*3.2.1 Organizational level*

Organizational variables concern the context in which work is carried out. As long as WI is lacking, technological innovation is regarded a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for change and improvement. As a result, WI refers to the essential organizational adjustments that will enable employees to properly incorporate and apply technological innovation. Most of the respondents (79,5%) indicated that during the last three years their companies had introduced new product or new process to the market. Furthermore, 60,2% of the respondents confirmed that additionally, their entities introduced organizational and marketing innovation strategies as shown in **Figure 2**.

The majority of the product and process innovations were developed by the companies' themselves, and these innovations resulted from collaborative work with other entities and institutions. Companies should go beyond their internal processes and develop cooperation with external organizations or professionals. This means combining their internal knowledge with external knowledge to move forward in their strategy. In this sense, it should be highlighted that not many rail entities focus their innovation on modifying other entities innovative solutions and this is shown in **Figure 3**.

**Figure 4** shows how each company has its own approach to organize their innovations. Based on the results, most of the entities involve different departments in

**Figure 2.**

*Innovations introduced during the last three years in EU entities.*

**Figure 3.** *Innovation's development in EU rail entities.*

their innovation processes. However, in most of the cases, the engineering department is the one that leads the innovations.

Among organizational innovation, entities mostly implement new business practices for organizing procedures (62,3%). More than half of the respondents confirmed their organization had used new methods for organizing work assignment and decision making in their enterprises. These improvements were focused on the use of a new system of employee responsibilities, teamwork, decentralization, integration or de-integration of departments, as well as education/training systems. The remaining 40,7% introduced new methods of organizing external relations with other firms or public institutions. These changes were mostly focused on the use of alliances, partnerships, outsourcing or subcontracting.

The improvement of quality goods or services (60%), the reduction of time to respond to customer or supplier needs (57,5%), and the improvement of the ability to develop new products or processes were assigned the highest priority among the objectives for firms addressing organizational innovations over the previous three years (47%). An open culture will allow to face the challenge of launching innovative products, offering quickness and flexibility to respond to changing demands from their customers, as shown in **Figure 5**.

#### **Figure 4.**

*Departments in charge of the product and process innovations development.*

**Figure 5.**

*Objectives for organizational innovations introduced in EU railway enterprises during the last three years.*

#### *Innovation Methodologies to Activate Inclusive Growth in the Organization DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99150*

Companies that work in the railway sector are prompt to introduce changes in their internal processes. In particular, great changes in relation to the use of technology, the way to coordinate and allocate the work to employees, the remuneration system, recruitment policies and in the working time arrangements have been confirmed (**Figure 6**).

As mentioned in Section 2, WI is a complex process which depends on various organizational and management factors. With regards the changes in the external processes, these seem to be less important than the internal ones. More than half of the respondents have confirmed their organizations had adopted new strategies for organizing job responsibilities and decision making. The most used information methods are internal sources and public sector sources. Both of them are used by more than a half of the respondents. Market sources (e.g. suppliers of equipment, materials, components, or software) and opinion of clients or customers from the public sector are very frequent also (both have more than 40% of positive answers). Nevertheless, information provided by consultants and commercial labs were not considered relevant source of the information for innovation projects, as shown in **Figure 7**.

**Figure 6.**

*Internal changes introduced in EU railway enterprises during the last three years.*

#### **Figure 7.**

*Information sources used for new innovation projects or contributed to the completion of existing projects during the last three years.*

#### *Advances in Decision Making*

According to the achieved results, brainstorming sessions are the most common tools the entities implement in their innovation practices (61,9%), followed by multidisciplinary or cross functional work teams (56,7%). These methods are based on staff rotation through different departments, financial and non-financial incentives, and public recognition, among others (**Figure 8**).

The most common method to involve the employees are regular meetings between employees and immediate managers (73%). The Committees or task forces are less common, as well as the communication methods such as internal newsletters, notice boards and email. Additionally, open meetings to all employees, suggestions schemes for collection of ideas and employee surveys are the most used ones by big entities (**Figure 9**).

### *3.2.2 Process level*

At process level is measured the development of new approaches/practices as a result of the implementation of various WI instruments, analyzing the effect of methods on the staff's ability to generate new ideas. Autonomy and participation concern the degree to which employees can decide the way their work is carried out.

#### **Figure 8.**

*Methods of staff stimulation in order to develop new ideas or creativity.*

#### **Figure 9.**

*Methods of involving employees into enterprises' innovation activities.*

*Innovation Methodologies to Activate Inclusive Growth in the Organization DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99150*

Almost half of respondents indicated that daily work decisions are taken in collaboration between employees and managers. However, the number of employees involved in the follow up is not really relevant. Normally, it is the manager the responsible of monitoring the tasks, as it is shown in **Figure 10**:

Innovation behavior concerns the extent to which employees feel they are involved in the development of innovation. For all job levels, highest percentage of employee's involvement was in the development of process innovation (58,45%), as well as for product innovation (57,67%). However, the study reveals that employees do not feel really engaged in organizational innovation. **Table 1** shows the obtained results.

#### **Figure 10.**

*Difference between decision taking for daily work tasks and follow up results.*


#### **Table 1.**

*Type of developed innovation/role in entity income crosstabulation.*

**Figure 11** show the position perspective on involvement of employees into development of different types of innovations.

Existing approaches to the organizations' Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) were also evaluated. These aspects are focused on keeping and sharing best practices among the entity. In most of the cases (66,8%), there is an established procedure for keeping records of the good practices or lessons learned. Additionally, 56,7% of the entities that implemented these documenting procedures for monitoring external ideas or technological developments are doing it as a part of the responsibilities of general staff and 28,4% are using staff assigned specifically to this task, as shown in **Figure 12**.

Organizations have the need for new models of relationships based on sharing and making information accessible, the exchange of ideas and open collaboration. Most of the respondents had their own technology surveillance systems (69,9%) for monitoring market trends and technological developments. Among the methods used for monitoring external sources, the following are highlighted: Internet (58,6%), seminars and trade fairs (57,1%) and personnel training (49%). Other methods such as visits to other workplaces, reading publications in both professionals' journals and research and scientific magazines are not relevant for rail industry (**Figure 13**).

#### **Figure 11.**

*Position perspective on involvement of employees into development of different types of innovations (in frequency of participation).*

#### **Figure 12.**

*Particularities of KIM in EU railway enterprises (organization of work of employees who document and keep records of their good work practices.*

*Innovation Methodologies to Activate Inclusive Growth in the Organization DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99150*
