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Having a good idea, product or system is often not enough to ensure the adoption and diffusion of an innovation. Using an organisational power and politics perspective, several published accounts of product and administrative innovation are analysed. The interplay of political tactics or games are found to be present at both the observable surface level and the deep structural level of power relationships in all areas of activity – individual, group, organisational and societal. The viability of two overall political influence strategies, “asking for forgiveness” versus “seeking permission” are contrasted in terms of their implications for the eventual success or failure of a proposed product or administrative innovation. Several propositions and future research directions which focus on the political nature and processes of innovation are suggested.

The output of scientific and technological knowledge and invention is growing at an ever‐increasing rate, technological innovations are becoming increasingly complex and obsolescence times are shortening, all of which impose pressure on industry to step up its production of new and improved products and processes. The attitude of many would‐be innovators towards their inventions is typified by the well‐known epigram attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” But just how appropriate is this attitude? Will it result in the successful commercialisation of new inventions (i.e. successful innovation)? Presumably not, because unless the book is published, the sermon addressed to an audience, or the mousetrap used, the world will not guess in which direction it must beat its path!

The innovation process is not homogeneous, but highly variable according to industrial sector and the level of abstraction of the innovation itself. This level of abstraction from existing products while not precisely measurable, can be graded, thus giving some guidance as to the probability of success according to the size of investment and the risk involved. The complexity of the new product and its technological level (the monograph confines the argument to product innovation) will also determine how the innovating organisation handles the innovation. Much research has now been done into the innovation process, and some of the leading projects and their findings are analysed. Supporting the basic argument there are two case histories, one of a successful scientific instrument, together with reference to an unsuccessful attempt to launch it, and one of a failure with a new material, in spite of highly successful technology.

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between innovation and economic growth, following the Schumpeter approach, considering the entrepreneurship activity.

Several hypotheses are tested considering three equations, for the case of ten developed countries. To estimate the equations, generalized least square (GLS)‐cross‐section weights and panel least squares methodologies for the period 2001‐2009 have been used.

Innovation plays a central role in the economic growth process and the entrepreneur is the vehicle to introduce the new technologies to improve the firms' activity and to obtain higher profits. It is also necessary to include in this process other variables: social climate and the role of institutions.

Some measures can design from these results to improve innovation and entrepreneurship activity, which would have positive effects on economic growth.

Schumpeterian approach is developed for this analysis, and empirical estimations are carried out to test hypotheses on economic growth and innovation, considering not only the traditional quantitative variables but also qualitative ones, having a wider view about the process. Drucker statement on innovation effects on entrepreneurship activity is also tested.

This paper shows that employee resistance against innovations can be explained by the sunk costs nature of human capital investments induced by innovations. Therefore, internal resistance against innovations is more likely if it is uncertain that the employees can reap the benefits of these investments. This is, for example, the case if employment in the firm is bound to decrease or if further innovations are planned. These theoretical predictions are confirmed empirically in a multi‐variate analysis. A representative German firm data set for the service sector is used for the estimation.

This article challenges the tendency of the information systems literature to subsume IT innovation in processes of organizational change, either with the role of “enabler” of organizational objectives, or as an instrument appropriated by situated organizational actors. Using institutionalist theory, the relationship between information systems development and organizational transformation is studied as the interaction of two institutionalization processes: the increasing momentum and legitimation of IT innovation; and the organizational efforts for the substitution of established structures and activities with new ones which often do not command adequate legitimacy. Such analysis suggests that IT innovation in organizations is to a large extent sustainable by its own institutional forces, irrespective of contribution to the processes of organizational change. This perspective is demonstrated with the case study of the Mexican oil company, Pemex, where IT projects have played a large part in its transformation from a state‐owned to private enterprise.

To develop and propose a conceptual model that explains why downstream channel members (e.g. retailers) are likely to adopt or resist the implementation of emerging partner relationship management (PRM) technologies by their channel counterparts (i.e. suppliers).

The conceptual model is grounded in organizational innovation theory and utilizes select case examples to support posited relationships.

Resellers' level of commitment to new PRM tools deployed by suppliers is likely to be driven by their perception of the technology's impact on the equity (i.e. fairness) and efficiency (i.e. cost) of existing channel relationships. In turn, resellers' perceptions about the equity and efficiency implications of PRM technology adoption are expected to be influenced by several factors, including: environmental factors, suppliers' choice of influence strategies and the characteristics of the exchange relationship.

Aside from offering several testable propositions, the paper also raises various questions that are worthy of investigation, such as: To what extent (if at all) do boundary‐spanning technologies alter the basic nature of channel relationships? Can the deployment of PRM tools simultaneously lead to both greater channel conflict and coordination? Do differences in reseller commitment result when different implementation partners (i.e. third‐party software firms) handle the deployment of the technology across geographic regions?

The paper builds on the inter‐organizational concepts of equity and efficiency to offer a new perspective on the adoption of boundary‐spanning technologies in a channel setting.

The fact that a management training course is run on an in‐company basis rather than outside the organization does not guarantee that any of the learning acquired by course members will automatically be transferred back into the trainee's work situation. While many companies are prepared to devote considerable resources to helping their staff acquire new skills and knowledge, they frequently neglect to assist them in aplying this new learning back into their work. Frequently, disappointed with the low levels of learning transfer from traditional courses, many firms have reverted to work‐oriented, project‐based types of training programmes in the hope of ensuring that at least some of the training effort is translated back into improved trainee performance. However, in many cases the subject matter of the training may make it unsuited to this approach. Alternatively, an organization may wish to retain its existing in‐company training scheme, but would like to improve it in some way so as to enhance the likelihood of staff changing their work behaviour in the direction intended by the course.

The purpose of the work is to study the essence of conflict as an economic category through the prism of the existing conceptual issues.

The authors use the systemic approach for comprehensive, structured, and dynamic study of socio-economic systems. Within this approach, the method of classification is used, with the help of which the existing conceptual approaches to treatment of the essence of conflict as an economic category are determined and limited, and the method of comparative analysis, with the help of which the distinguished approaches are compared to each other. The information and analytical basis of the research is materials of the works of international authors on the issues of conceptual study of the essence of conflict as an economic category.

As a result of the research, it is determined that conflict – as an economic category – is described in detail by the concepts of the modern economic theory (e.g., the concept of state regulation of economy, the concept of innovations, and the concept of economic cycles) and is the object of a lot of research. At the same time, conflict – as an economic category – is studied fragmentarily within three alternative approaches – inter-subject, adaptive, and crisis, each of which focuses on a certain manifestation of conflict in economy: contradiction of interests of economic subjects with their interaction, lack of desire of economic subjects to adapt to changes, and failure in the socio-economic system. Within each of the above conceptual approaches to treatment of the essence of conflict as an economic category, reasons and consequences of conflicts are given, and specific managerial tools are offered.

Systemic study of conflict as an economic category, which unified all distinguished approaches, allowed determining conflict as a negative reaction of the economic system or its economic subjects to changes in economic reality, which is expressed at all levels of this system and is subject to management. The offered definition allows specifying the essence of the conflict of economic category and ensuring its systemic research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which climate for innovation, supportive climate, and rules climate influence job performance and satisfaction of local police (LP) officers in Spain. By integrating multiple climates simultaneously into a single study the authors assess the added value of climate for innovation.

Participants included 175 LP officers who completed a questionnaire including measures of climate (FOCUS-93), job satisfaction, and perceived performance.

Multiple regression analyses showed that developing a climate for innovation has a positive impact on police satisfaction and perceived performance beyond that of well-established climates. Climate for innovation emerges as the main predictor of job satisfaction, while it provides a small, significant increment of explained variance in perceived performance.

Policy makers should enable participation of officers in the innovating process, thus improving the quality of change and creating a better work environment.

Building on the competing values framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983), this research is a contribution towards understanding how different climate types combine and relate to each other to account for officers’ behaviours and outcomes.