Cultural evolution and improved innovative capacity

1. ABSTRACT Organisations and their managers have to tread a fine line between rigidity and chaos the positioning along which is determined by the activities undertaken at different stages of the project cycle and organisational development. Such a positioning is also dependent upon a knowledge base that is flexible, continuously replenished and embedded in all aspects of an organisation’s culture. Initially, this can only be achieved through improved and explicit learning, however, as the capability to learn from the internal and external environment in a structured way develops, and flexibility is built into the system, the need for such structure will diminish and learning will start to self-organise. This paper examines the key drivers and barriers to the generation and assimilation of knowledge as a process of continuous renewal within Research and Development in a telecommunications environment. A number of cultural archetypes are derived from these indicators and the movement between them is used to suggest a form of cultural evolution that is dependent upon the creation of adaptive innovative capacity or slack.