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Due to rapid evolution of technology, innovations are vital to most organizations (Choi and Chan, 2009, p. 245). In addition, a growing number of customers are expecting organizations to act ecologically and socially responsible. Those circumstances force enterprises to adopt and implement innovations even beyond their core businesses. Nevertheless, the results of innovations such as improvements in efficiency due to total quality management, statistical process control, and manufacturing resource planning are in many cases not satisfying (Klein, Conn, and Sorra, 2001, p. 811). Several studies have shown that an organization’s failure to benefit from an adopted innovation can often be attributed to a deficient implementation process rather than to the innovation itself (Klein and Sorra, 1996, p. 1055; Aiman-Smith and Green, 2002, p. 421; Gary, 2005, p. 644; Karimi, Somers, and Bhattacherjee, 2007, p. 123). The implementation process, as the critical interface between the decision to adopt and the routine usage of an innovation (Klein and Sorra, 1996, p. 1057), has received increasing attention by scholars. The degree of implementation success is considered a better indicator for innovation quality than the degree of adoption success due to the fact that not all adopted innovations get ultimately implemented (Karimi et al., 2007, p. 103). Despite the growing number of studies which identify multiple causes of unsuccessful implementation processes, literature is lacking multidimensional models that explain the difference between successful and unsuccessful implementation efforts. Such models should take into account multiple and to some extent interrelated drivers of implementation success (Dean Jr. and Bowen, 1994, p. 393; Klein and Sorra, 1996, p. 1056; Klein et al., 2001, p. 811; Repenning, 2002, p. 110). In addition, Choi and Chan (2009, p. 245) point out that existing implementation studies tend to focus either on employee-related aspects, mostly on an individual level, or on organizational aspects such as management support, structure, and resources of the implementing organization. By combining these two approaches, Choi and Chan (2009, p. 251) show that management support significantly improves the implementation effectiveness as well as the innovation effectiveness by strengthening the collective innovation confidence and the collective innovation acceptance of employees.
The present study aims to contribute to existing implementation literature by examining the crucial aspects of innovation implementation. In contrast to Choi and Chan (2009), this study does not focus on the strength of causal relationships between factors of influence and implementation success. Instead, the crucial aspects within the organizations, which affect implementation success over time, are of particular interest. The paper begins with an introduction, followed by literature review. Then, barriers to innovation and obstacles to implementation of innovation are discussed. Before providing strategies for successful innovation implementation, drivers of innovation and organizational challenges are also briefly brought out. Strategic implications and conclusion form the last part of the paper.