HOW WE WORK TOGETHER:

The role of team processes and organizational climate

in nonprofit innovation
TANIA CHENG and JUNIPER GLASS
August 31, 2015

Philanthropy and
Nonprofit Leadership

This publication is also available at: www.carleton.ca/mpnl

A short video summarizing the results of this study is available to the public at:
https://youtu.be/guSm821JvWA

Copyright 2015 by Tania Cheng and Juniper Glass

All rights reserved. No part of this document or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied,
modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author(s), unless otherwise
indicated.

For permission, please contact:

Tania Cheng | tania.cheng@carleton.ca
Juniper Glass | juniper.glass@carleton.ca
or
Dr. Amanda Clarke
amanda.clarke@carleton.ca
Faculty Advisor

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project was made possible by the contributions of 18 inspiring organizations that are
doing exceptional work to benefit Canada and their communities. It was a privilege to speak
with leaders from these organizations, and we are grateful for the time they took to share their
honest insights and experiences with us.
We would like to thank Vani Jain, Mary-Rose Brown, Chad Lubelsky, John Cawley and the team
at the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation for supporting us as a community partner on this
project and for inviting their networks of nonprofit organizations to participate in the study.
We are extremely grateful for the research methods training we received from Dr. Paloma
Raggo as well as the ongoing support and feedback from our advisor Dr. Amanda Clarke,
expert reader Dr. Greg Sears, and fellow students in the Master of Philanthropy and Nonprofit
Leadership program, all at Carleton University.
Thank you to Dr. Clara Cheng for assisting with statistical analysis of survey results. Lastly,
thank you to our colleagues for allowing us flexibility in our work schedules to undertake the
research and our family and friends for their support and encouragement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures And Tables.............................................................................................................. 4

Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 5
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 9
Background ................................................................................................................................... 12
Results .......................................................................................................................................... 23
Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 44
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 47
References .................................................................................................................................... 49
Appendix A. Methodology ............................................................................................................ 57
Appendix B. Interview Guide ........................................................................................................ 66
Appendix C. Survey Questions ..................................................................................................... 68
Appendix D. Interview Results: Frequency of Climate Elements & Team Processes................. 72
Appendix E. Interview Results: Areas for Improvement for Organizational Innovation ............. 74

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1. The Competing Values Model of organizational effectiveness ................................... 13

Figure 2. Proposed model of relationships between leadership, team processes, climate, and
innovation..................................................................................................................... 22
Figure 3. Primary activity areas of participating organizations .................................................. 23
Figure 4. Average age of employees at participating organizations .......................................... 24
Figure 5. Concurrent triangulation design ................................................................................... 57

Table 1. Internal consistency of organizational climate scales .................................................. 25

Table 2. Ratings on organizational climate in support of innovation ......................................... 25
Table 3. Classification of organizational climates for innovation .............................................. 26

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Purpose of the study
Building the capacity for innovation within Canadian nonprofit and charitable organizations
could help the third sector respond to several simultaneous challenges it faces, including
resource constraints, expectations to take on a greater role in delivering public services, and
increasingly complex social and environmental problems. This study adds to a small but
growing body of research on innovation processes within third sector organizations. By
examining two factors that are within the control of leaders and team members
organizational climate and team processesthis research sheds light on promising practices
to increase internal innovation capacity.

Methodology
The leaders of 18 Canadian charities with between 3 and 20 full-time employees participated in
the study. Data collection occurred via open-ended semi-structured interviews followed by an
online survey. The survey drew on existing measures (Patterson et al., 2005; Schippers et al.,
2007) to elicit respondents perceptions of three elements of their organizations climate for
innovation: flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity. During interviews, respondents were
asked to describe in detail examples of innovation in their organizations, including what steps
and processes their teams undertook. Respondents were also asked what their teams did well
and what they could improve upon to further support innovation. Interview data generated key
insights on team processes that support a climate for innovation.

Findings
All leaders participating in the study expressed a desire for their organizations to be innovative
in order to ensure relevance and effectiveness. Three elements of organizational climate
associated with innovativenessflexibility, outward focus, and reflexivitywere confirmed to
be significant in the innovation processes of nonprofit organizations in the sample. Each
innovation scenario described indicated the presence of these elements of climate, validating
previous literature on their relevance in fostering organizational innovation.
Flexibility was most often manifested as organizations ability to respond quickly to
opportunity, to try new things, and to create or revise their programs and strategies.
Participating organizations revealed a particularly high level of outward orientation, and their
scanning of and responsiveness to the external environment played a prominent role in
generating program improvements, new funding, and partnerships with other stakeholders.

Reflexivity, the intentional reflection by teams on objectives, strategies, and work processes,
occurred formally and informally within participating organizations, most commonly taking the
form of reflection during meetings and evaluation and data analysis.
All of the leaders interviewed identified several team processes used in their organizations
while developing and implementing innovations. Informal conversations played an important
role in facilitating idea generation in several organizations. Most of the team processes cited,
such as brainstorming, discussion, problem solving, learning, and reflection, occurred during
meetings that supported innovation generation. Leaders described how they strived to create
an environment conducive to innovation through honest and open communication, affirming
the ideas and contributions of all staff, and encouraging the questioning of concepts and
assumptions about the organizations work. Collaboration across departments or functions
and engaging staff in shared decision-makingcited by a majority of respondentsalso
appeared to be important in creating a climate for innovation. Findings suggest that team
processes that facilitate open dialogue, collaboration, and reflection among staff are powerful
levers by which leaders can improve organizational climate, which in turn fosters innovation.
The study also validates previous research on the role of transformational leaders as
facilitators of team processes that support innovation. Leaders frequently cited the use of
participatory processes, which demonstrates that they were intentional in their efforts to
foster trust and cohesion and to provide supportive supervision.
Two additional factors, beyond the scope of the study but worthy of note, emerged as
prominent in nonprofit innovation processes: organizational structure, or how roles and
responsibilities were arranged within the team, and the individual-level qualities and skills
found within the team composition.

Recommendations
The study indicates that team processes and organizational climate are levers that can be
used to move an organization in the direction of its innovation goals. Based on our findings,
we offer the following recommendations to leaders of nonprofit and charitable organizations
seeking to build capacity for organizational innovation.
1. Develop staff and leaders understanding of the distinct aspects of organizational climate
that support innovation by:

Discussing and generating a common understanding among the team of what it

means to be innovative.

Separating out distinct elements of an innovative climate such as flexibility,

outward focus, and team reflexivity.

Inviting all staff to complete the Organizational Climate Measure or comparable

measure to identify strengths and weaknesses, which can help teams to identify
areas to improve a climate for innovation.

2. Seek to strengthen and balance flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity among the whole
staff team by:

Setting explicit goals to improve flexibility in structures and roles, attention and
responsiveness to external inputs, and practices to support reflection about the
organizations programs, mission, and processes.

Paying attention to building these capacities within the entire team, rather than just
senior staff.

Encouraging staff to generate creative ideas and initiatives that might advance the
organizations goals.

Developing collaborative action plans during staff retreats to increase

organizational innovation and review progress together periodically.

Being aware of and openly addressing tensions found to sometimes arise between
these three climate elements, for example, between being quick to act on
opportunity and engaging in thorough team reflection.

3. Recognize the important role that team processes play in organizational innovation by:

Reflecting upon how certain team processes may contribute to, or hinder, an
organizations ability to be flexible, attuned to the external environment, and
reflexive.

Articulating the purpose of specific team processes so that the team knows why
they are doing what they are doing.

Building in time during regular team meetings and staff retreats to discuss the
team processes that contributed to success or failure of an idea or innovation. Key
questions include: How did we work as a team? How can we work better together?

4. Implement team processes that emphasize open communication, collaboration, and

reflection by:

Adjusting existing team processes or experimenting with new processes to reflect

these behaviours. For example, if staff meetings are simply a review of what team
members are working on, but do not strengthen outward focus, adjust the format to
incorporate creative reflection on trends in the external environment.

5. Anticipate and mitigate common tensions within organizations during innovation

processes by:

Saying no when necessary to new opportunities or risks can help avoid overextending staff.

Recognizing when to speed up the pace of innovation processes and when to slow
down.

Communicating frequently and frankly with staff even when decisions must be
taken quickly by the leader or management team.

Distinguishing when to direct or facilitate a team process themselves and when to

delegate authority to staff.

Creating formal structures and processes that actually support greater for
flexibility and creativity

INTRODUCTION
Many scholars have posited innovation as imperative to the survival of nonprofit organizations
(Allen et al., 2013; Beekman et al., 2012; Dover & Lawrence, 2012; Jaskyte & Dressler, 2005;
Jaskyte, 2011; Sarros et al., 2011; Seelos & Mair, 2012). Innovationthe adoption and
integration of a new product, process, service, structure, or systemcontributes to an
organizations competitive advantage and economic growth (Damanpour & Schneider, 2006).
Innovative organizations, both for- and not-for-profit, are more nimble and flexible, thus able to
respond quickly and creatively to changing conditions and better meet the needs of clients or
constituents (Jaskyte & Dressler, 2005; Beekman et al., 2012).
Indeed, an increasingly unpredictable environment is pushing nonprofit and charitable
organizations in Canada towards greater innovation. Since the 1990s, government funding for
social services has been dramatically reduced, and nonprofit organizations have faced
increasing demands for their services due to changes in Canadas demographic makeup and
the recent recession (Hall et al., 2005; Imagine Canada, 2010; Mulholland et al., 2011). Funders
and stakeholders are also demanding greater accountability, efficiency, and impact from third
sector organizations (Jaskyte & Dressler, 2005; Phillips, 2013).
Third sector organizations in Canada have begun to reframe these external challenges as
opportunities, responding to the call of leaders such as Tim Brodhead, former CEO of the J. W.
McConnell Family Foundation, who stated, It is time to re-think our operating models, our
function, and our contribution to Canadian society, embracing innovation and re-asserting our
role as catalysts, community builders, and creative problem-solvers (Brodhead, 2010). There
has been a growth of initiatives meant to stimulate and celebrate innovation in the Canadian
nonprofit sector, such as Social Innovation Generation1, Innoweave2, Collective Impact
Summits3, and the Tides Top 104 awards that honour creative initiatives solving social and
environmental problems. The Framework for Action for the Nonprofit Sector summarized the
context for increased emphasis on innovation, stating:
Nonprofit and charitable organizations are realizing that they need to determine how to
sustain and enhance their activities with less certain assistance from other sectors,
while simultaneously moving to address emerging and long-standing economic, social,
cultural and environmental issues in a collaborative way. (Imagine Canada, 2010, p.1)

http://www.sigeneration.ca
http://www.innoweave.ca
3
http://events.tamarackcommunity.org/collectiveimpactsummit
4
http://tidescanada.org/about-us/tides-top-10/
2

Some have suggested that nonprofit and charitable organizations are inherently innovative
because they tackle societal challenges on a daily basis and hold values that drive them to do
better at doing good (Frumkin, 2002; Imagine Canada, 2010). However, empirical research has
failed to corroborate this assumption (Seelos & Mair, 2012). In fact, scholarship has yet to
produce much knowledge about innovation within nonprofit and charitable organizations or
the public sector (Jaskyte, 2011). Most existing research focuses on for-profit organizations
(Allen et al., 2013; Dover & Lawrence, 2012; Jaskyte, 2011), and it is unclear whether findings
of such studies are transferrable to nonprofit organizations, considering the unique
characteristics of nonprofits such as dependence on external funding (Jaskyte, 2009), reliance
on volunteers, accountability to multiple stakeholders (Dover & Lawrence, 2012), the pursuit of
goals for public rather than private benefit, and typically risk-averse behaviour (Hull & Lio,
2006).
This study aims to contribute to knowledge about how innovation can be supported within
third sector organizations. A wide range of factors has been shown to influence organizational
innovation, including the external environment, availability of resources, organizational
structure, and individual personalities (Anderson et al., 2014). Anderson et al.s (2014)
extensive review of the innovation literature identified several questions for further study,
including: To what extent do team processes determine climate that in turn influences
innovation? This question serves as the foundation for our research, which explores how
leaders of medium-sized Canadian charities use team processes to foster an organizational
climate in support of innovation.
The two factors we focus onclimate and team processesare determinants of
organizational innovation that can be intentionally altered by leaders; thus, their study can
inform recommendations that can be applied in practice. The first determinant, organizational
climate, is defined as the aggregate of team members perceptions of organizational practices
and procedures and their resulting patterns of behaviour (Allen et al., 2013). Climate has been
found to influence organizational innovation in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations
(Patterson et al., 2005; McMurray et al., 2013). We specifically examine three elements of
climateflexibility, outward focus, and reflexivityand explore the role they play in the
innovation processes of charitable organizations. These three elements were selected
because of their link to the Open Systems model of organizational behaviour, which is
associated with functioning in an adaptive manner for effective performance and has been
found to be closely aligned with organizational innovation (Patterson et al., 2005; Damanpour
et al, 2009; Imran & Anis-ul-Haque, 2010; Naranja-Valencio et al., 2011). Open Systems is one

10

of four models within the Competing Values framework for organizational analysis (Quinn &
Rohrbach, 1983), which provides the theoretical underpinnings for the study.
The second determinant of organizational innovation we examine is team processes. Teams
are becoming the favoured functional unit of organizations in the 21st century as
management practices are shifting towards more participatory processes and shared
leadership (Curral et al., 2001; Sarros et al., 2011). Teamwork enables organizational learning,
cross-functional interaction, and the pursuit of superordinate goals, which have been shown to
correlate with high levels of innovation (Curral et al., 2001; Hlsheger et al., 2009; West &
Anderson, 1996). Team processes are defined as the interdependent actions that members of
a group engage in to organize their work to pursue collective goals (Marks et al., 2001, p.357).
Distinct from tasks and their content, team processes refer to how teams engage in the work
together. Hlsheger et al. (2009) suggest that the study of relationships between team
processes and innovation would produce the most reliable and hands-on advice for leaders
and managers. Nonprofit and charitable organizations stand to benefit immensely from
research on team-level factors since most rely on small teams to fulfill their mandates. Of
Canadian nonprofit organizations that have paid staff, 74.5% employ fewer than ten people
(HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector, n.d.).
Thus, this study focuses not only on what factors lead to innovative thinking and behaviour
(i.e. organizational climate), but also on how that climate for innovation is created (i.e. team
processes). By shedding light on both of these dimensions, the study contributes knowledge
that can increase the capacity for innovation in the third sector.
The paper is organized into four parts. We begin with our literature review and theoretical
framework. Part two describes in detail the findings and implications of the study. In part
three, we present recommendations for leaders of nonprofit organizations seeking to increase
their organizations ability to innovate. Finally, the appendix includes a description of our
methodology and data collection tools.

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BACKGROUND
Organizational innovation
Organizational innovation is defined as the introduction, adoption, and integration of new
products, services, processes, structures, or systems in an organization (Damanpour, 1991).
Novelty is a relative, but necessary, property of innovation; that is, the product, service, or
process must be new to the adopting organization to be considered an innovation (Damanpour
et al., 2009). Although innovation and creativity are sometimes used interchangeably, the two
should be distinguished. Creativity is considered the generation of new ideas, whereas
innovation also encompasses the implementation of these ideas (Amabile, 1996; Anderson et
al., 2004). In other words, innovation begins with creativity, but creativity alone is not enough
to produce innovation.
Innovation can be conceived as both a process (i.e., the process of introducing something
new) and an outcome (i.e., a new product, service, or procedure) (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010).
The literature has produced many distinctions between types of innovation, including product
and process innovation (Utterback & Abernathy, 1975; Beekman et al., 2012), technical and
administrative innovation (Damanpour et al., 2009; Jaskyte, 2011), and radical and incremental
innovation (Gopalakrishnan & Damanpour, 1997). Scholars have also explored the various
stages of the innovation process, which can be grouped into three general phases of initiation,
adoption, and implementation (Damanpour & Schneider, 2006). Seelos and Mair (2012), in
studying nonprofit organizations, developed a model for continuous innovation consisting of
four processes: internal idea creation and/or accessing external ideas or innovations,
interpreting and evaluating ideas, experimenting and consensus building, and formational and
routinization. While our research includes a cursory exploration of team processes at various
stages of the innovation process, an in-depth analysis is beyond the scope of the study. For a
more in-depth discussion of team processes at various stages of the innovation process, see
Dover and Lawrence (2012), West (2002), and Yusuf (2009).

Organizational innovation and the Competing Values Model

The positive relationship between innovation and organizational effectiveness is a central
assumption underlying innovation research. Although effectiveness is generally a desired goal
of organizations, it is an ambiguous construct that could include many criteria, sometimes
contradictory, such as stability, growth, productivity, or the development of human resources
(Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983). This study draws upon the Competing Values Model (CVM), a
theoretical framework developed by Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983), which organizes the most

12

central concepts that have emerged from research on organizational effectiveness along two
dimensions: focus (internal versus external) and structure (flexibility versus control).
Numerous subsequent studies have since affirmed the CVM as a well-founded framework for
research on organizations that is applicable across a variety of scholarly disciplines
(Bernstrom, 2009; Patterson et al., 2005).
By mapping effectiveness criteria along the two dimensions of focus and structure, Quinn and
Rohrbaugh (1983) developed a quadrant that identifies four models of organizational
behaviour: Human Relations, Internal Process, Rational Goal and Open Systems (Figure 1).
These models represent organizational paradigms which shape an organizations climate and
underlie its decision-making and actions. For example, the Open Systems model values
flexibility and external focus, defining effectiveness as growth, resource acquisition, and
external support. An organization operating from this perspective would demonstrate
monitoring of and responsiveness to the external environment and readiness to respond to
change and opportunity. Conversely, under the Internal Process model, which values internal
focus and control, an effective organization is one that maintains its current position and
activities through internal systems that are consistent and efficient.
Figure 1. The Competing Values Model of organizational effectiveness

Adapted from Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983.

13

Of particular interest in this study is the Open Systems model, as it is most closely linked to
innovation due to its emphasis on adaptive functioning. Adaptation is both a driver and
outcome of innovation: ongoing adaptation in the form of incremental improvements can lead
to disruptive innovations, which can then help organizations to respond to changing
conditions in their environments by maintaining or improving performance (Damanpour et al.,
2009; McDonald, 2007). We suggest, then, that innovative organizations would tend to reflect
an Open Systems approach in their values, climate, and behaviour. It should be noted,
however, that the four models are not exclusive and that most organizations and leaders draw
upon more than one of the four models (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983).
A number of empirical studies have confirmed a link between innovation and organizational
performance, especially among for-profit firms (Jimnez-Jimnez & Sanz-Valle, 2011; Bowen
et al., 2010; Subramanian & Nilakanta, 1996). Indeed, Crossan and Apaydin (2010, p.1154)
contend that innovation capability is the most important determinant of firm performance.
Innovation improves effectiveness by helping organizations maintain or gain a competitive
advantage and adapt to changing conditions in the external environment (Damanpour &
Schneider, 2006). Regarding the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations, McDonald (2007)
suggests that innovation can enable such organizations to better serve their constituents and
fulfill their missions.

Determinants of organizational innovation

The literature reveals a lengthy list of variables found to influence organizational innovation.
Several reviews (e.g., Anderson et al., 2014; Crossan & Apaydin, 2010; Anderson et al., 2004;
Damanpour, 1991; Denti & Hemlin, 2012; Hlsheger et al., 2009; Sears & Baba, 2011) offer
helpful syntheses of the research on antecedents, mediators, and moderators of innovation
within for-profit, nonprofit and public organizations. These reviews affirm that innovation is the
result of a wide range of factors and that any study of innovation must take into consideration
the level of analysis (i.e., organizational, team, or individual). Below, we briefly summarize the
existing literature on organizational-, team-, and individual-level factors that influence
innovation in organizations and provide additional background to the three factors that form
the multi-level conceptual framework that underpins our research design: organizational
climate, team processes, and leadership.
Organizational-level factors: The role of organizational climate in innovation
At the organizational level, structure, strategy, size, resources, climate, and culture can all
influence innovativeness in organizations (Anderson et al., 2004). For example, a positive
correlation has been found between organizational size and innovation (Camisn-Zornoza et

14

al., 2004). Employee diversity in education and gender can increase the likelihood of
introducing an innovation (stergaard et al., 2011), while absorptive capacitythe ability to
recognize, integrate, and apply new knowledgeand organizational learning can affect the
adoption of innovation (Seelos & Mair, 2012).
This study focuses on climate as the organizational-level factor of interest and explores how
specific elements of climate can be leveraged to support innovative outcomes. Organizational
climate is an intervening variable between the context of an organization and the behavior of
its members (Patterson et al., 2005, p.379). Climate is measured at the organizational level as
an aggregate of team members perceptions and actions (Allen et al., 2013). While there is
often conceptual overlap or confusion between culture and climate (McLean, 2005; Patterson
et al., 2005), this study works from the distinction provided by Svyantek and Bott (2004):
culture is made up of the predominant shared values, assumptions, and norms within an
organization, whereas organizational climate is constituted by team members perception of
practices and policies and their resulting patterns of behaviour. As collective patterns of
behaviour in an organization, the climate reflects and impacts what actions are taken, what is
deemed possible, and how team members interact with each other and with new ideas.
Several dimensions of organizational climate have been related favourably to innovation (West
& Anderson, 1996). For example, a climate that provides psychological safety for team
members appears to positively influence innovation by making it acceptable to take risks
without negative consequences and encouraging experimentation (Anderson & West, 1998;
Baer & Frese, 2003; Madjar et al., 2002; West, 2002). In a study of 47 mid-sized firms, Baer and
Frese (2003) found that when innovations were accompanied by climates that supported
employee and group initiative, companies tended to perform better. Sears and Babas (2011)
model posits that team-level climate affects work group members motivation to innovate,
while the organization-level climate for implementation influences the adoption of new
inventions. Furthermore, an innovation orientation appears to be supported by an
organizational climate in which creativity is encouraged and learning processes are the norm
(Baker and Sinkula, 2007; Bharadwaj & Menon, 2000; Martins & Terblanche, 2003; McLean,
2005).
As noted earlier, we propose that innovative organizations would tend to reflect an Open
Systems approach in their values, climate, and behaviour. Thus, this study defines an
organizational climate through the lens of the Open Systems model. To operationalize a
climate for innovation, we drew upon the Organizational Climate Measure (OCM) (Patterson et

15

al., 2005), which was designed to measure aspects of climate related to each of the four styles
of organization within the Competing Values Model. The three dimensions of climate that
reflect an Open Systems approach are flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity (Patterson et
al., 2005).
Flexibility is defined as an orientation towards change (Patterson et al., 2005). Flexible
organizations tend to readily accept new ideas, adapt structures as needed, and respond
quickly to changes. The literature provides contradictory findings on the role of flexibility in
innovation. On one hand, autonomy afforded to team members and an ability to shift
organizational structures have been posited to support idea generation (Naranja-Valencio et
al., 2011). The earlier literature tends towards the view that organizational values such as
control, stability, and predictabilityoften found in very hierarchical structureswill limit the
development of new ideas and adaptation (Martins & Terblanche, 2003). More recently, it has
been suggested that formality in procedures and rules may actually strengthen innovation in
organizations as long as other elements of a climate supporting innovation are present; this is
likely because of the importance of teamwork (Naranja-Valencio et al., 2011) or of adequate
structure for team members to develop new ideas and carry them through to realization (Imran
& Anis-ul-Haque, 2010).
An organization that demonstrates outward focus is responsive to the needs of its
constituents and its external environment (Patterson et al., 2005). Being aware of the needs of
clients and of changes and opportunities in the external environment places an organization in
a position to develop new and proactive programs and products. The literature on for-profit
firms generally supports the link between market orientation and innovation. A firms learning
orientation, directly related to the reflexivity component of climate, interacts with external
focus to produce an effective mix of adaptive-incremental and generative-radical
innovation while minimizing the firms dependence on copying the innovations of competitors
(Baker & Sinkula, 2007).

Thus, firms with high outward focus are more likely to foster

innovation-oriented versus imitation strategies (Baker & Sinkula, 2007; Naranja-Valencio et al.,
2011).
Reflexivity refers to the extent to which groups reflect intentionally upon their objectives,
strategies, and work processes (Patterson et al., 2005; Schippers et al., 2015). Reflexive teams
are characterized by communication about group functioning, attention to long-term
consequences, proactive adaptive behaviour, and detailed planning (Schippers et al., 2007).
Reflexivity lends itself to strategic thinking and planning; when an organization is engaged in a

16

critical reflection of ideas, it is better equipped to be discerning and make the right decisions
(Schippers et al., 2015). By reflecting on and gathering insights from failures and successes,
reflexivity also contributes directly to team and organizational learning (Schippers et al., 2014).
Schippers et al. (2014) found that teams working under either high work demands or poor
physical work environments were highly innovative if they used strong reflexivity practices.
Collectively, flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivitythe three climate dimensions of an Open
Systems approachindicate an organizational climate supportive of innovation. Since the
measurement of actual innovation levels is beyond the scope of this study, we use
organizational climate as a proxy measure for organizational innovation, an approach
validated in the literature (e.g. Sarros et al., 2008).
Team-level factors: The role of team processes in innovation
Team-level factors that influence organizational innovation include team structure,
composition, and work processes (Anderson et al., 2014; Anderson et al., 2004). In a metaanalysis of team-level variables, Hlsheger et al. (2009) found that support for innovation,
vision, and task orientation within teams were among the strongest predictors of creativity and
innovation in organizations. West and Anderson (1996) identified team processes
specifically, support for innovation, participation, and task orientationas the best team-level
predictors of innovation in top management teams.
Our study includes an examination of the team processes used during innovation scenarios
within nonprofit organizations. Team processes are defined as "members interdependent acts
that convert inputs to outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioural activities directed
toward organizing taskwork to achieve collective goals (Marks et al., 2001, p.357). Distinct
from tasks and their content, team processes refer to how teams engage in the work together.
Goal setting, participation in decision making, and the management of competing perspectives
are examples of common team processes that occur in organizations (Curral et al., 2001; West
& Anderson, 1996).
Hlsheger et al. (2009, p.1128) have suggested that the most practicable advice for
organizations would be generated by investigating the linkages between team processes and
innovation, since it is of course the case that within organizations new ideas will usually be
proposed and pursued toward implementation by work teams. Studies of organizational
innovation focused at the team level of analysis are relatively uncommon, although team
processes are often cited as one of many broad categories of factors influencing innovation

17

capacity (Anderson & West, 1998; Anderson et al., 2004). A meta-analysis of 525 papers on
organizational innovation found that only six percent investigated teams (Crossan & Apaydin,
2010, p.1162).
Nonetheless, a growing number of scholars have demonstrated the crucial role of team
processes in contributing to innovation (Anderson & West, 1998; Bharadwaj & Menon, 2000;
Corner & Ho, 2010; Lee & Kelley, 2008). For example, a longitudinal study of hospital
management teams found that group processes predicted the overall level of team innovation
better than other variables such as group size, available resources, or the proportion of
innovative team members (Anderson & West, 1998). Another study found that stronger teamlevel creativity mechanisms, such as procedures for creative problem solving and a formal
idea generation program, resulted in significantly superior innovation performance even when
the individual creativity of team members was low (Bharadwaj & Menon, 2000). Explicit
processes that demonstrate support for creativity such as rewards and recognition also
encourage organizational innovation (Hlsheger et al., 2009; West, 2002; West & Anderson,
1996; Martins & Terblanche, 2003; Amabile et al., 1996). Relatedly, team processes that involve
experimentation during work tasks as well as learning from failure have been found to foster
innovation (Martins & Terblanche, 2003). Another team process that appears to influence
organizational innovation is the management of conflict within teams (Martins & Terblanche,
2003; Marks et al., 2001; West, 2002). Shared leadership, participatory decision-making, and
staff engagement have also been found by many scholars to be powerful processes that
facilitate innovation (Hoch, 2013; Martins & Terblanche, 2003; Somech, 2006; West, 2002;
West & Anderson, 1996; Jaskyte & Dressler, 2005; Shier, 2014).
In this study, particular attention is being paid to the team processes that contribute to
flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivitythree dimensions of organizational climate related to
innovation (as per the Open Systems Model). Team processes that contribute to
organizational flexibility could include adaptation of responsibilities in response to new
opportunities, creative problem solving in response to task conflict, and letting go of
previously maintained concepts or procedures when warranted (De Dreu, 2006; Vera &
Crossan, 2005). Vera and Crossan (2005, p.207) have demonstrated how principles from
improvisational theatre, such as agree, accept, and add and be present in the moment, shed
light on what it takes to be flexible and innovative as a team. Team processes that manifest an
external orientation in an organization include systems monitoring as a group to observe and
track what is occurring in the external environment such as trends in their field, the
experiences of constituents, or changing social, political, or economic conditions (Marks et al.,

18

2001). According to Schippers et al. (2007), reflexivity is supported by two main processes:
reflection and adaptation. Discussion and overt exploration of challenges and opportunities
constitute reflection, which can relate to any time scalefrom a short- to a long-term view
and can take place after a task has been completed, but also before and during
implementation (West, 2000). Adaptation is the process of putting changes into action that
were identified through reflection (Schippers et al., 2007).
Individual-level factors: The role of leadership in innovation
When it comes to individual-level traits, employees tolerance for ambiguity, self-confidence,
openness to experience, independence, proactivity, intrinsic motivation, determination to
succeed, personal initiative, and managerial tolerance to change have all been demonstrated
to influence organizational innovation (Anderson et al., 2004). Leadership style, in particular,
has garnered much attention and is often linked to innovative outcomes (Allen et al., 2013;
Sarros et al., 2008). Although individual-level factors are not a primary focus of this study,
nonprofit leaders are our primary source of data and leadership is recognized as a key element
in our conceptual framework.
Leadership is integral to fostering innovation in organizations, and in turn, their success.
Leaders encourage intrinsic motivation, facilitate problem solving, and establish and maintain
high quality work relationships with team members (Denti & Hemlin, 2012, p.2). Various
studies have shown that senior executives can spearhead innovation by creating climates in
support of innovation (Damanpour & Schneider, 2006; Damanpour, 1991; Allen et al., 2013;
Imran & Anis-ul-Haque, 2011). Leaders can also promote innovation in their role as managers
by directing resources and setting goals towards innovative outcomes (Denti & Hemlin, 2012).
Crossan and Apaydin (2010) identified two main mechanisms through which leaders foster
organizational innovation: managerial levers and business processes. In our framework,
organizational climate is seen as a managerial lever that leaders can shift and adjust through
their use of team processes.
Leadership style can affect the type of team processes implemented and climate created in an
organization. The transformational leadership style, in particular, is often linked to innovative
climates (Allen et al., 2013; Sarros et al., 2008). Transformational leadership includes four
groups of behaviours: intellectual stimulation, charisma or idealized influence, inspirational
motivation, and individualized consideration (Gong et al., 2009). According to Oke et al. (2009,
p.65), transformational leaders act as change drivers, actively involved in creating an
environment and culture that foster change and growth. Transformational leadership has

19

been found to foster climates for change and for creativity through supportive supervision,
articulation of clear goals, and building trusting relationships (Allen et al., 2013). This
leadership style also leads to the adoption of a shared vision within a team, which is
associated with team reflexivity (Schippers et al., 2007). As well, there is evidence that
transformational leadership encourages teamwork cohesion, which promotes organizational
learning (Montes et al., 2005). Somech (2006) found that, in functionally heterogeneous teams,
a participative leadership style in which decision-making is sharedwas positively
associated with team reflection.
Several studies have found that leadership style and organizational climate can reinforce each
other to foster greater organizational innovation. A study of 50 companies identified a direct
and positive relationship between CEOs transformational leadership and organizational
innovation, which was greater when there was a strong climate of support for innovation (Jung
et al., 2008). Similarly, Eisenbeiss et al. (2008) found that when there is a climate for
excellence, transformational leaders foster support for innovation, which leads to team
innovation. Imran & Anis-ul-Haque (2011, p.193) confirmed that transformational leadership
facilitates the open system model of organizational climate characterized by flexibility and
external focus that in turn positively affect the innovative work behavior.

The need for research on multi-level innovation

A prevailing theme emerging from the literature on innovation is the need for approaches, in
both research and practice, that holistically take into account individual-, team,- and
organization-level factors simultaneously. As Sears and Baba (2011, p. 367) cogently state, A
multi-level approach to studying innovation will enable more systematic and synergistic
research and greater crossfertilization of ideas, and should pave the way for a more
convergent and progressive innovation literature. Bharadwaj and Menons (2000) study of
mechanisms that facilitate both individual creativity and organizational creativity as well as
Denti and Hemlins (2012) review of the factors that affect the relationship between leadership
and innovation are examples of the emerging multi-level research on innovation. By exploring
the linkages between leadership, team processes, and organizational climate, this study seeks
to contribute to the growing understanding of the multiple levels of innovation determinants.

The need for research on nonprofit innovation

It is important to note that few studies have examined or modeled the determinants of
organizational innovation specific to nonprofits, as private sector firms have been the subject
of most innovation studies (Allen et al., 2013; Dover & Lawrence, 2012; Jaskyte, 2011).

20

Considering the numerous differences between the two sectors regarding their objectives,
values, sources of funding, labour force, and stakeholders, insights from the private sector are
not readily transferrable to nonprofit and charitable organizations (Dover & Lawrence, 2012;
Hull & Lio, 2006). Meanwhile, public sector innovation has garnered increasing attention
among scholars in recent years; however, it is unclear whether findings from the nascent field
can be simply ported to the third sector (Bloch & Bugge, 2013; Agolla & Van Lill, 2013).
Scholars are only beginning to address this gap in the literature and produce research on third
sector innovation. For instance, Beekman et al. (2012) propose a positive relationship between
the entrepreneurial orientation of key staff and board members and the level innovation in a
nonprofit organization. In a study of social service organizations, Jaskyte and Dressler (2005)
found that a cultural consensus on values such as stability, security, and predictability was
related to lower levels of innovation, whereas values such as willingness to experiment and
risk taking led to more innovation. Dover and Lawrence (2012) suggest different forms of
power come into play at each stage of the innovation cycle in nonprofit organizations. While
these developments appear promising, few studies focused on nonprofit organizations
address the multiple levels of innovation determinants and specifically the link between team
processes, organizational climate, and innovation. The relationship between leadership,
climate, and organizational innovation may be especially salient for nonprofit and charitable
organizations, given that they typically feature some degree of shared leadership among the
board of directors, executive director, and senior executives. Further research can produce
insights into how nonprofit organizations and the sector as a whole can continue to build
capacity for innovation. By focusing our sample on nonprofits, specifically registered charities,
this study helps to fill the gap in research on third sector innovation.

Conceptual framework: Linkages between leadership, team processes, climate, and

innovation
This study focuses on how nonprofit leaders use team processes to create organizational
climates that support innovation. Figure 2 illustrates a framework describing the relationships
we hypothesize between these key concepts. This framework identifies leaders as important
facilitators of team processes within an organization. Team processes that encourage
flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity can contribute to a climate that supports innovation,
which in turn, leads to organizational innovation.

21

Figure 2. Proposed model of relationships between leadership, team processes,

climate, and innovation

Summary
In summary, the literature on organizational innovation, while rich, lacks theory and evidence
specific to the nonprofit context. The Open Systems approach to achieving organizational
effectiveness has been confirmed to support innovation through its emphasis on adaptation
and growth, and this study contributes to this body of literature by investigating how elements
of organizational climate associated with the Open Systems approach are manifested in
nonprofits. In addition, the literature reveals growing scholarly acceptance of the wide range of
individual-, team- and organization-level factors that impact an organizations degree of
innovativeness. This study, with a view to practical applications, aims to help answer the
question: How can leaders, managers, and teams work better to foster innovation?
Specifically, we identify team processes used by Canadian charities during their innovation
processes and explore the role of leaders in fostering a climate of flexibility, outward focus,
and reflexivity.

22

RESULTS
Summary of research design
To explore how leaders of medium-sized Canadian charities use team processes to foster
organizational climates in support of innovation, we used a concurrent triangulation mixed
methods design that included both qualitative and quantitative data collection. Qualitative
data were collected via open-ended semi-structured interviews with 18 participants conducted
in spring 2015. Quantitative data were obtained via an online survey completed shortly after
the interview. In addition, interviewees were asked to forward the survey to colleagues who
could complete it voluntarily. See Appendix A for a full description of the research design.

Participating leaders and organizations

A total of 18 registered charities from across Canada participated in the study: 15
organizations were based in Ontario, one in Alberta, one in British Columbia, and one in
Quebec. As shown in Figure 3, the organizations primary activity areas spanned several focal
areas from social services to volunteerism. In terms of geographical scope, nine organizations
worked on a national scale, two on a provincial scale, and seven on a local scale. A wide range
of organizational structures was reported across the sample, from relatively flat to hierarchical
with several levels of supervisory relationships among staff. In keeping with the focus on
medium-sized charities, participating organizations employed an average of 10 full-time
employees, ranging between 4 and 17 full-time staff at the time of data collection.
Participating organizations had a relatively young employee base. For most organizations
(n=11), the average age of employees was estimated at 35-44 (Figure 4).
Figure 3. Primary activity areas of participating organizations

6%
11%

Environment
22%

Philanthropic Intermediaries and Voluntarism

Social Services and Community Development

17%

Education and Research

22%
22%

Health
Arts and Culture

23

Figure 4. Average age of employees at participating organizations

6%
29%

45-54
35-44
25-34
65%

Each of the 18 interviewees was a senior-level employee at their organization, with 10 as the
most senior-level employee (i.e. Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer). In addition, the
sample included six directors and two managers. Three respondents identified as male (17%)
and 15 as female (83%). The average length of time they had worked at the organization was
six years, and their average number of direct reports was five. The age of respondents ranged
from 29 to 66 years, with one third of leaders aged 34 years or younger. The average age of
respondents was 44.

Survey results
Each of the 18 interviewees completed the online survey on behalf of their organizations (see
Appendix C for survey questions). In addition, five other staff from two of the participating
organizations completed the survey, for a total of 23 respondents. Quantitative data obtained
from the survey were used to corroborate interview responses and determine whether
respondents perceived their organizations to have a climate that supports innovation. For
organizations with more than one survey respondent, the average of the responses on
organizational climate measures were used in analysis.
Perceptions of organizational climate
The survey drew on existing measures of climate (Patterson et al., 2005; Schippers et al.,
2007) in order to examine respondents perceptions of three elements of their organizations
climate for innovation: flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity. Respondents rated their
organizations on 16 items, including statements such as, If we are successful as a team, we
take the time to analyze how we achieved this, (reflexivity) and, This organization is quick to

24

respond when changes need to be made (flexibility). Items were measured on a 5-point Likert
scale, anchored by 1 - strongly disagree and 5 - strongly agree. The direction of the scales
were reversed for some items to prevent acquiescence bias, for example, This organization is
quite inward looking; it does not concern itself with what is happening in the field (outward
focus). It is important to include some negative statements to help counteract the general
tendency of survey respondents to agree rather than disagree. Cronbachs alpha () was used
to check that the internal consistency of items within each of the three scales (flexibility,
outward focus, and reflexivity) met a minimum reliability of 0.60 before they were combined
(Table 1). This test helps confirm if multiple items in a set are closely related or not and
therefore if a scale in a survey is reliable. In this study, responses to one particular item in the
flexibility scale were so different from the other items that the item was removed from
analysis.
Table 1. Internal consistency of organizational climate scales
Number of items

Cronbachs Alpha ()

5 (one item removed)

0.624

Outward Focus

0.664

Reflexivity

0.723

Flexibility

Of these three elements of a climate supportive of innovation, respondents rated their

organizations highest on outward focus and lowest on reflexivity (Table 2). Most organizations
(78%) perceived themselves to be very strong in their awareness of and responsiveness to the
external environment.
Table 2. Ratings on organizational climate in support of innovation
Average score of

# of organizations rated

% of organizations

organizations

very strong ( 4.5)

rated very strong

Flexibility

4.1

22%

Outward Focus

4.6

14

78%

Reflexivity

4.0

17%

The average score of each of the three scales were then summed to create a single
innovation score out of 15. Scores ranged from 10.1 to 14.3. To allow for comparative
analysis, organizations were classified as being perceived as having very strong, strong,
moderate, and weak climates for innovation based on their innovation score (Table 3).

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Table 3. Classification of organizational climates for innovation

Score

Perceived Organizational Climate

# of

% of

organizations

organizations

13.5 - 15

Very strong innovation score

33%

12 - 13.4

Strong innovation score

41%

10.5 - 11.9

Moderate innovation score

24%

9 - 10.4

Weak innovation score

6%

As a self-reporting tool, the survey and the above classification by perceived strength of
innovation climate served to inform our understanding of this sample of leaders. Survey
results established that the majority of leaders in the sample rated their organizational climate
as strongly supportive of innovation across the three measures. We therefore assumed that
their opinions and team processes, which were the basis for the studys insights into best
practices, are worthy of analysis. We recognize the limitation of self-reported measures,
however, and recommend that future studies include an initial external evaluation to identify a
sample of leading innovators in the sector.
It should also be noted that, for each of the two organizations where multiple staff completed
the survey, the team average of the overall innovation score was lower than the leader's
individual responses, moving one organization to a lower category of climate for innovation.
This result, while based on a small sample, indicates that aggregate team scores would be a
valuable measure and comparisons between leaders and other team members perceptions of
organizational climate would be a fruitful topic for future studies.

Interview results
During interviews, respondents were asked to describe examples of innovation in their
organizations, including those that were successfully implemented and those that were
explored but not implemented or tried but not sustained. Respondents were also asked what
their teams did well and what they could improve upon to create an organizational climate that
supports innovation. See Appendix B for interview questions. The 18 interviews were coded for
the presence of team processes and climates of flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity. In
addition, other factors that emerged as important to organizations innovation processes were
extracted. In total, 6 main themes and 41 subthemes emerged during analysis. The main

26

codes were flexibility, outward focus, reflexivity, other innovation factors, team
processes, and challenges. Appendix D lists the full list of codes used in analysis.
Evidence of flexibility in organizational climates
All of the interviewees cited instances or evidence of an organizational climate supportive of
flexibility in their responses. Flexibility is demonstrated by an orientation towards change and
the ability to adapt organizational structures and processes as needed. In describing their
innovation scenarios, the majority of respondents mentioned the creation or revision of
programs and strategies (n=15), while fewer cited changing their team responsibilities and
structure (n=6).
If you put too much structure on things it can be overwhelming. Elastic is best, sometimes
stretched and other times a bit more slack. There is a fine line between being too slack and
too stretched. (Leader, volunteerism & intermediary organization with a moderate
innovation score)
The most commonly cited indicator of flexibility was that their organization was willing to try
new things (n=17). When sharing examples of innovations that had been successfully
implemented, leaders often spoke of openness within their teams to new ideas, approaches,
and/or methods to solving problems or addressing needs. These organizations tended to be
open to failure and to embrace trial and error approaches.
We just try something. If it sucks, we go back, no big deal. There is no decision that can be
unmade. Fail fast, fail better! (Leader, volunteerism & intermediary organization with a very
strong innovation score)
The tone that is set within the organization...is that we have never shied away from taking
on challenges. We always had the gumption to do big things and not be hindered by the risk
of failure because that is part of it. (Leader, environmental organization with a very strong
innovation score)
However, three organizations also identified the need to balance the desire to say yes with a
willingness to say no and to be strategic in the adoption of new ideas.
We tend to seize opportunities and say yes first maybe sometimes more than we should.
We have to find a reason to say no to something than to say yes to something. (Leader,
health organization with a strong innovation score)

27

In organizations that demonstrated a propensity towards taking risks, leaders also described
the climate as one in which staff felt comfortable suggesting new ideas. Leaders worked to
foster this innovative climate by encouraging idea generation at team meetings, asking
questions that challenged the status quo, and empowering staff to run with an idea. As one
leader remarked, building a climate of flexibility is not always easy and requires intentional
efforts:
Sometimes, experience and age put you in a mindset that can shut down innovation
because you have seen things fail or have an idea of where you want it to go I have to work
to open myself up and say, Any idea, put it on the table. (Leader, environmental
organization with a strong innovation score)
Another type of flexibility that emerged in the majority of respondents innovation scenarios
(n=10) was the ability of the organization to respond quickly to challenge or opportunity. Often
in response to external conditions, such as sudden changes in funding or policy, leaders
described how their organizations were able to bring key staff together and gather information
in a short period of time to expedite problem solving. Leaders associated their organizations
ability to act quickly with a small organization size, flat structures and few bureaucratic
processes, a pre-existing orientation toward seeking new opportunities, and/or having a clearly
articulated mission and vision that facilitated decision making. As three participants noted,
there can be a tradeoff between moving fast and ensuring that other staff are involved in the
process.
When timing is right, we can go quickly Sometimes we have to give up informing
everyone We have a clear vision so its easy to be quick because we know what we want.
(Leader, social services and community development organization with a moderate
innovation score)
Evidence of outward focus in organizational climates
Organizations in the sample demonstrated a strong orientation towards their external
environment, corroborated by both survey and interview data. Each leader mentioned at least
one instance of outward focus when describing instances of organizational innovation.
Leaders indicated a high level of attention to their primary audience: the participants or public
they serve (n=16). Innovation was often driven by a goal to make an organizations programs
more effective and impactful and in a few cases by direct requests from participants.

28

Most of our projects evolve out of people asking us for help or assistance people
interacting directly with us from the public. Then we figure out programs or tools to meet
that need or fill that gap. (Leader, environmental organization with a moderate innovation
score)
The staff team and the ED heard from community that they need to do it. (Leader,
volunteerism & intermediary organization with a strong innovation score)
It started with looking at what was going on with the clients. Our clients mental health
wasnt well-managed in the community. (Leader, social services and community
development organization with a very strong innovation score)
Consultation with stakeholders was also frequently cited during the exploration and
development phase of a new program or service.
We had an initial meeting with our stakeholders to see if [the new program] would be an
appropriate fit. (Leader, social services and community development organization with a
strong innovation score)
We talked to communities to see if they really wanted to do [the new program format].
(Leader, volunteerism & intermediary organization with a very strong innovation score)
The other most common type of outward focus cited by leaders was paying attention and
responding to funding opportunities or changes (n=16). In some instances, a reduction in
funding was a major factor that led the organization to develop a new program or approach. In
other cases, the emergence of a funding opportunity prompted organizations to develop new
projects. In two cases, a funder or benefactor approached the organizations with an initiative
in mind, which was then pursued and implemented. Organizations also appeared to be paying
attention to new ways to finance their activities, as the innovation examples provided by three
respondents involved the development of fee-for-service and social enterprise initiatives. One
leader remarked that there is a complex relationship between the external funding
environment and nonprofit innovation:
We have to drum up funds just like a project every year for our expenses. That constrains
processes and implementation of innovation. Financial pressure and accountability to
funders can really throw little chinks into peoples ability to think freely, act freely, respond,
initiate and stimulate change processes. At the same time, working without a lot of

29

resources, you are constantly innovating to figure out how to do something; that can
stimulate a lot of creativity. (Leader, arts & culture organization with a moderate innovation
score)
Many organizations also demonstrated that they paid attention to nonprofit field trends and
the actions of other organizations (n=12), non-client stakeholders and experts (n=6), policy and
government priorities (n=6), and technology and availability of new tools (n=4). Some
organizations got ideas for new programs or approaches from observing other organizations.
Several leaders described changing or rethinking their programs to avoid duplication by
organizations in the same field. Many of the innovations cited came about in response to
large-scale socio-economic changes, such as worsening environmental conditions, a strike,
reduced public awareness of an issue, massive industry layoffs, or a natural disaster leading to
new community needs. Three leaders described how, when a change in government policy was
introduced, their organizations rethought their entire strategy, as opposed to only programs or
activities. Several organizations also scanned the external environment while assessing an
idea to see if a need was already filled by public agencies, evaluate similar programs being
undertaken by others, and get feedback from non-client stakeholders. As one leader stated,
outside drivers can change things fundamentally.
Evidence of reflexivity in organizational climates
Evidence of reflexivity was found in each of the 18 participating organizations. Reflexivity, or
the intentional reflection by teams on objectives, strategies, and work processes, occurred
formally as well as informally within participating organizations. Teams reflected on a variety
of subjects during innovation processes, including organizational goals and strategy (n=14),
program implementation (n=13), and internal processes (n=10).
In some cases, new problems or areas of need emerged while the team was reflecting on the
progress and delivery of their current programs, resulting in idea generation. In other
instances, reflexivity was practiced during the idea exploration phase. For example, one leader
facilitated a decision-making process with staff to determine whether to meet a funders
request to implement a new program; she wrote the organizations values on a whiteboard and
asked staff to discuss the question, If we didnt care about resources, would we be doing
this?
Building in the time to reflect during regular operations appears to be especially important in
creating a climate of reflexivity. Unlike organizational flexibility, which requires being quick to
respond, reflexivity calls for pausing and taking a step back. Most organizations in the sample

30

used staff retreats and strategic planning sessions to create space for reflection. Many
leaders had also integrated reflection into their regular group meetings, while others aspired to
this use of team meetings. One leader noted that creating space to think deeply sometimes
requires pausing conversations with: Lets all think about this and well talk about it next
time.
There is an ongoing conversation about how we can do more and be more helpful to people.
This is quite healthy, I think, the constant quest to do better. That idea of constant
innovation and change is built into everything we do, right down to the work that our
summer students are doing. (Leader, environmental organization with a moderate
innovation score)
Interview responses aligned with existing research on the link between reflexivity and
organizational learning. Reflecting upon an unsuccessful innovation, one leader from an
organization with a strong innovation score remarked, In the spirit of entrepreneurship, this
was a huge failure. So what are we learning from it? Our team talked at every meeting and
created a space where we could be honest about how hard it was. Several organizations
identified professional development as important to reflexivity, as well as mechanisms to
transfer individual learning to organizational learning.
We are a learning initiative and approach things from a curious placeappreciative inquiry
versus a more performative process. We are just always asking a lot of questions. Instead of
Oh this didn't go well, we ask What can I learn? What can we learn? (Leader, arts and
culture organization with a moderate innovation score)
This culture is really good at learning from itself. We do quarterly team reflections where
people talk about what theyve tried, and how it has worked, to make explicit all the things
that are being learned. (Leader, environmental organization with a strong innovation score)
The use of evaluation, research, and data analysis was the most commonly cited indicator of
reflexivity (n=16), and it occurred throughout the innovation process to guide idea initiation,
adoption, and implementation. Organizations mentioned different research and evaluation
approaches, including developmental evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, market research, and
policy analysis. Organizations that engaged in primary research collected data through focus
groups, interviews, and surveys of stakeholders and through online metrics (e.g., website
traffic).

31

We try to incorporate data in a lot of our decision making and not be precious about our
own ideas on what we think is right. For example, if we have published an article that we
think is great, we will see if people are responding well and if it is getting traction not just
responding to our gut or what we believe is good. (Leader, environmental organization with
a moderate innovation score)
The ability to identify and measure success helped leaders and boards make decisions
strategically. One leader described how their organization decided to let go of certain activities
because there were no metrics to measure impact. Leaders created a climate of reflexivity by
making research and evaluation a priority and by building internal evaluation expertise.
Originally we had an external consultant come in to help embed evaluation, but we only got
serious about this when someone in-house had the expertise and had my backing to take it
seriously Now we have a rigorous evaluation process that is guiding decisions. We have
meetings every month with the programs team to learn about evaluation. (Leader, health
organization with a strong innovation score)
We are data nerds, constantly taking in key data points about the programs and analyzing
the data. We often make data-driven decisions. (Leader, volunteerism & intermediary
organization with a very strong innovation score)
Other factors related to innovation practices
In addition to the three focal elements of organizational climateflexibility, outward focus and
reflexivitysome non-climate factors were cited by respondents when discussing their
organizations innovation processes. The most common non-climate factor was organizational
structure (n=12). Participating organizations represented a variety of organizational models,
including, in respondents words, hierarchy, horizontal, hybrid flat structure, a lean
structure with not a lot of hierarchy, no management teamthe Executive Director works
with everyone, and we are not a hierarchywe are all one big team. One leader described
the organizational structure thus: It is not really a top down approach. We know whos
reporting to who and whos collaborating with who, but we keep it as flat as possible. Leaders
frequently referred to the organizations structureincluding accountability lines, decisionmaking roles, and linkages across departments or practice areaswhen explaining both
successes and challenges with innovation. A number of respondents also mentioned that
restructuring processes took place recently or were in progress. The findings suggest that
many leaders perceive a relationship between how roles and responsibilities are arranged and

32

the success of the organization in being innovative or, more broadly, fulfilling its mandate.
Team composition (n=11) was the second most common non-climate factor of innovation
discussed by leaders. Seven of the 18 organizations mentioned the importance of having
people on the team that possessed individual-level qualities and skills oriented towards
innovation, including:
able to identify opportunities and potential
[able to] step back and ask, Where are we going?
big picture thinkers, willing to step out on a limb, willing to try something that has never
been done before
have the capacity for thinking about big ideas and be able to sell the big ideas, to pitch
them [to potential funders and partners]
skills and character to reflect and share what they are learning as well as follow through
Other respondents mentioned specific types of skills, including evaluation, subject matter
expertise, and business backgrounds, that helped the organization to develop new programs
or approaches. Several leaders talked about the importance of recruiting staff that would help
to create or sustain the culture and climate they aspire to:
We are seen as an organization that is open to innovation and trying new things. We need
to continue to attract board members and staff that have that same organizational culture
and thinking. (Leader, environmental organization with a very strong innovation score)
This team is who has helped build this organization... We hire for fit with the team over
education. All of our team have lived experience, either themselves or their family, with [the
social challenges addressed by the organization]. That is first and foremost. Then we will
look at their experience along with their fit that is why the whole team interviews [when
hiring new staff]. (Leader, social services and community development organization with a
very strong innovation score)
Other innovation factors mentioned by multiple leaders included the board-staff relationship
(n=8), drawing upon external expertise such as consultants and facilitators (n=8), the layout of
their work space and getting out of the office for individual and team reflection (n=5), and

33

internal systems for knowledge and information management (n=3).

Team processes used during innovation
All of the leaders interviewed identified several team processes used in their organizations in
the process of developing and implementing innovation. Informal conversations (n=11) played
an important role in facilitating idea generation in several organizations. According to one
leader, informal discussions between small groups of staff are where most things happen
and can be more effective because they happen without anyone having to force them
through. Another leader remarked that informal conversations helped to ensure that their
work remained relevant by allowing an unstructured space where staff could share ideas that
they may otherwise feel uncomfortable sharing in a structured meeting.
Most of the team processes cited occurred during team meetings. Leaders shared instances
of both small-group meetings (n=11) and all-staff meetings (n=15) in their examples of
organizational innovation. Some leaders seemed to rely more on meetings with their main
work groups, such as a management team, whereas others favoured meetings with the entire
staff.
What I dont do is have meetings with [the management team]. My fear is that if I have a
team of 10 and I meet with only four, then that means half the team is in the inner circle and
half are not. In such a small organization, that would make it a two-tier situation. (Leader,
volunteerism and intermediary organization with a very strong innovation score)
Simple decisions are made by the directors team why bring them to a staff meeting and
waste everyones time? (Leader, social services and community development organization
with a strong innovation score)
Meetings varied in frequency, duration, format, and content and by the organizations size,
structure, and even its location. One effective strategy cited by many leaders was holding highlevel team meetings; instead of giving a laundry list of updates, they devoted time to
innovation-generating processes, such as brainstorming, discussion, problem solving, learning,
and reflection. For instance, at one organization, staff reviewed organizational goals at team
meetings and discussed how each persons work connected to those goals.
Every Tuesday, we have a standing meeting. Everyone stands in the front foyer and brings
forward immediate ideas or areas that need support. They are 20 to 30 minutes and high-

34

level. Everyone is free to brainstorm, no matter who they are or what their level. Everyone
can think of how can we help each other to reach our goals. (Leader, education and
research organization with a very strong innovation score)
We have collaboratories. Once a week, we take an hour, and anyone on the team can
present a problem for general discussion. (Leader, health organization with a very strong
innovation score)
At team meetings, we always go around and share an awesome and a failure that has
happened in the last two weeks. (Leader, volunteerism and intermediary organization with a
very strong innovation score)
The organizational objectives are focal points for staff meetings. We learn about what each
person is doing and talk about the connection to our goals. Across peoples functions, this
gives everyone a sense of how different programs fit together. Team members understand
what role they can play to amplify the work of others without management having to
dictate. (Leader, environmental organization with a moderate innovation score)
Many leaders emphasized that, for these brainstorms and discussions to be productive and
lead to innovation, there must be open and honest communication within the team (n=10).
We have worked very hard to have a no blame, no failure, question sacred cows approach.
Any question is on the table. We throw things up for debate just to test them. (Leader,
health organization with a strong innovation score)
The three of us feel we can have an open conversation. The delicate stuff can be talked
about Having that openness in your culture is really important to being effective. (Leader,
environmental organization with a strong innovation score)
Misunderstandings are fewer because people are willing to make a statement and ask for
an explanation. (Leader, environmental organization with a strong innovation score)
Leaders worked to build a space where staff would feel comfortable sharing and exploring
ideas by affirming all contributions (n=11), encouraging the questioning of ideas (n=12),
and/or via an open door policy (n=3) in which leaders encouraged any staff member to meet
with them when needed. In one organization, all staff completed a strengths assessment and

35

discussed each individuals strengths as a team. This process contributed to a climate of

respect and affirmation necessary for innovation.
You get innovation when people feel valued, feel that their ideas matter, and when they
know that they are participating in creating something. (Leader, arts and culture
organization with a moderate innovation score)
I have an 80/20 rule. If the idea [from the team] is 80% fabulous, I try not to comment on it
unless I feel strongly it needs to be changed. (Leader, volunteerism and intermediary
organization with a strong innovation score)
Some leaders described setting the tone for idea generation and exploration through careful
listening and soliciting and accepting feedback from staff. One leader from an organization
with a strong innovation score would set the context before a meeting by asking staff to focus
on the positive and reminding them that feedback is meant to be supportive, rather than be
critical. She found that this reduced the tendency of staff to take feedback too personally.
Another leader from an organization with a very strong innovation score invited staff to
intentionally practice how to ask questions and challenge assumptions in a respectful way.
I believe you have to be prepared to put yourself out there and take hard questions. The
best place to do it is in the safety of your own team. (Leader, environmental organization
with a strong innovation score)
I work from an empowerment model of leadership... I want staff to think outside of the box
and I don't want to shut them down each time they have these type of ideas. I expressed my
doubts [about a team members new program idea] and we talked about how to reduce
barriers to the success of the program. (Leader, social services and community
development organization with a very strong innovation score)
Collaboration across departments or functions, cited by a large majority of leaders (n=15), also
appeared to be crucial to creating a strong innovation score within organizations. In many of
the examples shared, leaders played a significant role in fostering cross-departmental
collaboration by including different groups in team meetings, ensuring that roles were clearly
defined and communicated, and by encouraging departments to support each other. One
organization even made it mandatory for the leadership team to be directly involved in the
program so that they would know what it was like on the ground.

36

We meet very much across departments because what we find really helps is the different
perspectives that are brought forward from other departments and other areas of focus.
(Leader, education and research organization with a very strong innovation score)
The staff who work here don't work in silos. Even though you might be focused on a
program, we are always clear that we are a staff team that supports each other. The
organizational culture supports innovation. (Leader, environmental organization with a very
strong innovation score)
Many leaders viewed the staff as one team where each person had a role to play regardless of
status or position. A majority of respondents cited staff engagement in shared decisionmaking (n=14) when they described their innovation scenarios. These leaders believed that
consensus, delegated authority, and other participatory processes contributed to team
members sense of ownership over their work and created more buy-in to changes.
Nobody wants to read the manual and execute it. If they are part of creating it, they will
believe in what they are doing. We involve the people who work on the ground to own the
tools we use and change them. (Leader, social services and community development
organization with a strong innovation score)
Everything here is done as a team, from major decisions to hiring; we even do team
interviews. My job would be a lot quicker and easier if I just did things myself and told staff
about it later! But it would not make a very good work environment for the team. (Leader,
social services and community development organization with a very strong innovation
score)
Other leaders expressed challenges with finding the balance leading and facilitating innovation
and participatory processes.
Sometimes to the detriment of our decision making, our management team is too
consultative of our coordinators. We need to learn to trust in the fact that we [the
management team] are carrying processes forward. (Leader, arts and culture organization
with a moderate innovation score)
One third of the organizations mentioned the use of staff retreats (n=6), where the team would
meet off-site for one day to one week. These retreats contributed directly to a climate of

37

reflexivity by providing a dedicated space and time for staff, and sometimes the board of
directors, to reflect on successes and challenges, realign with the organizational mission, and
plan for the future. For example, one organization took this opportunity to map out the
organizations programs using Hollings adaptive cycle5 to understand where each program
was situated and next steps for adaptation. Another leader mentioned the use of Art of
Hosting6 processes and liberating structures7, such as world caf8 and open space9, to
facilitate open dialogue and collaboration. Other strategic planning processes cited by leaders
included setting goals and themes for the year, scenario planning 10 to visualize and evaluate
different strategies, and discussing conditions in the external environment that would affect
their work.
We have typically had a summer incubator where we close for one week and have a full
organizational reflection on whats been happening and where we are at with our strategy.
We just had ours recently and we realized, oh my goodness, we are growing [as well as other
external factors influencing the organization]. (Leader, arts and culture organization with a
moderate innovation score)
During a strategic planning session with the board and staff, we saw what activities were
having most impact short term and long term results on teachers and students. We saw that
our outdoor programs were where people returned as participants and stayed involved with
[our organization]. (Leader, environmental organization with a very strong innovation score)
Four leaders cited the use of play, creative activities, and fun time together with staff as
supporting innovation. These can occur during regular meetings as well as at team retreats.

Holling, C. S. (2001). Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems, 4,
390-405. Retrieved from http://www.esf.edu/cue/documents/holling_complexity-econecol-socialsys_2001.pdf
6
http://www.artofhosting.org/
7
Kimball, L. (2011). Liberating structures: A new pattern language for engagement. OD Practitioner, 43(3), 8-11.
Retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.plexusinstitute.org/resource/resmgr/files/odp-kimball.pdf;
and Lipmanowicz, H., & McCandless, K. (2014). The surprising power of liberating structures: Simple rules to unleash a
culture of innovation.
8
Brown, J., & Isaacs, D. (2005). The world caf: Shaping our futures through conversations that matter. Oakland, CA:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
9
OConnor, D., & Cooper, M. (2005). Participatory processes: Creating a "marketplace of ideas" with open space
technology. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 10(1). Retrieved from
http://www.innovation.cc/peer-reviewed/oconnor_open_space_tech_innovate2final_v10i1a8.pdf
and Owen, H. (2008). Open space technology: A user's guide.
10
Shell International BV. (2008). Scenarios: An explorers guide. Retrieved from: http://s05.staticshell.com/content/dam/shell/static/public/downloads/brochures/corporate-pkg/scenarios/explorers-guide.pdf.
and Meinert, S. (2014). Field manual: Scenario building. Brussels: European Trade Union Institute. Retrieved from
https://www.etui.org/Publications2/Guides/Field-manual-Scenario-building

38

When our organization runs well, there is an affirmation of silliness, play, loosening up, and
stimulating creative thought. We use the arts in our meetings structure and evaluation. They
are actual arts education exercises that generate energy and help us recognize the power
that is created when we are together. (Leader, arts and culture organization with a
moderate innovation score)
Several leaders mentioned the role of professional development in fostering organizational
innovation (n=6). In particular, two leaders questioned the traditional format of professional
development and pushed their staff to expand their learning in creative ways. Some leaders
actively encouraged staff to engage in professional development and provided opportunities
for staff to share their learning with the team. One leader from an organization with a very
strong innovation score worked to ensure that staff felt comfortable taking the time to engage
in professional development by being vocal about their own learning activities. For instance,
she would say out loud in the presence of staff, I am taking this book and going across the
street to the coffee shop to read.
In the spirit of innovation, what is professional development? It can be [working with] a
coach, [serving] on a board of directors, joining a play, or getting out of your comfort zone.
(Leader, volunteerism and intermediary organization with a strong innovation score)
Although not directly a team process, some leaders used individual check-ins (n=5) as an
opportunity to reflect upon or improve team functioning. For instance, one leader had been
working to shift the climate towards more openness by encouraging more feedback and
scrutiny on ideas at team meetings. She highlighted the importance of ensuring alignment and
positivity on a one-on-one basis as well as within the team:
Post meetings, I would have one-on-one check-ins with people who had put the [idea]
forward, just to check in on how did they feel about it or if they had any concerns. It took a
lot of management discussions to get others to trust the process. (Leader, environmental
organization with a strong innovation score)
Challenges in building a climate for innovation
When asked an open-ended question about what they would like to improve in their
organizations to strengthen a climate for innovation, all but one respondent were able to
identify challenges (see list of challenges and their frequency in Appendix E). Some leaders
identified improvements that would support the idea-generation phase of innovation, including
more time for visioning and planning ahead, physical work spaces more conducive to sharing

39

and discussion, encouraging creativity by all staff, and connecting more with constituents.
The most frequent type of challenge mentioned by leaders was related to managing innovation
processes once they were in motion. Two respondents wanted to have more structured
internal processes to support innovation. There was a sense that during busy periods, agreedupon steps were sometimes forgotten. The annual budgeting process posed a challenge for
one organization because it limited resources that could be devoted to new ideas emerging
mid-year. Learning to let go of less strategic or unsuccessful programs in order to avoid
overstretching internal capacity was another cited challenge. Some leaders struggled to
manage expectations when staff members creative ideas could not be pursued. Whereas one
leader contemplated the ways to support a team in which staff had varying reflection styles,
ranging from immediate processing to needing lots of time to reflect, another felt that their
organization would benefit from less, not more, reflection before making a decision.
Several respondents also aspired to increasing the capacity of their whole team to support
innovation. Professional development, training, and better information sharing among the
team and across time were identified as improvements that would equip staff to contribute to
innovation. Some leaders felt that more shared leadership and involvement of other staff in
developing ideas would improve their organizations overall ability to innovate. Three
organizations identified opportunities for improvement in the communication from leaders to
staff during innovation processes; when leaders felt they had to make decisions or act upon
opportunities quickly, new information was not always shared in a timely or effective way with
the team. On the other hand, one respondent felt that their organization could improve
communication from staff to leaders so that innovative ideas filtered upwards.
Some respondents identified additional improvements that could be made to their
organizations leadership and governance that would facilitate innovation. Two respondents
felt that leaders could improve their availability and follow through on commitments to staff.
One believed that more frequent management team retreats would strengthen innovation,
while another leader saw a need for the board of directors to increase its commitment to
innovation and understanding of the organizations activities. Finally, one leader aspired for
their organization to have courage to change before we are forced to change (Leader,
volunteerism and intermediary organization with a strong innovation score).

Discussion
This study sought to understand how leaders use team processes to foster an innovative

40

climate in nonprofit organizations. Overall, the findings align with the conceptual framework
upon which the study was based, which proposes positive relationships between leadership,
team processes, organizational climate, and innovation. Furthermore, this study affirms the
link between the Open Systems model of organizational behaviour and innovation.
The presence of flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity in all of the participating
organizations innovation processes validates previous literature on the importance of these
three elements in creating an organizational climate that supports adaptation and innovation
(Patterson et al., 2005; Schippers et al., 2007). The three elements often co-occurred in the
stories of innovation shared by leaders, suggesting that they may actually enhance each other.
For example, the ability to respond rapidly to changing circumstances, a characteristic of
organizational flexibility, may be strengthened by regularly scanning the external environment
and reflecting as a team during change processes.
In particular, the high level of monitoring of and responsiveness to external influences cited by
participants indicate that charities are indeed operating in an environment that requires
constant scanning. A capacity for change is an asset for organizations operating in a sector
characterized by swift moving trends such as reduced government funding, greater demand
for services, new models of financing, and the increasing push to work in partnership (Public
Policy Forum, 2011). Since small- and medium-sized nonprofit and charitable organizations
are particularly impacted by such challenges, it may be especially important for them to
strengthen their climates for flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity (Imagine Canada, 2011).
Thus, we posit that changing conditions in the voluntary sector have in fact heightened the
importance of flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity for nonprofit and charitable
organizations.
Entrepreneurial spirit has been previously been found to be a factor of success identified by
Canadian nonprofit leaders (Public Policy Forum, 2011) and this was validated by leaders
participating in this study, some of whom conflated being innovative with entrepreneurship.
Indeed, a climate of flexibility fosters the risk taking, proactiveness, and creativity that is
inherent in entrepreneurial behaviours. As reflected by one leader of an organization with a
very strong climate for innovation, to be an Executive Director today is totally different than
even five years ago. Today the ED has to be really business-oriented. How do I grow the funds
and be sustainable and employ those people? Recognizing complexities is key to being
innovative in todays environment (Leader, education and research organization with a very
strong innovation score).

41

Another noteworthy trend emerging from the stories of innovation was the prevalent use of
research, data, and evaluation by participating organizations, mirroring the for-profit sector,
where research and development has long been the backbone of innovation (Jain et al., 2010).
This trend coincides with increasing demands on charities to measure and demonstrate their
impact (Alebon & Barr, n.d.). Growing emphasis on evaluation and use of data within
organizations may also be related to the increasing professionalization of the sector,
advancements in the field of program evaluation, and improved access to analytics and
information sharing tools, leading organizations to realize the benefits of using evidence in
decision-making. While data collection and use is uneven across the Canadian nonprofit
sector and concerns have been raised about the skills gap in data analysis (van Ymeren, 2015),
our study suggests that many organizations frequently use metrics and evaluation tools while
developing new and improved services and processes.
Team processes were confirmed to be an important means by which leaders can influence
organizational climate in order to foster innovation. Leaders had some difficulty immediately
identifying or articulating team processes that were used during organizational innovation, as
these processes were so integrated into the organizations regular functioning that leaders
were not consciously aware that they were unique to their organization. Upon probing,
however, it was evident that team processes were used prominently during innovation
initiation, adoption, and/or implementation at each organization. The findings substantiate
existing research on the crucial role of team processes as a team-level determinant of
innovation (Anderson & West, 1998; Bharadwaj & Menon, 2000; Corner & Ho, 2010; Lee &
Kelley, 2008). The study highlights how nonprofit leaders would benefit from improving team
processes when attempting to increase innovation capacity in their organizations.
Team processes involving open dialogue, collaboration, and reflection were especially
effective in creating a climate supportive of innovation. The organizations perceived to have
the strongest climates for innovation worked across departments, engaged all staff at key
moments in brainstorming and decision-making, created an affirmative space to share and
question ideas, and took the time to reflect on the shared vision and plan ahead. These team
processes could be directly linked to flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity. For instance,
cross-departmental collaboration and participatory leadership contribute to flexibility by
allowing for different viewpoints to be considered and responsibilities to shift as needed to
implement new initiatives.
The study validates the role of transformational leaders as facilitators of team processes that

42

support innovation. Leaders were intentional in their efforts to foster trust and cohesion and to
provide supportive supervision, as demonstrated by the frequency of which participatory
processes were cited. Leaders recognized that their role was to inspire, empower,
encourage, and listen.
Although the three climate elements were generally mutually enhancing, certain trade-offs
were observed. For instance, increasing flexibility by taking more risks and trying new things
could lead to a blurred organizational vision or over-extended staff. Knowing when to say no
can help an organization avoid burnout and mission drift, which are salient issues for the
sustainability of Canadian nonprofits (Baines et al., 2014; Barr et al., 2006; Minkoff & Powell,
2006; Tremblay-Boire, n.d.). Secondly, speeding up an organizations reaction and response
time could impact its ability to pause for reflection and engage staff in participatory and
collaborative processes. This trade-off suggests that leaders who are able to recognize when
to speed up the pace of innovation processes and when to slow down are more likely to create
climates supportive of innovation. There is a tension as well between the need for strong
leadership and the need for highly engaged staff in organizational innovation. Being mindful of
the role they play within their teams can help leaders better distinguish when best to direct or
facilitate a team process and when best to delegate authority to staff. Lastly, this study
highlighted the tensions within the two dimensions of the Competing Values Modelflexibility
versus control and internal versus external focus. While the Open Systems model, which
favours flexibility and external focus, aligned with innovative processes in our study, it should
be noted that some degree of control and internal focus is also important for innovation.
Establishing formal structures and processes, such as regular meetings, can create the space
for flexibility and innovation. Focusing inwards at times can help leaders engage staff
throughout the innovation process and reflect more deeply on team processes.
Finally, our findings indicate that charity leaders in Canada are conscientious about innovation
in their organizations. All respondents in our study were easily able to name and describe an
innovation that took place in their organization, and most rated their organizations as having
very innovative or innovative climates.

During their interviews, all leaders expressed an

interest and desire to facilitate greater innovation in their organizations. As noted earlier,
nonprofit and charitable organizations are beginning to heed the call for innovation, and it is
clear from this study that there is a strong appetite for further research on third sector
innovation within both scholarship and practice.

43

RECOMMENDATIONS
This study demonstrates that team processes and organizational climate are levers that can
be adjusted to move an organization in the direction of its innovation goals. Based on our
findings, we offer the following recommendations to leaders of nonprofit and charitable
organizations seeking to build capacity for organizational innovation. These recommendations
relate to the topics of the studyteam processes and organizational climatewhile
recognizing that many other factors have also been found to influence organizational
innovation. In addition, we acknowledge the diversity of organizational structures, missions,
sizes, developmental stages, demographic makeup of staff, field of work, and other
characteristics that make each organization unique. Leaders both influence and work within
these conditions. While the following recommendations summarize key insights and suggest
practical steps for implementation, they are intended to serve as guidelines for leaders to
integrate and adapt to their own organizational contexts.
Recommendation 1: Develop staff and leaders understanding of the distinct aspects of
organizational climate that build capacity for innovation.
Leaders in the study used many ways to describe innovation in their recounting of examples of
innovation processes and challenges to innovation. Being innovative is a broad concept that
was understood in different ways by different leaders, and this is likely the case within a single
organization as well. Separating out distinct elements of organizational climate, such as
flexibility, outward focus, and team reflexivity, clarifies the specific conditions and behaviours
that foster innovation. Generating a common understanding of what it means to be innovative
can also help teams work more effectively together. As survey results show, each participating
organization was stronger in certain areas of climate for innovation than others. One way to
build awareness of the organizations climate is to invite all staff to complete the
Organizational Climate Measure (Patterson et al., 2005) or comparable measure and review
results together. Understanding an organizations strengths and weaknesses can help teams
to identify areas to improve.
Recommendation 2: Seek to strengthen and balance flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity among
the whole staff team.
This study confirms previous research that relates organizational innovation to three
behaviours: flexibility in structures and roles, attention and responsiveness to the external
environment, and intentional reflection about the organizations programs, mission and
processes. We recommend that leaders that want to support greater innovation in their

44

organizations set goals to improve these elements of organizational climate. Furthermore, we

found that some organizations relied more on the ability of the management team or leader
alone to drive innovation. Boosting these capacities within the entire team, rather than just its
senior staff, would likely increase the generation and adoption of creative ideas and initiatives
to advance the organizations goals. We recommend that leaders identify staff engagement as
an explicit objective and involve teams, for example during staff retreats, in regularly
developing collaborative action plans to foster innovation and reviewing progresses together.
Recommendation 3: Recognize the important role that team processes play in organizational
innovation.
The study revealed that not all leaders in the study called team processes as such, and many
had difficulty identifying distinct processes because they were so integrated into day-to-day
operations of their organization. Greater awareness of what processes are in use within their
teams would allow leaders to cultivate more effective and intentional processes towards
innovation. Leaders can identify how certain processes may contribute to, or hinder, their
organizations ability to be flexible, attuned to the external environment, and reflexive. In turn,
leaders could better articulate the purpose of specific team processes as well as refine them
to better meet objectives. For example, leaders could build in time during regular team
meetings or staff retreats to reflect upon and evaluate the team processes that contributed to
the adoption or rejection of a new idea or the success or failure of implementing an innovation.
Key questions could include: How did we work as a team? How can we work better together?
This is, of course, in itself a practice of reflexivity.
Recommendation 4: Implement team processes that emphasize open communication,
collaboration, and reflection.
Although a great number of specific team processes were described by participating
organizations, the study indicates that there is no one-size-fits-all set of best practices. Rather,
team processes used during innovation scenarios were found to reflect certain behaviours.
The most important of these behaviours were open communication, collaboration and
information sharing, and creative reflection about mission, programs, processes and
opportunities. Leaders and teams can improve their capacity for innovation by adjusting
existing team processes or experimenting with new processes to reflect these behaviours. For
example, if staff meetings are simply a review of what team members are working on, but do
not strengthen outward focus, a leader could adjust the format of meetings to incorporate
creative reflection on trends in the external environment.

45

Recommendation 5: Anticipate and mitigate common tensions within organizations during

innovation processes.
The study revealed that tensions sometimes arise within organizations during innovation
processes. The ability of an organization to be flexible and focused on the external
environment can help generate and respond to innovation opportunities, however these same
behaviours can also can create internal challenges. For example, speeding up an
organizations reaction time may reduce its capacity to take the time necessary to engage
staff in participatory decision-making. Anticipating and managing such challenges appear to
be an important role for nonprofit leaders. Specifically, we recommend that leaders cultivate
their ability to:

say no when necessary to new opportunities or risks can help avoid over-extending
staff;

recognize when to speed up the pace of innovation processes and when to slow down;

communicate frequently with staff even when decisions must be taken quickly by the
leader or management team;

distinguish when to direct or facilitate a team process themselves and when to

delegate authority to staff; and

create formal structures and processes that actually support greater for flexibility and
creativity.

46

CONCLUSION
The need for nonprofit and charitable organizations to be innovative, especially small- and
medium-sized organizations, has arguably never been greater. In addition to increasing
demand for services and decreasing or shifting revenue sources, leaders within the third
sector are motivated to increase innovativeness in order to make a greater impact on social
and environmental challenges. This study adds to a small but growing body of research on
how innovation can be supported within nonprofit and charitable organizations. By examining
two factors that are within the control of leaders and team membersorganizational climate
and team processeswe shed light on promising practices to increase internal innovation
capacity.
All leaders participating in the study expressed an understanding that innovation was
important to strengthening the relevance and effectiveness of their organizations. The Open
Systems model of organizational effectiveness, with its emphasis on adaptiveness and
entrepreneurial growth, was shown to be a useful framework through which to examine
nonprofit

innovation.

Three

elements

of

organizational

climate

associated

with

innovativenessflexibility, outward focus, and reflexivitywere confirmed to be significant in

the innovation processes of nonprofit organizations. Participating organizations revealed a
particularly high level of outward orientation, and their scanning of and responsiveness to the
external environment played a prominent role in generating program improvements, funding,
and partnerships with other stakeholders. Findings suggest that team processes, especially
those that facilitate open dialogue, collaboration, and reflection among staff, are powerful
levers by which leaders can improve organizational climate in order to foster innovation.
Since organizational climate is by definition an aggregate of team members perceptions, one
of the limitations of our study was the collection of data mainly from leaders of charitable
organizations rather than from multiple team members. As well, the 18 organizations in the
sample are not representative of all medium-sized registered Canadian charities, and selfselection bias may have skewed the sample towards organizations that have a prior interest in
the topic of innovation. Another limitation was that the level of actual organizational
innovativeness was not measured; findings were thus limited to self-reported experiences of
innovation.
A number of potentially fruitful questions for future research arose during the study that would
produce a more robust understanding of the role of team processes and climate in nonprofit
innovation:

47

Are there differences between leaders and team members perceptions of their
organizations climate for innovation? What accounts for any differences? We suggest
that future studies survey multiple team members from each organization to examine
aggregate climate as well as differences between perceptions of leaders other staff.

How do flexibility, outward focus and reflexivity interact in innovation processes? How
do they enhance each other? What tensions exist between these elements of
organizational climate?

How does organizational structure, including how roles and responsibilities are
arranged, relate to nonprofit organizations climate for innovation?

How does leadership and leadership style affect the team processes used and the
climate created to support innovation?

Case studies of organizations attempting to develop stronger climates for innovation would
also likely be fruitful, exploring questions such as:

What team processes were used?

What challenges did leaders and teams encounter?

How did leaders influence the changes?

How did staff behaviours and perceptions change?

Nonprofit and charitable organizations in Canada are grappling simultaneously with resource
constraints, expectations that they take on a greater role delivering public services, and
aspirations to tackle complex social and environmental problems. To rise to this challenge,
effective teams that work together to fulfill their missions in new or better ways are needed.
Employing team processes that strengthen an organizations climate of flexibility, outward
focus and reflexivity can increase the capacity for innovation within nonprofit and charitable
organizations. In turn, innovative organizations are better equipped to deliver on their
missions, solve complex problems, and serve the public good. This report provides nonprofit
leaders of with practical steps and recommendations to foster innovative climates within their
organizations and contributes insights and knowledge that will build capacity for innovation
across the sector.

48

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APPENDIX A. METHODOLOGY
Research design
This study used a concurrent triangulation mixed methods design that included both
qualitative and quantitative data collection followed by analysis and interpretation (Figure 5).
Qualitative data were obtained through open-ended semi-structured interviews, and
quantitative data were obtained via an online survey completed shortly after the interview.
Interviews were conducted first in order to gather respondents descriptions of examples of
innovation in their organizations and to identify team processes used during innovation. The
survey findings were used to establish respondents perceptions of their organizations climate
for innovation and to triangulate the results from the interview and identify convergences. As a
self-reporting tool, the survey also served to inform our understanding of the sample of
leaders, particularly to establish how innovative they thought their organizations were since
their ideas and practices were the basis for the studys insights into best practices for
fostering innovation by teams.
Figure 5. Concurrent triangulation design

It was deemed important to gather participants responses to open-ended questions about

team processes and innovation before exposing them to specific measures of the three
selected aspects of organizational climate, which could have skewed interview responses if
the order of data collection was reversed. At the same time, a risk in such a design is that
interview questions could suggest which factors support innovation, such that respondents
may over-report on those items when answering the survey. To mitigate this type of social
desirability bias, or the tendency of respondents to over-estimate what they believe is socially
desirable, interview questions were open ended and did not make specific mention of the

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elements of organizational climate under study or of determinants of innovation. In addition,

the survey was made up of seventeen specific statements that encouraged a more critical and
frank self-assessment than would general questions such as How innovative is your
organization?
Concurrent triangulation designs are common in mixed methods research, as they make use
of the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative methods to produce substantiated
findings (Clark & Cresswell, 2008). It has been recommended that research designs using both
structured questionnaires and semi-structured interviews collect the two types of data with a
minimal time gap (Harris & Brown, 2010). In this study, the survey was emailed to respondents
directly following the interviews. Many respondents completed the survey within a day or two
of the interview, however due to their busy schedules and the voluntary nature of the survey,
some respondents took two weeks to 18 days to answer the survey. Collecting both
quantitative and qualitative data in the same phase reduces the time spent on data collection
and allows for the two types of data to be directly compared (Cresswell & Clark, 2011). A
concurrent triangulation design was selected for this study in recognition of time constraints
on the project (three weeks allotted for data collection), the existence of quantitative scales to
measure the topics of interest, and our desire to produce findings and recommendations that
are practical and applicable to nonprofit leaders.

Sampling frame
The population of interest in this study was executive directors, CEOs and/or senior managers
of registered Canadian charitable organizations with 3 to 20 full-time employees. As indicated
by the literature, leaders play an integral role in facilitating team processes that create a
climate in support of innovation; thus, the interviews and surveys focused on the perspectives
of leaders and/or senior managers of participating organizations.
This size of organization, 3 to 20 full-time employees, was chosen to represent medium-sized
organizations, recognizing that the majority of Canadas charities are very small in terms of
budget and staff. Because the study focused on team processes among employees,
organizations with 3 or more full-time staff were deemed most relevant. In addition, while
small- and medium-sized organizations make up the majority in the sector, they face the
greatest difficulties in accessing resources and retaining talent. Of Canadian nonprofit
organizations that have paid staff, 74.5% employ fewer than ten people (HR Council for the
Nonprofit Sector, n.d.). According to the 2003 National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary
Organizations, organizations that reported annual revenues between $30,000 and $499,999

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(46% of nonprofit organizations in Canada) were more likely to report challenges in recruiting
volunteers and obtaining funding than larger organizations (Barr et al., 2006). An Imagine
Canada Sector Monitor survey found that organizations employing between 5 and 25 full-time
staff were more likely to cite difficulties in offering competitive wages than any other group
(HR Council, 2013). The sampling frame was restricted to registered charitiesas opposed to
including all nonprofit organizationsbecause organizational data on registered charities are
publicly accessible on the Canada Revenue Agencys website.

Recruitment
Convenience sampling was first employed to identify organizations that fit within the sampling
frame. Additional lists of organizations were then generated through searches of charity
listings on the Canada Revenue Agencys website. The J. W. McConnell Foundation, our
community partner, also supported the recruitment process by sending an invitation to
participate in the study to eligible organizations in their national network of charitable
organizations. We invited leaders of organizations that fit our sampling frame to participate in
the study via email. A public recruitment message was also posted on the researchers
Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Out of the 34 organizations invited to participate in the study,
18 organizations consented.

Data collection
Data were collected via interviews and an online survey. Between May 28 and June 19, 2015,
the research team conducted interviews with 18 participants. Following the interview, the
participants were asked to complete an online survey. A link to the survey was sent to them
via email immediately following the interview.
Interview
Interviews were conducted via voice or video calls. Each in-depth one-on-one interview was
conducted by one of the two researchers and was audio-recorded. Two interviews were not
recorded due to technical difficulties, but detailed notes were taken throughout. The interviews
lasted between 30 and 45 minutes. The interview questions were semi-structured and asked
respondents to share their experience with innovation adoption in their organization and the
processes that occurred within their work group that led to the final decision. For example,
respondents were asked, Tell me about a time when a new idea for a program or initiative
came about that you did eventually implement in the organization. Probing questions
included, How did the idea emerge in your team? and What do you think your work group did

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that helped this new program or initiative to come about? Respondents were also asked to
reflect on what their work group does well to create a climate that supports innovation and
what they could improve upon. These questions were designed to elicit responses that would
identify specific practices leaders have implemented as well as processes they would
implement within their work groups with the intention to foster a climate supportive of
innovation.
Survey
The interviewee from each participating organization completed an online survey administered
via SurveyMonkey that took approximately 10 minutes to complete. In addition, interviewees
were asked to forward the survey to up to five of their colleagues who could complete it
voluntarily. In total, 5 additional respondents from two organizations completed the online
survey.
The survey drew on two existing measures of organizational climate related to innovation in
order to examine respondents perceptions of three aspects of climate: their organizations
flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity. These three elements were chosen because of their
linkages to innovation and because they were hypothesized to be of importance to mediumsized Canadian charities aspiring to be innovative. Items were measured on 5-point Likert
scales, anchored by 1 - strongly disagree and 5 - strongly agree. The direction of the scales
were reversed for some items to prevent acquiescence bias, the tendency of survey
respondents to agree rather than disagree.
Eleven items were drawn from the Organizational Climate Measure (OCM) (Patterson et al.,
2005) to measure flexibility and external orientation. The OCM measures 17 specific aspects
of climate based upon the four models within the Competing Values Model. Certain terms in
the OCM items were adapted slightly to be more relevant within a nonprofit context:
company was changed to organization, customer to participant or community and
market to field. In addition, the original 4-point scale of the OCM was changed to a 5-point
scale to align it with the reflexivity scale and to facilitate comparative analysis. Measures for
flexibility, drawn from the Innovation & Flexibility subscale (6 items) of the OCM, asked
respondents the extent to which they agreed with statements such as, New ideas are readily
accepted here. Measures for outward focus, drawn from the Outward Focus subscale (5
items), included items such as, The organization is quite inward looking; it does not concern
itself with what is happening in the field.

60

Six items from Schippers et al.s (2007) two reflection subscales were used to measure team
reflexivity.

Schippers

et

al.

(2007)

had

concluded

that

these

two

subscales

evaluation/learning and discussing processesform the most valid instrument to assess

reflexivity in teams. We included 4 of the 19 items from the evaluation/learning subscale and 2
of the 4 items from the discussing processes subscale in the survey. For example,
respondents were asked the extent to which they agreed with statements such as, We
regularly discuss whether the team is working effectively. A selection of the subscale items
were used because it was hypothesized that the internal reliability of these six items would be
sufficient to assess overall team reflexivity. Other researchers have tested the reliability and
validity of the OCM (Bernstrom, 2009) and Schippers et al.s (2007) reflexivity scale (Schippers
et al, 2014; Schippers et al., 2015).

Data management
All data collected in this study were stored electronically using Google Drive and Dropbox to
facilitate collaboration between the researchers. Both accounts were encrypted and passwordprotected and were only accessible by the research team. Names associated with raw data
were replaced by a numerical coding system. Documents containing direct identifiers were
separated from the data set and were encrypted and password protected. All paper records,
notes, and electronic backups on USB keys were stored in the researchers homes in a locked
filing cabinet, accessible only to the research team.
Detailed notes were taken electronically during each interview. Interviews were also audiorecorded to allow the researchers to transcribe relevant responses. The audio files were stored
in a password-protected folder on a password-protected computer accessible only to the
researchers to ensure anonymity and privacy. The recordings were destroyed once the
analysis was complete. The online survey was hosted on SurveyMonkey on a passwordprotected account accessible only to the researchers. A numeric code rather than a name was
used to match interview responses with survey responses for each participant.

Data analysis
It has been recommended for research designs with structured questionnaires and semistructured interviews that each data set be analyzed using methods suitable to each rather
than, for example, forcing qualitative analysis to fit the categories predetermined in
questionnaires (Kendall, 2008; Harris & Brown, 2010); then results can be compared to see if
any common messages resonate from both sets of data.

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To analyze interview responses, transcribed notes were uploaded to Dedoose, an application

for qualitative and mixed methods research. The 18 interviews were coded multiple times by
both researchers for the presence of team processes and climates of flexibility, outward focus,
and reflexivity. The initial coding stages generated a list of main codes and subcodes. In
addition, other factors that emerged as important to organizations innovation processes were
extracted. In total, 6 main codes and 41 subcodes emerged during analysis. The main codes
were flexibility, outward focus, reflexivity, other innovation factors, team processes,
and challenges.
Quantitative data obtained from the survey were used to corroborate interview responses and
determine whether the respondent perceived their organization to have a climate that
supported innovation. For organizations with more than one survey respondent, the average of
the responses on organizational climate measures were used in analysis. Cronbachs alpha
(), which measures how closely related a set of items are as a group, was used to check that
the internal consistency of each of the three scales (flexibility, outward focus, and reflexivity)
met a minimum reliability of 0.60 before they were combined. This test helps confirm if
multiple items in a set are closely related or not and therefore if a scale in a survey is reliable.
In this study, responses to one particular item in the flexibility scale were so different from the
other items that the item was removed from analysis.
The average score of each of the three scales were then summed to create a single
innovation score out of 15. Scores ranged from 10.1 to 14.3. To allow for comparative
analysis, organizations were classified as being perceived as having very strong, strong,
moderate, weak, and unsupportive climates for innovation based on their innovation
score.

Limitations
Research design
The design of the study had several limitations.

It has been suggested that when

confirmatory results are being sought via semi-structured interviews and structured
questionnaires, then the instruments should be tightly aligned (Harris & Brown, 2010). The
interview and questionnaire did not ask similar questions; rather, the interview asked openended questions about team processes and scenarios while the questionnaire asked the
extent to which the respondent agreed with specific statements regarding aspects of
organizational climate. Therefore, the two types of data cannot be deemed to be confirmatory
but complementary. Gillham (2007, p.165) emphasizes the complementary role of varying

62

types of data and that interview data have to be taken as valid in their own right: they add
something different to other data. It is more common for interviews to follow questionnaires
in order to collect greater detail about participants original survey responses (Gillham, 2007).
In this study it was deemed important to gather participants responses to open-ended
questions about team processes and innovation before exposing them to specific measures of
the three selected aspects of organizational climate which could have skewed interview
responses if the order of data collection was reversed. On the other hand, the interview may
have primed respondents to aspire to greater innovation and thereby to rate their
organizational climates as more flexible, reflexive, and oriented towards the external
environment in their survey responses. To mitigate this risk of over-rating their organizations
in the climate scales, the survey was made up of multiple and specific statements rather than
a small number of general questions such as How innovative is your organization? As well,
interview questions were purposefully open-ended and did not indicate the determinants of
innovation under study. In the end, our research design prioritized the qualitative interview
data over the survey data because we decided that rich descriptions of examples of nonprofit
innovation, in participants own words, would best serve the purpose of increasing our
understanding of how a climate for innovation is created.
Recruitment and sampling
The recruited sample for the study is not representative of all medium-sized registered
Canadian charities. Participants were recruited via the researchers and the community
partners networks, which may have biased the sample towards organizations that are
involved in networks that exchange best practices and that are more interested in innovation
than the average organization. Nonprobability sampling may have also resulted in selfselection bias towards organizations that are comfortable with the concept of innovation or
perceive themselves to be innovative, as participants were informed of the research topic prior
to participating in the study. While a broad spectrum of activity areas was represented in the
recruited sample, certain types of charitable organizations were excluded from eligibility,
including educational institutions, hospitals, and foundations. Since the recruited sample was
restricted to registered charities, the findings may not be generalized to all nonprofit
organizations.
Data collection and analysis
Several limitations arose during the data collection phase of the study. Respondents were
aware of the subject of the study, which may have resulted in biased responses. Since the

63

survey was conducted online, there was no opportunity for respondents to clarify any of the
questions. It is further unknown to the researchers whether the interviewee distributed the
online survey to a representative cross-section of the organizations employees. Bias may
have been introduced in the climate scores if the survey was distributed to like-minded
colleagues.
The small sample size (n = 18) limited the ability to employ sophisticated statistical analysis
on quantitative data or to use comparative analysis. This study primarily measured leaders
perceptions and experiences of their organizations climate in support of innovation. As
climate is measured at the organizational level as an aggregate of team members perceptions
and actions (Allen et al., 2013), a more robust picture of an organizations actual climate would
be captured if the perspectives of multiple team members were gathered. Furthermore, this
study focused on just three elements of organizational climate, namely flexibility, outward
focus, and reflexivity. A number of related aspects of organizational climate that have been
linked to innovation were not included such as support for creativity and risk.
Finally, it is important to note that actual organizational innovation or innovativeness were not
measured. The literature demonstrates a link between an organizational climate in support of
innovation and organizational innovation, but this study may still have limited external validity.
Ethics
Some of the organizations recruited to participate were grantees of the McConnell Foundation
and/or participants in the foundations capacity building programs. In order to alleviate
participants pressure to appear innovative or to participate in the study in order to maintain
positive relations with this grantmaking foundation, the invitation letter, consent form,
interview protocol and survey each reminded participants that their data would be kept
confidential and their responses and organizations anonymous.
There was a mild likelihood that participants could experience discomfort during the interview
or survey as they required the respondents to assess their own organizations innovation
practices, which included unsuccessful experiences. In order to reduce this potential
discomfort, the researchers explained at the beginning and end of interviews and the survey
that all organizations face some challenges and have some successes in creating a climate
for innovation and that the research was aimed at producing knowledge that any charity could
use for improving their team processes.

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Participants were generally very busy in their work schedules; therefore the researchers
acknowledged the time given to the survey and interview. To minimize the inconvenience of
the time commitment, phone interviews were scheduled at times chosen by the respondents,
and they were reminded of the opportunity to postpone the interview if needed to minimize the
risk of disruption to their work activities.

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APPENDIX B. INTERVIEW GUIDE

Please describe the management structure at your organization.

Probing questions: Is there a management team? Who is involved? What does the
management team do?

What would you consider to be your main work group?

Explanation: the team of people that you work with on a regular basis to guide and
direct the organization.

Probing questions: Who is part of this team or work group? Is your main work group the
same or different from the management team? How?

Tell me about a time when a new idea for a program or initiative came about, that you did
eventually implement in the organization. (program/product innovation)

Probing questions: How did the idea emerge in your team? Walk me through the steps of
what your work group did. What happened next? Who was involved? What did they do?

What do you think your work group did that helped this new program or initiative to
come about?

Tell me about a time when a new idea for a program or initiative came about, that you did not
end up implementing in the organization. (program/product innovation)

Probing questions: How did this idea come about in the first place? How did your team
go about if it was an idea worth pursuing? Walk me through the steps and who was
involved in exploring the idea.

How did your work group finally decide not to implement this new program or initiative?
Why did your work group come to that decision?

Tell me about a time when there was a change in the external environment, which had an
influence on the work of your organization.

Explanation: examples of a change in the external environment could include: a funders

priorities, the actions of another organization similar to yours, a government policy, a
news story about an issue your organization works on, a change in what the
community or participants want from your organization.

Probing questions: What happened?

How did your work group learn about this change in the external environment?

Who was involved in discussions about this change?

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What did your work team do with this new information? How your work group respond
to this change in the external environment? Were there any adaptations of your
programs or initiatives as a result of this external change?

Thinking of your work group, what are the things that your work group does well to create a
climate that supports innovation in your organization?

Why do you think these things help support a climate supportive of innovation?

What are the things that you would like to improve within your work group to create an even
more supportive climate for innovation?

Why do you think these things would help?

Those are all of my questions. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

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APPENDIX C. SURVEY QUESTIONS

0. What is your job title: _______________
1. What is the official name of your organization (as registered with the Canada Revenue
Agency)? _________________________
(Note: The name of your organization is needed in order to join your survey responses with your
interview that you have already completed. In addition, the researchers will use this information to
verify charitable registration with the CRA. After this verification, the name of the organization will
be replaced with a numeric code to ensure confidentiality of your responses and electronic or print
records with the name will be destroyed. )
2. How many employees does your organization currently have:
full time employees: ____
part time employees: ____
3. What is the primary activity area of your organization?

Sports and Recreation

Arts and Culture

Education and Research

Social Services and Community Development

Health

Environment

International development

Philanthropic Intermediaries and Voluntarism

Other: __________________

4. Province or Territory in which your organization is located:

Alberta

British Columbia

Manitoba

New Brunswick

Newfoundland & Labrador

Northwest Territories

Nova Scotia

Nunavut

Ontario

Prince Edward Island

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Quebec

Saskatchewan

Yukon

5. What is your age in years:

24 or under

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

65 or over

I prefer not to answer this question

6. What is your gender (self-identified):

female

male

trans*

other _______________

I prefer not to answer this question

8. How long have you been working at this organization?

0 to 2 years

2 to 4 years

4 to 6 years

6 to 8 years

10 or more years

9. What is the average age of employees at your organization in years:

24 or under

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

65 or over

10. How many employees in your organization do you directly supervise (direct reports)?

1 to 2

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3 to 4

5 to 6

7 to 8

9 to 10

11 or more

11. Please read the following statements and rate them according to how you think they apply
to your organization.
strongly

disagree

disagree

neither

agree

agree nor

strongly
agree

disagree
In this organization, the way people work
together is readily changed in order to
improve performance
The methods used by this organization to
get the job done are rarely discussed*
There are regular discussions as to
whether people in the organization are
working effectively together
In this organization objectives are
modified in light of changing
circumstances
In this organization, time is taken to
review organizational objectives

12. Please read the following statements and rate them according to how you think they apply
to your organization.
strongly
disagree

disagree

neither
agree nor

agree

strongly
agree

disagree
This organization is quite inward looking;
it does not concern itself with what is
happening in the field*
Ways of improving service to participants
or the community are not given much

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thought*
Participant or community needs are not
considered top priority here*
This organization is slow to respond to the
needs of participants or the community*
This organization is continually looking for
new opportunities in the external
environment

*The asterisk refers to items for which the scale must be reversed before analysis because they are negative
statements.

13. Please read the following statements and rate them according to how you think they apply
to your organization.
strongly
disagree

disagree

neither
agree nor

agree

strongly
agree

disagree
New ideas are readily accepted here
This organization is quick to respond
when changes need to be made
Management here are slow to spot the
need to do things differently*
This organization is very flexible; it can
quickly change procedures to meet new
conditions and solve problems as they
arise
Assistance in developing new ideas is
readily available
People in this organization are always
searching for new ways of looking at
problems

*The asterisk refers to items for which the scale must be reversed before analysis because they are negative
statements.

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APPENDIX D. INTERVIEW RESULTS: FREQUENCY OF

CLIMATE ELEMENTS & TEAM PROCESSES
Major
Categories
Flexibility
(18)

Outward
focus (18)

Reflexivity
(18)

Innovation
factors other (18)

Team
processes
(18)

Subcategories

Number of
participants

Quick to respond

10

Adapt team responsibilities and structure

Adapt programs/strategies

15

Willing to try new things

17

Client/participant/user impact or needs

16

Funding opportunities + changes

16

Non-client stakeholder feedback/advisors

Nonprofit field trends/competition/duplication

12

Policy/government priorities

Technology/new tools available

Evaluation, research, data analysis

16

Reflection on organizational goals/strategy

14

Reflection on personal goals/motivation

Reflection on program/implementation

13

Reflection on team processes, workflows, relations

10

Time to reflect

Board staff relationship

External expertise / consultant / facilitator

Knowledge and info systems

Organizational structure

12

Physical space / office layout / meet in other places

Support for innovation

Team composition / staff with innovative approach

11

Affirm everyones ideas / brainstorm / value creativity

11

Arts-based team practices

Cross-departmental collaboration

15

Defining roles

Have fun, play, spend time together

Individual check-ins

72

Informal meetings

11

Leadership

13

Open door policy

Open, honest communication

10

Participatory leadership / engagement in decision-making

14

Professional development, training, knowledge transfer

Questioning ideas

12

Staff retreats

Strategic planning / shared vision / scenario planning

13

Team meetings - small group

11

Team meetings - whole group

15

Trial and error / testing

Challenges / could do better (17)

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APPENDIX E. INTERVIEW RESULTS: AREAS FOR

IMPROVEMENT FOR ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION
The following lists the areas leaders reported that they wanted to improve to create a climate
for innovation (open-ended question), and the number of leaders that mentioned each point.
Generation of innovation

more time for visioning - 1

think and plan further ahead in time - 1

encourage creativity by all staff - 1

physical space - office conducive to sharing and discussion - 2

connect more with constituents - 1

Managing innovation

say no more often to new ideas or opportunities in order to not overstretch - 3

ability to review or let go of recurring programs - 2

internal processes: more structured / follow through better on agreed-upon processes 2

responding to staffs creative ideas when they are not likely to succeed/or lack of
capacity - 2

work more nimbly across departments - 1

meet needs of different reflective styles of staff (some reflect on spot, others need time
to process) - 1

engage in less reflection before getting to a decision - 1

timing and process of annual budgeting restricts implementing new activities - 1

Building capacity of team members

increase training and involvement of other staff in innovation - 2

more professional development - 2

better use of information infrastructure to track results & share information - 2

more shared leadership - 1

Communication between staff and leadership

improve communication with staff, especially when leaders must quickly make
decisions and act on opportunities - 3

improve communication from staff to leaders so that innovative ideas filter up - 1

Leadership and governance

leaders availability to staff, time in office, follow through with staff - 2

more frequent directors retreats -1

courage to change before forced to change - 1

boards understanding of programs and commitment to innovation - 1

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