Motivation to Innovate as a Key Factor in Innovation Development Process

Abstract

Abstract Research purpose. The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of industrial enterprises’ employees’ motivation to innovate on the results of innovation process and the quality of innovative products market performance. The need for such an assessment was inspired by the lack of understanding the role of motivation to innovate in the quality and success of innovation development process. Design/Methodology/Approach. To achieve this goal, the authors conducted a survey distributed to the industrial enterprise employees. The study was based on the paper-and-pencil survey that was distributed to 250 people involved in innovation development process at Russian industrial enterprises; 150 questionnaires were received back and considered valid for the study. The results were evaluated by means of statistical analysis performed by means of SPSS Statistics software. Findings. The results support the intuitive proposition that motivation to innovate influences the quality of new product development process: idea generation, market study, product development, pre-commercial financial analysis and commercialisation quality are influenced by motivation to innovate – which is in line with the literature (Cooper, 2013). At the same time, probability on new product development in the company, the quality of initial screening, preliminary technical analysis, preliminary production analysis and in-house product testing do not correlate with employee motivation to innovate. Same is true for the new product performance: we observed no correlation between the motivation to innovate and the market success, whereas correlation was revealed between the innovative motivation and the level of market competition for the new product; however, the graphical analysis allowed to estimate that in case employees with high motivation to innovate are absent in the company, it is very unlikely that the new product would be successful. Originality/Value/Practical implications. The study was based on a questionnaire that was used for relevant purposes in different countries in order to make cross-country comparison on the innovation development process and the role of motivation to innovate. It allowed to indicate the specific features of organisational culture that are outlined in the Russian management literature: in majority of cases, bottom-level innovative initiatives were not supported by the management (Prigozhin, 2007), and hence, motivation to innovate cannot be revealed by employees at every stage of the new product development process. Another reason for somewhat controversial findings of this study was the difference between organisational cultures of the analysed manufacturing enterprises, which was not evaluated in this article.