in turn, do not provide adequate help and support to employees who receive unfamiliar tasks or assignments. The lack of organizational support limits the individuals’ opportunity to excel in their work, reducing motivation and innovativeness.
The last issue that was discovered as part of the assessment process is that employees are not given a chance to develop expertise and creativity skills. For example, it is common for managers to assign new roles and responsibilities without providing the necessary induction and training. The learning and development opportunities offered by Roche Diagnostics Middle East are minimal, and employees have to rely on external sources for knowledge and information. The lack of opportunities for guided learning and development increases workplace stress and reduces job performance. Both of these factors hurt motivation, which also influences the individual component of creativity and innovation.
Conclusions
The application of the interactionalist creativity climate model, as well as related leadership and creativity frameworks, showed that the target company has barriers to creativity in all three components or innovation. In the organizational aspect, Roche Diagnostics Middle East demonstrates a weak structure and a shortage of resources, as well as the absence of an organizational culture of creativity. These negative factors affect employees by reducing their motivation and work performance, and thus have a detrimental effect on organizational creativity. Establishing a supportive environment with well-defined roles and plenty of resources for development should be among the key targets of the business.
The company also performs poorly in the social aspect of creativity and innovation. This aspect involves a supportive climate, attitudes, management, and teams (Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin 1993). The management of the company utilizes an autocratic leadership style, which is often described as strict and unmotivating. The management relies on its position in the company rather than on effective communication and talent management, which affects employees’ attitudes and their creative skills. The lack of a supportive climate is also evident in the organization, and this impacts how employees perform in their roles and tasks.
The individual components of creativity and innovation are expertise, creativity skills, personality, and motivation. Whereas organizations can do little to influence an employee’s personality, they can help to develop the individual capacity for creativity by focusing on human resource development. In Roche Diagnostics Middle East, employees have few opportunities for development. When assigning new tasks, the company does not provide on-the-job training to ensure that employees have the necessary skills and knowledge to complete them.
While challenging employees with new tasks is a good idea, it is still essential to assure that they receive the information and training needed to perform them successfully. Also, the company does not offer any courses or training designed to help employees in developing and applying creativity skills.
Recommendations
Firstly, establishing a supportive environment with well-defined roles and plenty of resources for development should be among the principal targets of the business. The organization should seek to improve staffing rates and define each position within the company to achieve a clear organizational structure. With more employees, it will also be possible for the organization to improve the social component of creativity by forming teams and enabling internal knowledge-sharing.
Secondly, the company should implement a transformational leadership style to encourage followership behavior and help employees to enhance their individual capacities while also improving team and company performance (Tepper et al., 2018). To apply this leadership style, the leaders should define their vision for the organization, establish open communication with employees, and encourage them to share ideas on how the company could reach this vision (McCleskey 2014).
Another important recommendation for the company is to develop an organizational culture that promotes creativity, innovation, and knowledge-sharing. To create an appropriate organizational culture, the leaders should resolve structural issues, improve communication with employees, and enhance working conditions. Participatory decision-making is an option that would be appropriate in the firm’s current situation (Tushman & O’Reilly 2002).
It would improve innovation by increasing the number of ideas shared by employees and raise individual motivation by providing a sense of belonging and worth. The final recommendation is to introduce more training and development opportunities for employees. According to Dong et al. (2016), individual skill development has a positive influence on creativity, as it presents people with new situations and problems to solve. Therefore, by improving the range of training and development opportunities available to employees, the company would also be able to boost organizational creativity and innovation.
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