Pressing innovation and entrepreneurship needs in Australian business: what's holding us back?

This qualitative study explored pressing innovation and entrepreneurship issues as perceived by 34 participants employed at various levels within the Australasian manufacturing and service sectors. The major implication drawn from this research-in-progress was that the majority of business managers and staff, including those with direct responsibility for innovation and entrepreneurship, do not understand the difference between innovation and entrepreneurship and will describe their needs in relation to innovation as identical to their needs in entrepreneurship. The findings reinforce the need to showcase innovation and entrepreneurship, and to co-ordinate what it is; where to find it; how to support it; and how to maintain it, in business settings

Organisational climate factors as predictors of innovation

A critical issue for organisation survival for many firms is the ability to become more flexible, adaptive, entrepreneurial and innovative. One factor which may have a direct or indirect relationship with innovation is organisational climate. This paper examines organisational climate factors a predictor of support for innovation in a small to medium enterprise (SME) consulting firm. Supportive of organisational climate was directly connected with an organisation's new product performance for two reasons. Firstly, a central element of a supportive organisational climate was perceived support from managers - a factor that was previously identified as an important predictor of new product success. Employees were more likely to be comfortable in engaging in the kinds of risk taking that have been linked with successful innovation when they perceived they were supported by management. Furthermore, increased organisational commitment of employees was associated with a supportive organisational climate. Secondly, the cross-functional integration associated in new product success was associated with a high level of co-worker cohesion, or peer support as identified in previous literature