Abstract Title: The Impact of Organizational Culture and Leadership on Organizational Innovation

Level: Final assignment for Master Degree in Business Administration

Authors: Ruzlin Akter and Shashiprabha Rathnayaka

Supervisor: Zahra Ahmadi, PhD

Examiner: Maria Fregidou-Malama, PhD

Date: 2019 – January

Aim: The aim of the study is to explore the impact of organizational culture and leadership in the development of organizational innovation.

Method: The study is based on twelve qualitative interviews from six different organizations. The organizations have been selected randomly but with consideration of innovativeness. Two of the organizations have been selected from Sri Lanka and four organizations from Sweden. This study has been conducted by following an inductive qualitative research method using structured and semi-structured interview. Inductive approach has been followed to analyze the data.

Result & Conclusion: Organization culture and leadership together have an influence for developing innovation. The findings of the study suggest that process and job oriented culture, and transactional leadership has both positive and negative impact in developing innovation. Our findings suggest that result oriented culture, employee oriented culture, pragmatic culture, open system and transformational leadership are more effective than process oriented, job oriented, normative culture and transactional leadership for developing innovation.

Suggestion for Future Research: Though this study has used six organizations, the numbers of participants is low for each organization. This study has not focused on any specific industry and national culture. Therefore the suggestion for further study is to use more participants and to be industry specific. Researcher can also go in depth to identify which factors are particularly the reasons for the failure and success of innovativeness to this particular industry through comparing the national culture.

Contribution: This study has made a theoretical contribution by connecting organizational culture and leadership with innovation and provides a new reflection regarding the impact of ii process oriented culture and job oriented culture. This study contributes to the implication to managers where managers can serve best for the culture while knowing about the influential result of the culture and leadership on innovation. With the help of this study, organizations will be able to identify the factors that may help them to be innovative and competitive in market. Ultimately the organization will be able contribute to the national economy of its country.

Key words: Organizational Innovation, Leadership, Organizational Culture.