Climate for Innovation

For flowers to grow they need the right environment, for organisations to innovate they need the right climate.  

If an organisation wants to be innovative it needs to ensure that the organisational climate is one which  allows innovation to flourish. The climate of a team or organisation can either foster or stifle innovation and creativity. There are many aspects of a climate that might be important, but early research identified the key dimensions important for fostering innovation.

Goran Ekvall assessed the creative climate in a large number of Swedish organisations which were independently classified by Harry Nystrom (Norwegian School of Management) as high, low, or average, in innovative development of products / services, or operational processes. High scorers are accordingly defined as ‘innovative’ and low scorers as ‘stagnated’.

Results showed that, on average, innovative organisations scored differently from "stagnated" organisations on some key climate dimensions. These differences are outlined below.