The Creative and Innovative Organisation Climate of South African Management Consulting Companies

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2014-01-20

Authors

Suliman, Zaheer

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Abstract

Innovation and the ability for an organisation, both private and public, to be innovative has become a prerequisite for survival and sustainability in the 21st century. As organisations address the need to innovate, a growing trend is to outsource innovation requirements to external service providers. Management consulting companies have become a typical external service provider to organisations, servicing their management creativity and innovation requirements, often based on the view that management consulting companies have a superior ability to be creative and innovative. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the creative and innovative organisation climate of South African management consulting companies in comparison to their typical clients industries. Organisation climate was defined as the work environment and conditions created by the combined effect and impact of individual employees, teams, management, leadership, organisation strategy, culture, support systems, policies, procedures and rules. A total of 310 respondents completed a 7 point likert-scale survey measuring 54 variables that define a creative and innovative organisation climate. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted followed by 2-tailed t-tests on the identified factors to determine the significant differences between management consulting companies and their typical clients’ industries. The creative and innovative ability of management consulting companies in comparison to their clients, in a South African context, could not be determined from the available research. The findings of this research indicated that the secondary and tertiary economic sector would benefit the most, the primary sector would have limited benefits and the quaternary sector would benefit the least from outsourcing creativity and innovation to South African management consulting companies. In comparison to the total combined industry sectors, management consulting companies showed an equal support for creativity and innovation as critical to organisation strategy, equal provision of relevant resources to execute innovation strategies and equal provision of a physical environment and enablers to enhance organisational creativity and innovation. In comparison to the total combined industry, It was however found that South African management consulting companies have individuals, teams, an organisation culture, leaders and managers that have a greater ability and propensity to be creative and innovative. Overall, supporting the view that, generally, South African management consulting companies have an organisation climate that is more supportive, enabling and enhancing of organisational creativity and innovation.

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MBA thesis

Keywords

Organisational climate, Innovation

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