Investigating innovation management practices in Iranian organizations

The aim of this study is threefold. First to explore the extent to which innovation practices and activities are implemented in Iranian organizations. Second, given special conditions of Iran to find out what factors currently form the main drivers and barriers to innovation in Iranian organizations. Third, to survey if there is any relationship between innovation practices and organizational performance of Iranian organizations mainly based on a descriptive analysis. Based on the review of literature of innovation practices, drivers and barriers of successful implementation to innovation practices were identified. Through a self-administered questionnaire which was collected from 87 Iranian organizations the extent of innovation practices implementation and their rankings in the surveyed organizations were determined. Analysis of data and the obtained results revealed that opening of new domestic target groups is the most frequently practice of innovation. Also, customer centricity and organizational structure and bureaucratic and excessive administrative regulations were ranked as the main driver and barrier of innovation implementation respectively. Finally, the result of chi-square test showed that the implementation of innovation practices is positively and significantly related to organizational performance of Iranian organizations.