Age and creativity at work

The job demands-resource model and performance: the mediating role of employee engagement

In case of a major social crisis, such as the coronavirus pandemic, the most important measure is to identify the determinants influencing employee health and well-being, which are directly linked to workplace job performance. Many studies have explored the role of employee engagement in the relationship between job resources, psychological capital, and job performance; however, only a few have investigated the relationships reflecting rapid changes in the work environment represented by digital transformation and a major social crisis. Considering this, this study examines how job autonomy and psychological well-being, which lower employee anxiety about health and welfare, influence in-role performance in the form of proactive employee characteristics as well as extra-role performance in the form of prosocial behavior, as mediated by employee engagement. The results of the data analysis of 1,092 corporate employees in Korea supported this model. Specifically, job autonomy and psychological well-being influence job performance (i.e., personal initiative and prosocial behavior) through improvements in employee engagement. Based on these findings, the study also discusses the implications of the results, future directions, and limitations.

Creativity and (global, ethnic, host) cultural identifications: An examination in migrant and host national samples

We live in an era of unprecedented interconnectivity and challenges (e.g., climate change, pandemics) that require global mindsets and creative approaches. While research on global identification has increased in recent years, the question of whether it can facilitate creativity remains largely unexplored. Moreover, despite the evidence linking multicultural experiences and global identities, migrant populations have been overly underrepresented in this area of research. We examine the association between global culture identification and creativity in the Alternate Uses Test, across two different samples residing in Spain: a host national and majorly student sample (N = 326) and a culturally diverse immigrant sample (N = 122). Additionally, we test the predictive value of ethnic identification (in both samples) and host culture identification (in the immigrant sample). Regression analyses reveal that global culture identification positively predicts creativity among host national participants, and host culture identification predicts creativity among immigrant participants. Our results suggest that developing a cultural identity that transcends the one acquired through enculturation (i.e., global culture identification for the host national sample, host culture identification for the immigrant sample) has the potential of facilitating creative behavior.

How and When Can Employees with Status Motivation Attain Their Status in a Team? The Roles of Ingratiation, OCBI, and Procedural Justice Climate

Despite research having identified two major routes to status: dominance and competence, both routes seem inadequate to capture the “whole picture” of how people get ahead in organizations. Building on social exchange theory and social status literature, we identify two novel paths and their important boundary conditions by which employees with status motivation can achieve status. Specifically, we propose that employees with status motivation obtain status (operationalized as other-perceived status and promotability) by engaging in ingratiation toward their supervisors and organizational citizenship behavior directed toward individuals. In addition, these relationships are weakened in teams where the procedural justice climate is high. Results from four studies conducted in China and the United States, which consist of three experiments (Study 1: N = 240; Study 2: N = 180; Study 4: N = 309) and one field study of 427 employees from 74 teams (Study 3), provide support for most of the propositions we proposed. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings 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.

Job Control and Employee Innovative Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

The revolution of self-management and organizational democracy is gaining momentum with the development of new technologies. How to stimulate high employee innovation behavior is critical to an organization's success. In this study, we built and verified a theoretical model to explore the effect of job control (JC) on employee innovative behavior (EIB), the mediating effect of creative self-efficacy (CSE), and the moderating effect of mindfulness (MF), based on the self-determination theory (SDT). For this quantitative study, a 31-item questionnaire was used to collect data from five Internet companies with 329 Chinese employees. AMOS 24.0 software was used to calculate CFA. SPSS26.0 software was used to calculate means, standard deviations, correlations, and regression analysis. The results indicate that a moderated mediation model among JC, CSE, EIB, and MF is supported. Further, JC was positively related to EIB via CSE. Moreover, MF moderated the relationship between JC and EIB and the mediating role of CSE.

The Importance of Employees’ Knowledge in Sustainable, Green Manufacturing: Numerical Modeling Approach

The employees’ knowledge level is crucial because it ensures the long-term social, environmental, and financial sustainability of a company’s operations on the global market. In doing so, there is a problem of how to measure the employees’ knowledge level within the segment, and improve it based on performed measures. In our research, we proposed the use of real-world problem solving for the purpose of determining and improving the employees’ knowledge level potential. In the study, we present a numerical modeling approach to evaluate real-world problem-solving capabilities and find out how the captured data influence the important parameters for determining the employee’s knowledge level. We have measured seven parameters (number of solutions, technological feasibility of the proposed solutions, team thinking activities, age, prior knowledge about sustainable production methods, and education level). By using linear regression, we have defined general forms of functional dependencies that enable the individual company to calculate and, if necessary, increase the employees’ knowledge level for their team. The results of the research show the correlation dependence of individual parameters, in which we found a close relationship between the employees’ knowledge level and age, as well as the technological feasibility of proposed solutions and educational level. In the final phase of the research, we conducted an experiment with mixed groups consisting of participants from different age groups, with the results showing a high degree of intergenerational integration importance.

Humble Leader Behavior and Its Effects on Performance at the Team and Individual Level: A Multi-Perspective Study

Drawing upon social information processing theory, this study builds a multilevel model to explore the effects of humble leader behavior on performance in teams. Time-lagged and multi-source data were gathered from 298 employees across 70 work teams. Results indicated that at the individual level, humble leader behavior was positively related to individual performance via organization-based self-esteem, while at the team level, humble leader behavior was positively related to team performance via team potency. Moreover, team cognitive diversity moderated the indirect effects of humble leader behavior on individual and team performances, such that the positive indirect effects were stronger for teams with high cognitive diversity than for those with low cognitive diversity. Implications and limitations are also discussed.

Authentic Leadership and Improved Individual Performance: Affective Commitment and Individual Creativity's Sequential Mediation

Authentic leadership has become increasingly important in the literature, attracting the attention of many scholars in the last decade. This study adopted an employee-centered perspective to guide its examination of the relationship between authentic leadership and individual performance and investigation of the sequential mediation of employees' affective commitment and individual creativity. An analysis was conducted of data collected from 214 employees working in different business sectors. The results reveal a statistically significant positive relationship between authentic leadership and employees' workplace performance, which are both directly connected and indirectly linked through the two proposed psychosocial mechanisms. The findings thus indicate that authentic leadership reinforces workers' emotional connection with their organizations, thereby increasing their individual creativity and, subsequently, promoting better on-the-job performance. This study presents new and significant results since, on the one hand, it relied on a sequential mediation analysis of variables and, on the other hand, integrated the four main constructs into a single model. The proposed model displays the chain of effects between authentic leadership, affective commitment, individual creativity, and employee workplace performance. Implications for organizational management are discussed.

From Job Resources to Idea Implementation: A Moderated Sequential Mediation Model

Considering the motivational path of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, this study investigates a multistep process by which contextual job resources might have an indirect effect on idea implementation. Among 187 shop floor employees of a manufacturing company, we found support for a model whereby job control has an indirect effect, over a 5-month time frame, on idea implementation through employee work engagement and personal initiative. In addition, we found that the indirect effect of job control on idea implementation is stronger when employees have a higher conformity orientation. Support was not found for the hypothesized indirect effect of coworker social support on idea implementation. Our findings support the usefulness of the JD-R theory for understanding how increased idea implementation occurs at work, especially when the additional factors of personal initiative and employee conformity orientation are integrated into the model.

Τhe Sustainability of Creativity

Creativity is a critical element of sustainable development. In current paper it is described through Social Identity by identifying the main factors that shape the background of creativity. We conclude that health, maturity, and positive attitudes of cultural change as well as the social stability, the environmental care and finally, the incentives, material and non-material, shape the human creative dynamism.

Future Work Self and Employee Creativity: The Mediating Role of Informal Field-Based Learning for High Innovation Performance

In today’s highly uncertain environment, the value of creativity and innovation are increasingly critical. How individuals could improve their creativity and innovation performance has become the focus of attention. Future work self as an intrinsic motivation factor plays an important role in creativity and innovation. Based on the self-consistency theory, this study integrated proactive personality and informal field-based learning (IFBL) to explore the relationship between future work self and employee creativity to increase innovation performance. It used data from 201 R&D department employees in China’s high-tech companies. The results show that future work self has a positive effect on employee creativity and that IFBL mediates the relationship between future work self and employee creativity. This process is then positively moderated by a proactive personality. This study’s results help clarify the formation mechanism of creativity from the perspective of intrinsic motivation and indicate that future work self can drive individuals’ creativity and innovation efforts, especially under the consistency of self-concept, motivation and personality. This research also emphasizes the importance of IFBL in improving individual creativity and further organizational innovation performance. Implications for theory and management to help improve creativity and innovation performance are then discussed in detail.

Transformational leadership and creativity in sport: Examining the mediating role of support for innovation

Understanding how and when transformational leadership is related to followers' perceptions is an important issue. The present study aims to investigate the potential mediating role of support for innovation in the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity in team sports. We also propose that players' team tenure could moderate this relationship.

A cross-sectional design was used. Athletes (N_players = 447, N_team = 45, M_age = 22.12; SD = 5.09) completed questionnaires assessing transformational leadership, support for innovation and creativity.

Support for innovation mediated the positive relationship between inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and high-performance expectations as exogenous variables and creativity as a dependent variable. Moreover, the relationship between intellectual stimulation and creativity was significantly weaker when players' team tenure was high. The relationship between transformational leadership behaviours (inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and high-performance expectations) and support for innovation was stronger when players' team tenure was low.

The current study provides the first evidence of a relationship between transformational leadership and creativity through support for innovation in team sports. This study is also the first to have provided evidence of the role of players' team tenure in those mediational relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Combined Effect of Abusive Supervision and Abusive Supervision Climate on Employee Creativity: A Moderated Mediation Model

In accordance with social identity theory, a multi-level model is put forward to investigate how the “conjoint” associations between abusive supervision and abusive supervision climate exert influence on employee creativity through creative role identity. The data in this paper were from 357 supervisor-subordinate dyads in 77 working groups to test the proposed model. The results indicated that creative role identities mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and employee creativity, and group-level abusive supervision climate moderated the relationship between creativity and individual-level abusive supervision through the process of creative role identity, the mutual influence of abusive supervision climate and individual-level abusive supervision significantly predicated employee creativity. This paper also discusses related managerial and practical implications.

A CLIMATE AND PERSONALITY APPROACH TOWARDS CREATIVITY BEHAVIOURS: A MODERATED MEDIATION STUDY

Organisations are interested in how to get the best performance out of their workforce and this study focuses on creativity behaviours. The present study focuses on psychological safety climate, which relates to shared beliefs amongst co-workers regarding the safety for risk-taking in their work teams. We combine this with another organisational factor and a psychological factor towards testing a robust model of employee creativity behaviours. These factors include organisational-based self-esteem (OBSE) as a mediator and climate for innovation as a moderator, and we then examine these in combination (moderated mediation). Using a sample of 269 diverse employees, we find psychological safety climate is positively related to creativity behaviours and OBSE, and OBSE influences creativity behaviours and fully mediates the effect of psychological safety climate. We also find a significant interaction effect, showing that the highest creativity behaviour is registered when there is high psychological safety climate and high climate for innovation. We also find a significant moderated mediation effect whereby the indirect effect of psychological safety climate on creativity behaviours (through OBSE) increases when climate for innovation gets stronger. We discuss the implications for managing people and teams.

Ethical Leadership, Affective Commitment, Work Engagement, and Creativity: Testing a Multiple Mediation Approach

This study aimed to explore the relationships among ethical leadership (EL), affective commitment (AC), work engagement (WE), and employees’ creativity (EC). In total, 233 Chinese public sector employees completed the survey in three phases. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data. The paper found positive relationships between EL and WE and with EL and EC. The results further revealed that AC partially mediates the EL-WE relationship, while both AC and WE fully mediate the relationship between EL and EC. Testing these relationships via a multiple-mediated approach significantly contributed to the existing research on leadership.

How Authentic Leadership Promotes Individual Creativity: The Mediating Role of Affective Commitment

This study sought to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how authentic leadership can affect employees’ individual creativity through affective commitment’s mediating role. The sample included 177 leader–follower dyads from 26 private, small- and medium-sized enterprises. Followers reported their levels of affective commitment and perceptions of authentic leadership, and leaders assessed each follower’s level of creativity. The results show that authentic leadership has a positive impact on affective commitment and creativity. Moreover, affective commitment fully mediates the relationship between perceived authentic leadership and individual creativity. Organizations can thus increase employees’ affective commitment and creativity by encouraging their managers to adopt more authentic leadership styles. Additional studies with larger samples are needed to determine more clearly not only authentic leadership’s influence on individual creativity but also other psychosocial and personal variables’ effects on that relationship.

The relationship between authentic leaders and employees’ creativity

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how authentic leadership (AL) predicts creativity both directly and through the mediating role of affective commitment (AC) and job resourcefulness (JR).

Design/methodology/approach

Data collected from a questionnaire administered to a sample of 543 employees have been analyzed. The model was tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The findings show that AL predicts AC, JR and creativity. The findings also show that AC and JR predict creativity. In other words, leaders’ authenticity increases employees’ creative spirit and, thus, employees’ ability to overcome obstacles and meet challenges at work and their emotional bond play an important role (mediators) in this relationship.

Practical implications

The results of this study are conclusive and contribute to a better understanding of AL and its implication for employees’ emotional bond, their ability to overcome obstacles and their ability to introduce new and useful ideas. This study provides evidence that organizations should focus on training leaders with authentic characteristics.

Originality/value

This study considers both AC and JR as mediators of the relationship between AL and creativity. Therefore, the originality of this study lies in the integration of these four concepts in a single study to provide a model that depicts the chain of effects between AL, AC, JR and an employee’s creativity.

Three generational issues in organizational learning

Purpose

Methods for facilitating learning and knowledge transfer in multigenerational workplaces are of importance to organizations. Yet, intergenerational learning is vastly understudied in academic organizational literature. This conceptual paper aims to recommend future directions for studying intergenerational learning by examining three interrelated considerations.

Design/methodology/approach

General knowledge management concepts, various generationally based perspectives on training and low-stakes development initiatives, are examined by integrating the existing literature.

Findings

The authors suggest that improved learning will occur in organizations that facilitate targeted socialization, respond to new preferences and trends in development programs while leveraging multiple approaches including informal/individualized initiatives (such as on-the-job education, mentorship programs) and embrace multiple types of volunteering activities.

Originality value

Although other work has reviewed intergenerational learning, this is the first research to focus on multigenerational learning while considering tacit and practical learning transference from inside and outside the organization.

Older workers as a source of wisdom capital: broadening perspectives

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to pinpoint some key variables that help shape the notion of older workers as a source of organizational wisdom capital.

Design/methodology/approach

Toward that end, the paper reviews a selective bibliography in order to support its arguments.

Findings

The evidence garnered throughout this paper – fundamentally through different lens of analysis – suggests that older workers may be considered as valuable assets. Furthermore, a sizeable number of members of this cohort continue, even in the latter stages of their careers, to be willing, well-equipped, and able to enhance, if properly utilized, companies to achieve other patterns of performance. Accordingly, it is advocated here that their knowledge and expertise constitutes an authentic source of organizational wisdom capital that deserves careful attention from organizations to maintain by means of suitable incentives and training.

Research limitations/implications

This paper highlights other aspects that should not be disdained by organizations such as career-ending, work characteristics, and mastery-avoidance goals. Thus, companies that are interested in keeping older talents must be attuned to their wishes and aspirations, as well as being proactive by offering tailor-made job-products to them.

Social implications

Given the trend of aging workforce, it is likely that organizations will be increasingly impacted by societal demands and public policies toward benefiting and respecting older talents.

Originality/value

This paper advocates that older workers are usually living memories of organizational life. Rather, they tend to keep in their minds those failures and successful ideas, projects, initiatives, and leaderships, which added or not value throughout their trajectories, as well as things that worked out or not. Fundamentally, they are able to provide answers to vital questions.

Authentic leadership and creativity: the mediating role of happiness

Purpose

Authentic leadership (AL) as a style can influence, directly or indirectly, employees’ attitudes and behaviors. In this perspective, the purpose of this study is to investigate how AL predicts affective well-being (AWB) and employees’ creativity. The mediating role of AWB and the moderating role of satisfaction with management will be analyzed.

Design/methodology/approach

The researchers have analyzed the data from a questionnaire administered to a sample of 543 employees belonging to various public and private organizations in Cape Verde. Structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed hypotheses and a multi-group analysis was performed to identify how the level of satisfaction with the management may impact the proposed relationships.

Findings

The results of this study reveal that perceptions of AL predict employees’ creativity both directly and through the mediating role of AWB. Satisfaction with the management seems to moderate the relationship between AL, AWB and creativity.

Practical implications

The research outcomes suggest that organizations should focus on training leaders who value self-awareness and transparency in their relationships with others, who display an internal moral perspective and demonstrate balanced processing of information, to guarantee good results at the individual level and, consequently, at the organizational level. This study provides practitioners with possible routes to act in favor of a much happier and more creative workforce.

Originality/value

The originality of this study is because of the integration of these four concepts in a single study, providing evidence of the relationship between AL and creativity through the mediating role of AWB and moderating role of satisfaction with the management.

Voice behavior and creative performance moderated by stressors

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test the moderating role of work-related stressors on the relationship between voice behavior and the voicer’s creative performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample comprised 781 full-time employees from 16 companies covering six industries in the central region of China. Hierarchical moderated regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Results showed that voice behavior had significant positive effect on creative performance. The positive relationship between voice behavior and creative performance was stronger for employees with low challenge stressors as well as for employees with high hindrance stressors.

Research limitations/implications

This study employs a cross-sectional design with data collected from the same source.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that employees should be encouraged to voice out their opinions and ideas. Work-related stressors should be treated differently to expand the effects of voice behavior on creative performance.

Originality/value

This study is one of the few to establish boundary conditions from the contextual perspective on the effect of voice behavior on employee performance. Considering whether work-related stressor is a challenge or a hindrance could possibly result in a better understanding of the role of work-related stressors in the voice behavior-creative performance relationship. An empirical evidence is provided for the positive relationship between voice behavior and employee performance outcomes.

Effects of authentic leadership, affective commitment and job resourcefulness on employees’ creativity and individual performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study examining the relationship between authentic leadership (AL), attitudes and employees’ behaviours. More specifically, how AL influences affective commitment, job resourcefulness and creativity, which, in turn, influence individual performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Empirical research has analysed the data from a questionnaire administered to a sample of 543 employees belonging to various public and private organisations in Cape Verde. The model was tested using structural equation modelling.

Findings

The results reveal that AL influences employees’ attitudes (affective commitment and job resourcefulness) and their creativity, affective commitment and job resourcefulness predict the employees’ creativity, and job resourcefulness and creativity predict individual performance.

Practical implications

The results from this study can help managers to understand how to increase employees’ creativity and performance through AL, affective commitment and job resourcefulness. Indirectly, the study also suggests that organisations should focus on selecting leaders with authentic features and implement appropriate training activities, coaching and development that aim to increase AL since this may well result in a positive impact on employees’ attitudes and behaviours.

Originality/value

The originality of this study is that it focusses on the integration of the five concepts, AL, affective commitment, job resourcefulness, creativity and individual performance, in a single study, providing a model that depicts the chain of effects between AL, employees’ attitudes, employees’ creativity and individual performance.

Mapping Brazilian workforce diversity: a historical analysis

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Brazilian organizations have handled diversity.

Design/methodology/approach

This study draws upon the historical analysis by focusing essentially on secondary sources of data, surface-level indicators, namely, race, gender and age. Accordingly, the major sources of information used in this study are the rankings of the Great Place to Work® Institute Brazil (between 2005 and 2013) and from the Brazilian Ministry of Labor and Employment’s reports (between 2009 and 2013).

Findings

The evidence gathered from the Great Place to Work® Institute Brazil’s lists and the Brazilian Ministry of Labor and Employment’s reports produced mixed results regarding the moral imperative derived from the acculturation of a broad diversity mindset.

Research limitations/implications

This study is not free from limitations. Both sources used in this inquiry do not depict other relevant data that could provide more accurate results.

Practical implications

Overall, the findings of this study suggest that training programs and sound work values revision are necessary steps to reduce discrimination, stereotypes, gender bias and to promote diversity and inclusion inside Brazilian organizations.

Originality/value

It contributes to the understanding of the current diversity scenario in Brazilian organizations by drawing on a historical analysis method. It relied on two germane secondary sources of data.

How organizational tenure affects innovative behavior?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper was to examine the relationship between organizational tenure and employee innovative behavior and the influence of culture difference and status-related moderators (i.e. status hierarchy and status stability) on the linkage.

Design/methodology/approach

– By using a meta-analysis method that included 76 empirical studies, this study examines the relationship of organizational tenure and innovative behavior. In this study, 79 samples (N = 21659) derived from 76 empirical studies that met the inclusion criteria in the meta-analysis.

Findings

– The results show that organizational tenure has a weak positive effect on employee innovative behavior (r = 0.04), and status hierarchy, position tenure, culture difference and measurement ways influence the relationship between the two. In addition, a three-way interaction among status hierarchy, position tenure and organizational tenure is found to jointly affect innovative behavior; specifically, for those who are low in status hierarchy and short in position tenure, their organizational tenures are positively related to innovative behavior, but for those with a longer position tenure in organizations, their organizational tenure may relate to innovative behavior negatively, whatever their status hierarchies are (high or low). This study is helpful in providing theoretical foundation and practical skills to such issues regarding how to trigger innovative behavior efficiently at different career stages.

Research limitations/implications

– Limitations include tenure range of participants and no longitudinal samples in our studies. Future research should examine more contextual factors which influenced the relationship between organizational tenure and innovative behavior.

Practical implications

– The results of this study show that long organizational tenure is not negatively related to innovative behaviors. For managers, do not ignore the contribution of long-tenured employees to innovation. Through promotion or job rotation to increase employees’ job satisfaction and innovative willing.

Originality/value

– To authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine status attribute class variables in the relationship between organizational tenure on innovative behavior. The study is helpful in providing theoretical foundation and practical skills to such issues regarding how to trigger innovative behavior at different career stages correctly.

Employee suggestion scheme sustainability excellence model and linking organizational learning

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability assessment model and to discuss the implications for organizational learning. Paper presents a sustainability excellence model comprising of three stages and discuss the good practices for sustaining the employee suggestion scheme.

Design/methodology/approach

– The assessment framework was developed drawing on a thorough review of the literature and data collected and analyzed using various statistical tools. The developed assessment framework was validated through a case of an organization based in the United Arab Emirates. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit relevant information during the case study.

Findings

– An assessment framework comprising five major factors for sustainability of suggestion scheme of has been presented. The five factors include: leadership and work environment, system capability, system effectiveness, organizational encouragement and system barriers. Sustainability of a suggestion system can be understood as a three-stage model comprising the initial stage, the developmental stage and the advanced stage. The key practices associated for each of these stages are discussed in detail.

Practical implications

– The framework has taken into consideration the critical success factors and critical success factors emerged from the literature review conducted for this study. Therefore, the framework could be further refined by conducting more case studies and can propose maturity levels.

Originality/value

– The paper has developed a framework that can be used to assess the sustainability of the suggestion scheme in an organization. This model has been applied to assess the individual schemes and draw upon potential change strategies.

Linking managerial practices and leadership style to innovative work behavior

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a theoretical model linking individual perceptions of participative leadership style and managerial practices (i.e. teamwork and information sharing) to individual innovative behavior through the mediating mechanisms of: perceptions of team support for innovation and team vision; and psychological empowerment.

Design/methodology/approach

– Self-report data were collected from 394 employees working in five organizations. Structural equation models were conducted to empirically test the hypothesized research model.

Findings

– As hypothesized, participative leadership, teamwork and information sharing positively predicted perceptions of team support for innovation and team vision, which in turn fostered psychological empowerment. The latter was further positively associated with innovative performance.

Practical implications

– The results of the present study inform management of the group processes (i.e. team vision and support for innovation) that can mobilize employees to engage in effective innovative activities. Importantly, the findings indicate that for such processes to be developed and nurtured, teamwork activities should be promoted within work groups, effective communication systems should be implemented throughout the organization, and participatory skills should be developed among supervisors.

Originality/value

– The study represents one of the first attempts to investigate the perceived group and psychological processes that can explain how managerial practices and leadership style jointly benefit employee innovative behavior.

Older workers: some critical societal and organizational challenges

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine some societal contemporary challenges that encompass both older workers and organizations likewise. Rather, it focusses especially on those ones related to ageist mindset, myths and misinformation about that cohort of workers.

Design/methodology/approach

– It draws on a literature review by first approaching the problem of ageism, given that it is a social phenomenon that, to a large extent, impairs mature workers by putting them aside, as well as disdains the value of their experience and knowledge. Second, it offers some counterarguments against such mindset by discussing positive aspects related to older workers in order to clarify the widespread myths and misinformation about them. Third, it depicts a conceptual framework composed of some challenging issues toward improving the workplaces for older workers.

Findings

– It reassures that the broader challenges of dignifying older workers may be better addressed through initiatives such as acknowledgment and sensitivity; diversity; learning and development; legislation; wise leadership and HR policies; change; motivation; accommodation of different generations; and ethical and moral principles.

Practical implications

– The majority of organizations have nowadays to handle with an aging workforce and, at the same time, keep their competitiveness. This scenario requires pertinent interventions and approaches in order to meet mature workers’ needs.

Social implications

– It argues that age discrimination can be regarded as a bizarre human creation that requires the involvement of all sectors of society so as to get rid of it. As a result, the first decades of twenty-first century likely will place the additional challenge (perhaps it may be regarded as an opportunity) for building more humanized and spiritual workplaces. Further, it is very clear that an ageist behavior does not fit in such a view.

Originality/value

– This paper examined some of the greatest problems related to aging workforce worldwide. In this sense, by reviewing the pertinent literature was possible to identify some challenges, integrate them into a conceptual frame and address their implications for organizations.

The perceived importance and the presence of creative potential in the health professional's work environment

The value of creative employees to an organisation's growth and innovative development, productivity, quality and sustainability is well established. This study examined the perceived relationship between creativity and work environment factors of 361 practicing health professionals, and whether these factors were present (realised) in their work environment. Job design (challenges, team work, task rotation, autonomy) and leadership (coaching supervisor, time for thinking, creative goals, recognition and incentives for creative ideas and results) were perceived as the most important factors for stimulating creativity. There was room for improvement of these in the work environment. Many aspects of the physical work environment were less important. Public health sector employers and organisations should adopt sustainable strategies which target the important work environment factors to support employee creativity and so enhance service quality, productivity, performance and growth. Implications of the results for ergonomists and workplace managers are discussed with a participatory ergonomics approach recommended.

PRACTITIONER SUMMARY

Creative employees are important to an organisation's innovation, productivity and sustainability. The survey identified health professionals perceive a need to improve job design and leadership factors at work to enhance and support employee creativity. There are implications for organisations and ergonomists to investigate the creative potential of work environments.