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KEY WORDS: innovation, complex, organic, strategy, change
ABSTRACT
Three ideas-a complex division of labor, an organic structure, and a highrisk strategy-provoke consistent findings relative to organizational innovation. Of these three ideas, the complexity of the division of labor is most important because it taps the organizational learning, problem-solving, and creativity capacities of the organization. The importance of a complex division of labor has been underappreciated because of the various ways in which it has been measured, which in turn reflect the macroinstitutional arrangements of the educational system within a society. These ideas can be extended to the study of interorganizational relationships and the theories of organizational change. Integrating these theories would provide a general organizational theory of evolution within the context of knowledge societies.
ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION AND CHANGE
Although many lament the absence of cumulative findings in sociology, the study of organizational innovation is one instance where consistent findings have accumulated across more than thirty years of research. This was demonstrated in two recent reviews (Damanpour 1991, Zammuto & O'Connor 1992) published in the management literature. This present review has as one of its objectives to acquaint sociologists with the generalizations that have emerged and, as another objective, to extend beyond these previous reviews in three distinctive ways: (a) by emphasizing the importance of the complexity of the division of labor; (b) by suggesting needed arenas of new research; and (c) by integrating organizational innovation with the more general topic of organizational change. This will broaden systemically the solid body of research already accumulated.
Innovation research, although previously not central to the concerns of many sociologists, now offers an opportunity to address a large number of important practical and theoretical issues. Here are a few examples. Practically, since a country's economic development depends largely on the continued launching of new products, governments have become concerned about innovation. Indeed, the new products and new services provide new employment opportunities and positive balances of trade, thus protecting the nation's standard of living. But innovation in products, services, technologies, and administrative practices is also relevant to other institutional sectors besides the economy; the study of organizational innovation, for instance, articulates with the study of significant breakthroughs in science, the development of superior military equipment, the...