dc.description.abstract | This research finds that self-correcting, even self-contradicting changes often take place in innovation activities of governmental organizations, as the “Silenced Innovation Spiral (SIS)” theory has predicted. Passing through a few critical/turning points, the innovation activities which are impacted by many factors, will eventually enter into a silent spiraling path illustrating a non-linear, discontinuous evolution process. Many key factors, that are seldom seen (or at least not so easily seen), are sometimes concealed by dusts on the path of innovation, and/or frequently submerged under huge waves in the sea of innovation. The reason why strategies such as “Decision-Support Innovation” are adopted by governmental organizations is usually based on interactions of many factors, i.e. external environmental impacts on organization, internal organizational culture on innovation and the leaders’ perception on innovation itself, just to name a few. The innovation diffusion process usually brings forward re-innovation and hence inevitable instability to the governmental organization that adopts it in the first place. Such a complex process of innovation evolution can only be analyzed/understood/discoursed through a longer-term and more holistic research that is current study.
This research distinguishes itself from others on similar topics namely innovation diffusion in organizations, in that others conducted their studies by implementing a methodology that focused on just representation factors appeared in a shorter time-span. Based on “Innovation Diffusion” theory to observe innovation activities related to “Environmental Scanner” in governmental science & technology decision process, this 9-year-long research, on the other hand, has studied in detail the development path and key success/failure factors of organizational innovation issues of the STAG(Science and Technology Advisory Group)of Executive Yuan, Taiwan, ROC in due course of adopting the “International Science & Technology Observation System (ISTOS)”. This research also adopts the “Action Research” methodology, as well as approaches such as “Participant Observation”, “In-depth Interview” and “Secondary Data Analysis” for the collection/analysis of data/information.
The major contribution of this research is to bring forward that key success/failure factors for innovation diffusion in governmental organizations lie in a few seemingly strong yet delicate impacts, which were hidden/embedded in the environment, organizations and individuals. These impacts, resulted from interactions of many ever-changing “driving forces”, shaped the phenomenon that is “Dynamic Innovation Evolution”. Through sudden temporal changes and long-term fermentation, these hidden/embedded impacts eventually formed the so-called “Innovation Iceberg Evolution Structure(IIES)” , that finally determines the path and success/failure of the innovation activities in the organization as a whole.
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