Building an innovative culture in a Thai subsidiary of a multinational corporation in the retail industry: a case study of Tesco lotus.

Abstract

Nowadays, companies tend to promote themselves as innovative companies. The greatest challenge to being a genuinely innovative company is the absence of an innovative culture within the company. To help a company build an innovative culture we have to investigate what the factors are that help a company to be the valid innovative company. This research will be focused on the importance of innovative culture and factors to build that culture. In reference to the research method, the researcher used a qualitative research by creating in-depth interviews with the probing technique to help the researcher find deeper information and the interviewees’ attitudes toward innovation. The data was collected from three respondents who are senior managers of Tesco Lotus. This research revealed that “trust, challenge, freedom/flexibility and commitment from management” were considered as the most important factors to build innovative culture in retail industry. It can be concluded that innovative culture should come from the commitment of management and the Human Resources Department, which all have to be centralized in the company. KEY WORDS: innovative culture/ organizational culture/ innovative company