Investigating the Relationship between Strategic Thinking and Intellectual Capital with an Attitude Toward Organizational Innovation among Managers and Experts in Tehran Education Areas

Tendency to organizational innovation canhappen in the field of manpower, behavioral and psychological studies of employees and recognition of their values ​​and abilities or in the field of technology and industry, equipment, modernization and new technologies or in the structure that includes a set of rules, methods, norms and criteria. Teachers and administrative staff engage in innovation, either directly, that is, implementing new ideas in administrative, technical and professional fields by themselves, or indirectly, i.e. welcoming and supporting innovations in the education and classroom environment, in which the spirit of monotonous and repetitive work gradually becomes an innovative behavior at the level of education. Given the challenges such as the crisis in financial resources, increasing unemployment rate of graduates and increasing social demands, it should be noted that minor changes cannot modify the education system. Considering the future of social and economic systems and the role and the responsibility of the educational system in responding to the needs of society, the necessity of strategic thinking in the educational system and the knowledge and mastery of educational managers over strategic management and planning, is a necessary and inevitable thing. The purpose of this study is the investigating the relationship between strategic thinking and intellectual capital with an orientation towards organizational innovation.

The present study is based on the type of applied and based on the method, descriptive-analytic and correlation type. The statistical population of the study consisted of all the managers of the educational districts of Tehran in 181 people, all of whom were considered as sample size. For gathering data, three standard questionnaires include Goldman’s strategic thinking questionnaire (2001), Bontis’s intellectual capital questionnaire (1998) and Jimenez’s organizational innovation questionnaire (2008). Validity of the questionnaire was verified using content and face validity and reliability using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. In order to analyze the data and analyze the hypotheses, inferential statistics tests including Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, T-student, Pearson correlation and regression analysis were used.

The results showed that strategic thinking and intellectual capital have a positive and significant effect on the orientation towards organizational innovation. In addition, according to the results of research, strategic thinking ability is more effective in orientation towards organizational innovation among Managers in Tehran Education Areas compared to the intellectual capital. In general, according to data collection and analysis of data, all hypotheses were accepted, and conceptual model is confirmed.

 As strategic thinking and the amount of intellectual capital increase in the managers of education departments, their tendency to organizational innovation also increases. In addition, according to research results, the ability of strategic thinking compared to intellectual capital, has a greater impact on the tendency to organizational innovation.