Investigating the Role and Rank of Organizational Factors on the Success of Incremental and Radical Innovations in Iran's Defense Industries

Although success in defense industries depends on many factors, innovation is a key factor in transition into a new era of defense industries. Previous studies have mentioned many factors such as individual, organizational and environmental which affect innovation success. Opportunity creation for future wars, responding to army’s current needs, and gaining economical profits are 3 main components of innovation success in defense industries. In spite of the fact all of these factors have a key role on the innovation success, but some researchers emphasize more on the importance of organizational factors. In fact, innovations in defense industries are complex, expensive and require interaction between industries and army; in this situation, organizational capabilities and assets are very important elements to succeed innovations. In this study, after explaining the dimensions and components of innovation success, organizational influencing factors were identified. Then with the help of 13 defense experts, we tried to refine the factors according to the field. In next step, by the means of surveying methods, we studied organizational factors impacts on radical and incremental innovation separately. Our research results show that 22 of 40 factors have meaningful impact on innovation success, while the ranking and priority of these factors differ in radical and incremental innovation.