Promoting employee innovation performance

How breakthroughs happen: Unearthing the boundary conditions of eco-friendly deliberate practice and eco-innovation performance

Surprisingly innovation process based on deliberate practice has rarely been unearthed that might explore the boundary conditions of the eco-friendly deliberate practice and eco-innovation performance relationship. Anchored on the organizational support theory and the social cognitive, the current study seeks to investigate the impacts of perceived organizational support (POS) and developmental leadership (DL) on eco-innovation performance (EP) through the mediating role of eco-friendly deliberate practice (EDP). In addition, the study explores the boundary effects of employee resilience (ER) on the relationship between EDP and EP. The study collects time-lagged (i.e., "three-wave") and multisource (i.e., "self-rated and supervisor-rated") data from 383 respondents working in the service sector organizations in Pakistan. The authors processed data in SmartPLS (v 4.0) to assess the measurement model and the structural model. The study finds that POS and DL have significant positive relationships with EDP. Further, EDP partially mediates the links between POS, DL, and EP. Moreover, ER intervenes the association between EDP and EP such that at high levels of ER, the relationship is stronger and vice versa. Despite growing interest in deliberate practice, the boundary conditions of EDP in the work context are rarely investigated. This is the first study that explores the contextual and individual factors that can underpin the influence of EDP on EP.

The relationship between servant leadership and team innovation performance: Mediating effect of self-efficacy

This study delves into the effects of servant leadership on team innovation performance by examining innovation self-efficacy as a mediating factor and team innovation atmosphere as a moderating factor. Utilizing a questionnaire survey of 311 hotel employees, we employed a structural equation model for rigorous data analysis. Our key findings are summarized as follows: (1) Servant leadership positively influences team innovation performance. Specifically, the dimensions of persuasion and guidance within servant leadership emerge as significant predictors of enhanced team innovation. (2) Servant leadership significantly boosts innovation self-efficacy, highlighting its crucial role in fostering a culture of innovation. (3) Innovation self-efficacy emerges as a pivotal mediator between servant leadership and team innovation performance, underscoring its importance in translating leadership behaviours into tangible innovation outcomes. (4) The team innovation atmosphere positively moderates the relationship between innovation self-efficacy and team innovation performance, indicating that a supportive environment can amplify the impact of individuals' self-beliefs on collective innovation. This research offers valuable theoretical and practical insights into harnessing the power of servant leadership to enhance innovation self-efficacy and, ultimately, team innovation performance. Our findings contribute to a richer understanding of how these variables interact and can inform the development of more effective leadership strategies in organizations seeking to foster a culture of innovation.

Compassion-A key to innovation: What promotes and what prevents innovation in organizations?

Innovation is crucial for the survival and wellbeing of organizations in volatile, rapidly changing societies. However, the role of profound human capability, compassion, and innovation has not been adequately investigated. This article sets out to explore the factors preventing and promoting innovation in organizations, asking how compassion is connected to these factors, and how compassion could boost innovation. We approach innovation as a complicated multilevel phenomenon, emerging from interactions between individuals and the work context. Our view of compassion includes both compassion and copassion-responding both to the suffering and joy of others. Our material was collected from nine focus group interviews, organized in Finland in 2017, in private, public, and third-sector organizations. The material was analyzed by two researchers, using an adapted grounded theory methodology. We found four core factors capable of either promoting or preventing innovation: (1) the strategy and structures of the organization, (2) resources, especially time, (3) working culture; and (4) the dynamics of interaction between individuals and the community. Our key conclusion, fruitful to theorizing both innovation and compassion, is that for innovation to flourish, compassion is to be cultivated throughout an organization. It is not a single variable or practice, and it is in many ways in a key position regarding innovation: the existence of it promotes innovation, but the lack of it prevents innovation. Thus, organizations aiming for innovation should seek multifaceted understanding and skills in compassion.

Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Innovation Performance During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak: Mediating Role of Employee Innovation Behavior and Moderating Role of Psychological Empowerment

This study investigates the effect of inclusive leadership on innovation performance with a mediating role of employee innovation behavior and the moderating role of psychological empowerment (PE). Supervisors and employees of Saudi manufacturing firms are the participants of this study. This study used a quantitative research technique with a cross-sectional approach and a self-administrative survey questionnaire to collect the data. The data were analyzed by using the Smart PLS 3 software. The results depict that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on the firm's innovation performance. Employees' innovation behavior has a significant mediating effect on the association of inclusive leadership and innovation performance. Findings revealed that PE has an important moderating role in the association of inclusive leadership and innovation performance. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge by finding that inclusive leadership has a significant effect on the firm's innovative performance and PE is crucial to enhance innovation performance.

Transformational leadership and employee innovation: Examining the congruence of leader and follower perceptions

Organizations are relying on their leaders to demonstrate effective leadership behavior that positively affects employee innovation. However, discrepancies are often found between leaders’ self-perception and followers’ perception of leadership. Understanding the discrepancies is critical for narrowing the leader–follower perception gap and achieving congruence between leaders and followers. This forms the motivation of this study, which aims to compare and contrast the direct and mediated (through psychological empowerment) impact of transformational leadership behavior on employee innovation performance from the perspective of both leaders and followers. Multisource data using questionnaires were collected from 66 leaders and 220 followers in the United Arab Emirates. The results show that leaders’ self-perception scores were significantly lower than that of their followers. Also, discrepancies in perceptions of the direct impact of transformational leadership behavior on employee innovation were found such that a positive and significant relationship was found for followers while no significant relationship was found for leaders. Finally, psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee innovation performance for both leaders and followers, though leaders perceive the mediation of psychological empowerment to be stronger than followers perceive it to be. The study findings show the importance of obtaining multiple-source feedback to first assess the perceptions of both leaders and followers and then make necessary interventions (if required) to narrow perception gaps between leaders and followers since discrepancies could lead to poor organizational culture.

Determinants of employee creative behavior in the UAE public sector

Purpose

Service levels between public organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) differ and fluctuate. Service levels were found to increase with the level of employee creative behavior (ECB), which is currently a focal point in organizational policies by the federal UAE government. While the literature presents an ample array of determinants of ECB, local context typically influences which determinants provide more leverage than others. Therefore, this research aims to present a customized ranking of determinants that enables managers in the UAE public sector to successfully stimulate ECB.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a systematic literature review, this study identified 21 determinants at four different levels and subsequently utilized the analytic hierarchical process (AHP) to map their relative importance. Data were attained from 33 experts: managers and senior employees from different organizations.

Findings

Findings indicate that, overall, the individual level is seen as the most important leverage point to stimulate ECB, followed by the team level. Comparing the determinants under each level, management support (organizational level) is perceived as the most impactful, followed by coworker support (team level), and enhancing creative self-efficacy (individual level).

Originality/value

This study compares obtained levels from other studies with new levels in building the AHP model. These insights guide managers in the UAE public sector who aim to enhance ECB, which will contribute to increased service quality. The study introduced a comprehensive ECB framework of 21 determinants. Even though many ECB studies applied in different countries and industries, but to researchers' knowledge, this is the first ECB study that applied at the UAE's public sector using the AHP model.

The Influence of Teachers' Self-Efficacy and School Leaders' Transformational Leadership Practices on Teachers' Innovative Behaviour

Background: The current rapid development demands educators to possess innovative behaviour. Presently, in the environment of rapid technological growth and borderless global communication, teachers with innovative behaviour are capable of facing each painful challenge that confronts the education system; therefore, it is essential to understand the factors influencing the innovative behaviour of teachers. Purpose: To identify the influence of teachers’ self-efficacy and school administrators’ transformational leadership practices on teachers’ innovative behaviour. Method: A quantitative approach using a cross-sectional survey design with a sample of 1415 teachers from four states in Malaysia, and the data were statistically analysed using SPSS^® version 26.0 for Windows™ (IBM Corporation, New York, NY, USA). Result: Multiple Regression Analysis found that teachers’ self-efficacy and school administrators’ transformational leadership practices both had a significant influence on teachers’ innovative behaviour by contributing 47.0% of the variance in teachers’ innovative behaviour. Conclusion: The findings suggested that teachers’ self-efficacy and school administrators’ transformational leadership practices both play a role in influencing teachers’ innovative behaviour. Therefore, the stakeholders need to consider the aspects of self-efficacy and transformational leadership practices of school administrators in drafting policies and related programmes to improve teachers’ innovative behaviour.

Servant leadership and employee productivity: a mediating and moderating role

Purpose

This study aims to determine the relationship between servant leadership, innovation self-efficacy, corporate work culture and employee productivity in mediating and moderating role.

Design/methodology/approach

The research sample was 72 supervisors and 576 employees from 72 food and beverage small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in three major cities in Indonesia. SPSS and AMOS were used to test the research hypothesis using the hierarchical regression analysis test.

Findings

The results show that there was a positive and significant effect between servant leadership on innovation self-efficacy and employee productivity. Innovation self-efficacy mediates the relationship between servant leadership and employee productivity. Corporate work culture moderated the relationship between innovation self-efficacy and employee productivity.

Research limitations/implications

Future research with larger samples are needed to determine the relationship between servant leadership, innovation self-efficacy, corporate work culture and employee productivity more clearly not only on food and beverage SMEs but also on other industries. Future research needs to be carried out using experimental and longitudinal research designs.

Practical implications

There are three important practical implications based on the findings of this study. First, the results of the study provide new ideas for SME managers on how to increase the productivity of their employees, by using servant leadership which is known to be the main driver for innovation self-efficacy behavior. Second, the mediating role of innovation self-efficacy requires managers to build employee self-efficacy behavior, share more power with employees and make employees more involved in decision-making, which in turn can increase employee confidence and motivation, and their productivity. Finally, managers must realize the need to create a productive work culture in the company, by taking various actions, such as giving rewards to productive employees, making clear regulations on the company regarding working hours and company targets, and must pay attention and respect the employee's views and opinions to improve employee identification of their leaders.

Originality/value

This is the first study to build and examine the direct and indirect relationship (mediating and moderating role) between servant leadership, innovation self-efficacy, corporate work culture and employee productivity in food and beverage SMEs.

Evaluations of the Roles of Organizational Support, Organizational Norms and Organizational Learning for Adopting Environmentally Friendly Technologies: A Case of Kiwifruit Farmers’ Cooperatives of Meixian, China

Environmentally friendly technologies have long been recognized as a widespread phenomenon working within the functions and performance of farms. Farmer’s cooperative organization might profoundly foster the environmentally friendly technologies (EFT) and availing competitive advantage to the farmer. Illustrated by the natural-resource-based view of the farm (NRBV), this study examined the influence of organizational support, organizational norms, and organizational learning on adopting EFT and proposed a model quantifying the impacts of these approaches towards availing competitive capabilities (i.e., cost, quality, flexibility, and delivery). The framework is empirically endorsed by employing the partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the help of a household survey from a spectrum of 292 farmers of 38 kiwifruit cooperatives of Meixian County, China, from August to September 2020. The findings demonstrate that organizational support, organizational norms, and organizational learning positively influence EFT. Moreover, the study found EFT positively impacts product cost, product quality, product delivery, and production flexibility. Interestingly, the relationship between the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies and the competitive capabilities of kiwifruit farmers of Meixian is positively significant. The study proposes several policy recommendations emphasizing the role of organizations in the form of farmer’s cooperatives in boosting farmers to engage in proenvironmental behavior and, therefore, shifting the trends of future research directions on the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies.

Promoting Innovative Behavior in Employees: The Mechanism of Leader Psychological Capital

The study reported in this paper analyzed the influence of leader psychological capital (PsyCap) on employees’ innovative behavior and the roles of psychological safety and growth need strength (GNS) in this process within the context of positive psychology theory and conservation of resources theory. Three stages of questionnaire surveys were administered to 81 enterprise leaders and their 342 direct subordinates in South China to test our theoretical model. The results showed that leader PsyCap had significant and positive effects on employee innovative behavior, psychological safety had a partially mediating effect, and GNS positively moderated the relationship between psychological safety and innovative behavior. The results revealed the mechanism of PsyCap and external boundary conditions of the influence of leader PsyCap on employee innovative behavior. The study expands the research results of leader PsyCap theory and also provides guidance on how enterprises manage employees’ innovative behavior.

Wisdom from Arabian Creatives: Systematic Review of Innovation Management Literature for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Region

Innovation management (IM) for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region poses unique socio-economic challenges due to the multi-faceted nature of Arab and Islamic countries. Additionally, proposals for indigenous initiatives, sustainability transitions and outward-oriented strategies in economic reform plans of the GCC add further complexity to IM scholarship and practice with imperatives to harness the potentials of these strategic visions. Yet, there is an absence of a systematic review to scrutinize IM literature on the GCC region. This paper systematically reviews the IM literature whose subject involve the GCC countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The review scrutinizes theories, trends and targets in this literature, covers the period from 1980 to 2019, and involves 110 journal papers from high quality IM-related publication outlets. Using insights from the review, the paper develops theoretical foundations for creative complementarities, institutional-pumps and a ripple model of regional innovation. The review also details some methodological, theoretical, conceptual and topical directions for future regional IM research studies.