Understanding the Internal and External Communicative Drivers of Organizational Innovativeness

Abstract

Organizational and communication studies have established that communication plays a critical role in organizational innovation, because internal and external communication allows individuals, groups, and organizations to recombine existing knowledge into new ideas. In light of this, this research re-directs our attention to the specific communicative antecedents of an organization’s overall propensity for innovation. Survey data from 293 nonprofit organizations showed that interorganizational partnership diversity, knowledge sharing via the use of information communication technologies (ICTs), and entrepreneurial orientation affect organizational innovativeness, with differential effects on administrative innovativeness and technological innovativeness. Specifically, interorganizational partnership diversity promoted administrative innovativeness but had an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship with technological innovativeness. Effective ICT-mediated knowledge sharing improved technological innovativeness only. The combination of interorganizational partnership diversity and EO (i.e., proactiveness) increased administrative innovativeness. However, interorganizational partnership diversity and effective knowledge sharing indirectly influenced technological innovativeness via proactiveness. This study advances research on organizational innovation, ICTs, and interorganizational networks.