Implementing innovations within organizations: a systematic review and research agenda

Abstract

Contemporary organizations often adopt innovations as their top priority to survive severe global competition and the rapidly changing business environment. Although organizational gains from using an innovation (i.e. innovation success) appear to largely depend on the correct decision to adopt an effective innovation, ultimately, innovation success cannot be obtained until individuals consistently use or implement the innovation (i.e. implementation success). Considering the importance of innovation implementation, we scrutinize the factors influencing the implementation process and outcomes for all innovation types (e.g., technological and process, service and product, and administrative innovation). Specifically, we conduct a systematic review of the existing studies on innovation implementation and categorize the factors into four groups: innovation characteristics, social factors, organizational factors, and individual factors. Drawing on the findings obtained from our investigation and our insights shaped during the systematic review process, we suggest three future research agendas: (a) consider individual factors as the primary predictors of an individual’s implementation behavior toward innovation; (b) examine the possibility that innovations change during their implementation and that multiple forms of implementation outcomes can result; and (c) uncover the implementation mechanism of organizations that continuously adopt and implement innovations over a prolonged period.

Keywords:

• Innovation
• implementation
• innovation characteristics
• social factors
• organizational factors
• individual factors

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the thoughtful comments of Markus Perkmann, Associate Editor, and anonymous reviewers. The corresponding author would also like to thank Jin Nam Choi, professor at Seoul National University, and Seungdoe Lee, CEO of Hankuk Metal Co., Ltd. for their help, advice and support.