An Empirical Study on Innovation and Role of Demographic Variables

Abstract

Purpose: The paper aims at looking at the influence of selected demographic variables on organisational innovation process. Design/Methodology/Approach: As organisations face more globalised and fast paced competitive environment today than ever before, the need of the hour has become a concentrated effort by organisations to be innovative. Innovation has emerged as a mainstay of organisational sustenance and thus an empirical study was attempted at, to understand the relationships between innovation and demographic variables, if any. Literature review was done to generate a representative pool of factors influencing innovation. An accepted scale of innovation measurement seems to be missing especially in the Indian context. The study also aimed at understanding the efficacy of including demographic variables as an innovativeness measurement parameter in developing such a scale. Based on the literature review a questionnaire was designed that was used to collect the data. A 7-point Likert scale was used to capture the data on the statements pertaining to innovation. The type of data obtained through the questionnaire was quantitative. Random and judgemental sampling techniques were used to identify the respondent pool for study. The study tried to gauge interrelationship between innovation and employee age, gender and length of service. Based on the findings, the study concludes that age and length of service seem to have strong influences on the innovation potential while gender did not seem to have a very significant impact on innovation process and thus age and length of service can be included as influencing measurement parameter for innovativeness in any innovation scale development.