The Determinants of Organizational Innovation: An Interpretation and Implications for Research Libraries

The research reported here is focused on a specific type of change in an organization – an innovation. In an empirical analysis of research libraries, it was found that five factors had a significant impact on the innovation performance of the library. These factors relate to the strategy, organizational structure, and leadership of the research library. The study sample consisted of 50 libraries that were members of the Association of Research Libraries. This paper will discuss the theoretical model, explain the effects of these five variables, highlight certain additional correlations that are meaningful, and discuss implications for research libraries. Introduction There is a common perception that an innovation is the result of personal creativity, inspiration, and the fortuitous convergence of a variety of external factors – all of which cannot be predicted or managed. Although some innovations emerge by accident or serendipity, according to Peter Drucker, successful innovations result from a “conscious, purposeful search for innovation opportunities which are found in only a few situations.” 1 There are certain attributes of organizational culture that can foster this more conscious, purposeful search. Some 50 years ago, Jesse Shera a preeminent library scholar, understood this cultural challenge and suggested a librarian mindset for creating a more innovative library: “In a world of mingled menace and promise, the winds of change blow as surely through the library stacks as they do through the corridors of the United Nations . . . The librarian, therefore, must be both critic and architect – destroyer of that which is obsolete and builder of his own future”. In their study of isomorphic processes, DiMaggio and Powell have suggested that the traditions and norms of the institution create an “iron cage” which restricts change. Given the library’s well-established norms, organizational members are typically conditioned to focus on and protect existing practice. To counter this internal resistance, Peter Drucker has argued, based on many years of study, that innovation can be systematically managed. Shera’s admonition that librarians become both builders of the future and destroyers of that which is obsolete suggests that major changes will be a part of the research library future. To accomplish these changes, as Kanter has noted, members of the organization will need to challenge beliefs and received wisdom in order to realize major, new innovations. The central question for leaders is whether the positive impact of the research library on scholarly communication and information access can be substantially improved without implementing major innovations and undertaking the requisite organizational changes. If major change is warranted, how then is this change brought about? These questions suggest that library leaders will need to create a culture in which innovation and creativity become accepted norms.