SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration
No 2006:1:
Organizational Downsizing and Innovation
Anders Richtnér ()
and Pär Åhlström ()
Abstract: Companies implementing a downsizing strategy aiming at
increasing cost efficiency and operational effectiveness may face the fact
that their innovative ability is hampered. In this paper, we develop a
model of the mechanisms through which organizational downsizing affects
innovation. We use existing theory to develop propositions regarding the
details of how and why organizational downsizing affects innovation. Our
model contains three components: a) the organization’s stock of knowledge,
b) the individual’s creativity, and c) the knowledge creation process.
These are three components which previous research on innovation management
has suggested strongly affects innovation. Downsizing is also likely to
affect all three components in various ways. Overall, we can expect
downsizing to have a negative effect on innovation, but there are aspects
of the knowledge creation process which may be positively affected by
downsizing.
Keywords: Innovation; Knowledge; Knowledge creation; Organizational downsizing; (follow links to similar papers)
22 pages, January 13, 2006
Before downloading any of the electronic versions below
you should read our statement on
copyright.
Download GhostScript
for viewing Postscript files and the
Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing pdf files.
Full text versions of the paper:
hastba2006_001.pdf 
(143kB)
Download Statistics
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Helena Lundin ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ()
or Helena Lundin ().
Programing by
Design by Joakim Ekebom
