The organizational innovativeness studies found rather low
relationships between the independent variables that were investigated
and the dependent variable of innovativeness. Because of the rather
large sample size (often a hundred or more organizations), the typical organizational innovativeness study had to follow a highly quantitative
approach to data analysis. Independent variables like such
organizational structure dimensions as centralization, formalization,
and the like were measured for each organization. The dependent variable
of innovativeness was typically measured as a composite score,
composed of the adoption of from ten to twenty innovations. The
innovation process for each such innovation was thus submerged
through aggregation into an overall innovativeness score for each
organization. As a result, differences among the innovations were
lost. The cross-sectional approach to data analysis also meant that
time as a variable was lost; thus, the "process" (that is, the over-time)
aspects of the innovation process could not be measured.