Dr. Tawfeeq Abedlchanee khalaf Alajaleen
Part-time Lecturer, Jordanian Universities
Abstract:
Background:
The pharmaceutical industry has long relied on innovation to bring respectability to medicine and drive revenue. In today’s marketplace, organizations are under increasing stress from two forces: fierce global competition and societal pressure for sustainable business practices. This empirical research wants to examine the impact of organizational innovation on the three pillars of sustainability in the Jordanian pharmaceutical context while ensuring a move beyond the traditional models that depict innovation as simply related to economic performance.
Methods:
his study uses a descriptive-analytical quantitative approach; a structured questionnaire which was designed according to previous literature and underpinned by the Oslo Manual, was electronically distributed to a selected sample of upper – and middle-level managers in Jordanian pharmaceutical firms. From this population (287 managers), we collected 225 valid responses and analyzed them. The independent variable was organizational innovation (depicted through product and process innovation dimensions). The dependent variable was sustainability (represented in terms of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions). Data analysis was performed using SPSS, and incorporated descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis to test the null hypotheses of the study.
Discussion:
The results affirm a strong positive correlation between organizational innovation and sustainability, meaning we rejected all nulls. An important finding was the particularly strong impact on overall sustainability of process innovation, even when its total effect was only slightly greater than product innovation. This suggests that while new products create economic and social value, a process innovation – for example, in manufacturing, quality control and logistics – can lead to simultaneously direct benefits for the organization and the triple bottom line – economic (cost reduction), social (worker safety), and environmental (waste reduction). Thus, the results suggest managers are leveraging process innovation actions as not only a way to improve efficiencies of a firm, but as a strategic way to improve sustainable performance in a manner whereby it does not compromise operational efficiencies.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, organizational innovation acts as a strategic lever for achieving organizational sustainability in the pharmaceutical context. The new innovation paradigms that embrace corporate sustainability realize that a sound approach to innovation given the current landscape is an integrated strategy – that is, the development of new products and faster processes is intentionally aligned with the triple bottom line. This study provides an empirical study bridge between innovation management and corporate sustainability activities, giving managers actionable points to strive for more resilient and responsible organizations and forwarding a research agenda that studies this important intersection.