Building Innovation Capabilities-Influences at the Individual, Organizational & Structural Levels

Nowadays competing in unforgiving and dynamic markets requires fostering innovative cultures that continuously actualize the fit between the changing requirements of demanding customers and the organization’s offering and capabilities.In a clear move towards this direction, many large companies have started implementing programs aimed at building innovation as a broad and sustainable competence installed in their DNA. As organizational cultures have to do with all organizational members, a shared characteristic of many innovation initiatives is involving and reaching people at every corner of the organization. Using a cognitive perspective and a rich database, this paper explores how structural aspects influence the way in which employees perceive innovation building initiatives. Results show that there are relevant perception gaps among both functional areas and hierarchical levels, and that there is a widespread skepticism regarding the future of these initiatives