The impact of perceived organizational support and human resources practices on innovative work behavior: does gender matter?

Modern organizations nowadays are striving to survive and thrive within the intense competition, complex environment, and ongoing globalization. Employees' innovative work behavior has become the primary vehicle for these organizations to achieve this aim. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of perceived organizational support (POS) and high commitment human resource practices (HCHRPs) on employee innovative work behaviors (IWB) within the moderating role of gender. Data was obtained from 359 academic staff members working in 124 higher education institutions in all emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Findings revealed that POS and HCHRPs are positively related to employee innovative work behaviors. Moreover, the moderating effect of gender on the direct relationship between POS and employee innovative work behaviors was significant, but not significant on the direct relationship between HRPs and employee innovative work behaviors. Implications of the findings for academics and practitioners were presented, and limitations and future research were discussed.

Fostering employees' innovative behavior: The importance of proactive personality and work-related flow

Employees' innovative behaviors (EIB) play a crucial role in driving enterprises' innovation and enabling them to adapt to the complex business environment. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of proactive personality in EIB, whereby a mediating effect of work-related flow is proposed in this relationship. The moderating effect of organizational innovation climate is also examined on the indirect of proactive personality on EIB through work-related flow. With purposive sampling, a questionnaire survey was conducted on front-line employees of two digital cultural and creative industrial parks in Southwest China. A total of 279 valid questionnaires were used for hypothesis verification. The findings indicate that employees' proactive personality has a significant positive effect on EIB. Employees with a proactive personality are more likely to experience work-related flow, which in turn promotes their EIB. However, we did not find evidence of the organizational innovation climate moderating the relationship between proactive personality and EIB.

With a little help from my friends: adopting a P-E fit perspective in understanding the value of organizational learning climate for sustainable employability

Purpose

The objective of our study was to investigate how organizational learning climate (measured as developmental opportunities and team support for learning), career commitment, and age are related to employees' self-perceived employability, vitality and work ability (e.g., their sustainable employability). Our study adopted a P-E fit perspective building upon the notion that sustainable employability is a function of both the person (P) and the environment (E) and tests a three-way interaction between organizational learning climate, career commitment, and age.

Design

In total, 211 members of the support staff of a Dutch university completed a survey. Hierarchical stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the data.

Findings

Only one of the two dimensions of organizational learning climate that we measured, namely the developmental opportunities, appeared to be associated with all indicators of sustainable employability. Career commitment only had a direct positive relationship with vitality. Age was negatively related to self-perceived employability and to work ability, but not to vitality. The relationship between developmental opportunities and vitality was negatively influenced by career commitment (a negative two-way interaction effect), while a positive three-way interaction effect was found between career commitment, age, and development opportunities, and with self-perceived employability as the outcome.

Theoretical and practical implications

Our findings confirmed the relevance of adopting a P-E fit perspective on sustainable employability, and of considering the possible role of age in this. It requires more detailed analyses in future research to unravel the role of age in the shared responsibility for sustainable employability. In practice, the results of our study imply that organizations should provide all employees with a working context that facilitates learning, however, with a special focus on older employees, for whom it is a particular challenge to protect their sustainable employability, possibly due to age-related stereotyping.

Originality

Our study adopted a P-E fit perspective on sustainable employability and examined the association between organizational learning climate and all three components of sustainable employability: self-perceived employability, vitality and work ability. Moreover, it investigated whether and how the employee's career commitment and age influence this relationship.

The Effect of Employee Agility and Self-Efficacy on Innovative Behavior at Work

In order for organizations to remain competitive and successful in the contemporary business environment, one of the fundamental prerequisites is innovative behavior of employes. Therefore, research analyzing the organizational and personal factors of this behavior is relevant, in which increasing attention is paid to the agility of employees. In general, agility can be described as a person’s ability to adapt quickly and efficiently to normal or new work situations, accept changes and respond appropriately to them. The study aimed to determine the relationship between employees agility, self-efficacy, and innovative behavior in the organization and to evaluate the mediating role of self-efficacy for the relations between agility and innovative behavior. The cross-sectional survey was conducted in the sample of 172 employees. 78% of them were women, the average age of the participants was 33.8 years. Scales measuring employee agility, innovative behavior and self-efficacy were applied in the study. For this study, a Lithuanian employee agility scale consisting of twenty items was prepared. The results were processed using correlational, regression, and mediation analysis. Main results: firstly, more expressed employee agility and self-efficacy predicts their higher involvement in innovative behavior, and secondly, self-efficacy acts as a mediator for the relationship between agility and innovative behavior. The importance of the employee’s personal characteristics – agility and self-efficacy – in predicting innovative behavior was confirmed, and the role of self-efficacy as a mediator for the relationship between agility and innovative behavior was revealed. Theoretical and practical implications of the study results are discussed.

How, Why, and When is the Average Age of Employees Related to Climate for Innovation? The Role of Age Diversity, Focus on Opportunities, and Work Engagement

Folk wisdom suggests that “you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.” Accordingly, as the average age of the workforce increases, there is a potential concern based on negative stereotypes that organizations will become less innovative. Drawing from lifespan development theories and theorizing on innovation, we explore this concern by testing, at the organization level of analysis, whether the average age of employees is indirectly related to climate for innovation through employees’ aggregate focus on opportunities (i.e., a negative indirect effect) and work engagement (i.e., a positive indirect effect). Moreover, we proposed that organizational age diversity is a protective resource that moderates these relationships, such that they are weaker in organizations with high as compared to low age diversity. Organization-level data were collected from teaching and non-teaching staff in n = 133 schools across two time points separated by 4 years (Time 1 n = 3712 respondents; Time 2 n = 5183 respondents). Results suggest that the average age of employees within schools was negatively related to employees’ aggregate focus on opportunities which, in turn, positively predicted climate for innovation above and beyond the positive effect of work engagement. Moreover, the negative indirect effect of average age on climate for innovation through aggregate focus on opportunities was weaker for organizations with high age diversity. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of relationships between age and age-related characteristics and climate for innovation at the organization level, and challenge common misunderstandings regarding the role of age in the workplace.

How large entrepreneurial-oriented companies breed innovation: the roles of interdepartmental collaboration and organizational culture

Purpose

This study aims to provide a better understanding into how large-scale companies overcome their rigidity and bureaucracy, and transform entrepreneurial orientation (EO) into organizational responsiveness (e.g. interdepartmental collaboration [IDC]). It also clarifies the double-edged role of organizational culture in shaping IDC, specifically within the Chinese economy that is deeply influenced by Confucianism.

Design/methodology/approach

Datas were randomly collected from companies that reside in the Yangtze River Delta region. With a sample of 115 large-scale EO Chinese firms, consisting of 402 department managers and 115 executives. The study aggregates the scores to create an overall measurement for EO, collectivism, power distance and IDC in the analysis. Further, confirmatory factor analyses were used to measure the structural model fitness, and multiple regression analysis was used to assess the hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that in competitive environments, IDC, as a strategic response to EO and a risk aversion of inertia and bureaucracy, fully mediates the positive relationship between EO and organizational creativity. Furthermore, the positive association is more pronounced under high cultural collectivism or low power distance in large-scale firms.

Research limitations/implications

This paper contributes to the understanding of EO approach at the organizational level. The results posit that when large companies adopt EO, they are proactive rather than passive and would exhibit IDC as an important strategic responsiveness. Moreover, different organizational cultural orientations (i.e. high collectivism and low power distance) help to build IDC before cultivating innovation.

Practical implications

The results in this study suggest that large companies should focus on developing IDC to overcome knowledge fragmentation, bureaucracy and inertia. Also, large firms should develop Human Resource Management practices, such as creating job rotation and workflow, as well as cultural trust and common beliefs. In contrast, they should be on guard against status differences and workplace hierarchy’s cultural context.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that considers the roles of IDC and organizational culture and examines how large-scale entrepreneurial-oriented companies breed innovation.

Perceived organizational politics, knowledge hiding and diminished promotability: how do harmony motives matter?

Purpose

This study aims to investigate an underexplored behavioral factor, knowledge hiding, that connects employees’ perceptions of organizational politics (POP) with their diminished promotability, while also considering the moderating role of employees’ harmony motives in this process.

Design/methodology/approach

The research hypotheses are tested with multisource, three-round data collected among employees and their supervisors.

Findings

Employees’ beliefs about self-serving organizational decision-making increase their propensity to hide knowledge, which, in turn, diminishes their promotability. This intermediate role of knowledge hiding is more prominent when their disintegration avoidance motive is strong but less prominent when their harmony enhancement motive is strong.

Practical implications

A refusal to share knowledge with organizational colleagues, as a covert response to POP, can create a negative cycle for employees. They are frustrated with decision-making practices that are predicated on favoritism, but by choosing seemingly subtle ways to respond, they compromise their own promotion prospects. To avoid this escalation, employees should adopt an active instead of passive approach toward maintaining harmony in their work relationships.

Originality/value

This research contributes to extant research by detailing a hitherto overlooked reason that employees’ frustrations with dysfunctional politics may escalate into an enhanced probability to miss out on promotion opportunities. They respond to this situation by engaging in knowledge hiding. As an additional contribution, this study details how the likelihood of this response depends on employees’ harmony motives.

A Cross-Level Examination of the Relationship of Strengths-Based Human Resource System With Employee Performance

Given the great significance of employees’ strengths to employees’ optimal functioning, strengths-based human resource (HR) system has gradually reaped HR researchers’ attention. However, to date, there remains a lack of evidence supporting the effectiveness of strengths-based HR system. Therefore, this article aimed to bridge the gap in the literature by empirically testing the cross-level relationships between strengths-based HR system, employee strengths use, and supervisor-rated employee performance (i.e., task performance and innovative behavior). Data from 205 employees working in 56 organizations in China were collected at three points in time from different sources. The results of multilevel path analysis showed that strengths-based HR system has a positive relationship with employee strengths use, and employee strengths use is positively related to supervisor-rated employee task performance and innovative behavior. More importantly, strengths-based HR system had a positive relationship with employee task performance and innovative behavior via employee strengths use.