Abstract
In literature, it is claimed by some studies that the content of a vision statement can be a tool to reach some desired individual and organizational level results. The importance of various types of innovation for organizations has been supported by many empirical studies. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of a vision statement's content on the amount of innovation in Turkish small and medium sized enterprises. With this aim, first this chapter briefly reviews the literature on vision statements and innovation, followed by the methodology and findings. The chapter ends with future directions and conclusions, which include the originalities and limitations of this study.
TopIntroduction
Nowadays, almost all organizations operate in turbulent environments. Therefore, different types of innovation have become vital for them to survive. Many studies have been conducted to understand the effects of contextual factors such as size (Blau & McKinley, 1979) and structural factors such as complexity, formalization and centralization (Damanpour, 1996; Pierce & Delbecq, 1977) on innovation. Although innovation is a concept which is generally correlated with large-sized organizations, it is accepted to a large extent that innovation is also quite considerable for “Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)”.
On the other hand, another important concept for organizations seems to be vision statements. There are some studies in the literature which focus on the consequences of vision statements of organizations at an individual level such as more highly motivated employees (Kantabutra, 2010) and at an organizational level such as increased profits (Baum, Locke, & Kirkpatrick, 1998). However, although there is extensive literature on the antecedents and consequences of vision statements, as far as we know, the effect of vision statements on organizational innovation has not been examined to date.
Therefore, it is hypothesized in this study that innovation oriented vision statements of organizations will affect their innovation performance. With this aim, first, we will present brief literature reviews on organizational innovation and vision statements, then, we will mention the research to test our hypothesis. In the fourth part of the study, the findings are presented and finally, future research directions and conclusions which include the limitations and originalities of this study.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Vision: A leader’s ideological statement of a desired, long-term future for an organization.
Organizational Innovation: First use of a product, service, process or idea by an organization.
Vision Statement: The written type of organizational vision.
Industry: A cluster of organizations which produces a good, a service or both of them.
Strategic Management: Efforts of organizations in which aim to provide competitive advantage.
Organizational Structure: A multidimensional concept which includes sub-concepts such as centralization, the complexity, degree of formalization, division, labor specialization, span of control and professionalism.
Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME): Organization which employs people less than 250.