The Effects of Communication on Technological Innovation

Yar M. Ebadi and James M. Utterback
Additional contact information
Yar M. Ebadi: Department of Management, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506
James M. Utterback: School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Management Science, 1984, vol. 30, issue 5, 572-585

Abstract: This study examined the relationship between communication and technological innovation. It focused on the patterns of technical communication among researchers and organizations to find out if these patterns had any effect on the success of technological innovation. The objectives were to: (1) investigate the effects of communication on technological innovation at an individual level, and (2) study the effects of interorganizational communication on technological innovation. Data were gathered from the principal investigators of 117 Sea Grant research projects, which were randomly selected from a sampling frame of 495 projects. Bivariate correlation, and partial correlation, were employed in analyzing the data. The findings indicate that at the individual level, the frequency, centrality, and diversity of communication all have positive effects on the success of technological innovation. However, the frequency of communication was found to have a greater effect than either centrality or diversity of communication on technological innovation. It was also found that high formality of communication had a negative effect on technological innovation. On the aggregate level, network cohesiveness, centrality, and diversity of communications all were positively related to technological innovation. Several managerial implications may be suggested. These implications include management attempts to facilitate and promote exchange of information among researchers and among organizations, joint research projects and other interactive activities.

Keywords: research and development; project management; organizational studies: personnel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1984
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.30.5.572 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:30:y:1984:i:5:p:572-585

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().