A Review of Employee Well‐Being and Innovativeness: An Opportunity for a Mutual Benefit

Abstract

By drawing on the Job Demands and Resources Model, this review article develops a conceptual framework to advance theoretical understanding of the relationship between job‐related demands and resources, employee well‐being and innovativeness. In conditions characterized by too high levels of demands, employees may suffer from burnout. When job resources are high, they are likely to feel engaged with their work. Burnout in turn can be seen as an inhibitor of innovativeness, and work engagement as an antecedent to innovativeness, mediating the effects of resources and demands at work on innovativeness. We further argue that innovativeness can function as a resource or a demand, depending on how it is managed. In addition to understanding the dual role of innovativeness, the identification of job‐specific demands and resources is central to supporting employee well‐being and, subsequently, innovativeness. The implications of the proposed conceptual framework for academic researchers and managers are discussed.

The strategic role of relational capabilities in the business-to-business service profit chain

“…Human resource management and organizational psychology scholars (Deery, 2002;Guest, 2002) have paid increased attention to employee's well-being and burnout (Huhtala & Parzefall, 2007). Huhtala and Parzefall (2007) investigated the relationships between employee work engagement and innovativeness of individual employees, and they found that that employee work engagement, that is, employee satisfaction and loyalty is an antecedent to innovativeness (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001), and also knowledge management performance (Chou, Hsu, Yeh, & Ho, 2005).…”

The More, the Merrier: Why and How Employee-Driven Eco-Innovation Enhances Environmental and Competitive Advantage

“…From the employee's perspective, suggesting new ideas always comes along with certain inconveniences and exposure which might discourage employees from engaging in such kind of high-intensity behavior [17,19,64]. The theoretical model by Huhtala and Parzefall [108] suggests that employee well-being and innovativeness may constitute self-enhancing cycles. While high well-being is perceived to boost innovativeness and vice versa, low well-being may lead to a decrease in innovativeness.…”

Human Resources and Innovative Behaviour: Improving Nursing Performance

“…For example, burnout (Huhtala & Parzefall, 2007) and emotional exhaustion (Cropanzano, Rupp, & Byrne, 2003) have been negatively associated with employee innovative behaviour. Low job satisfaction and burnout are endemic in nursing (Aiken et al, 2001, Chang, Ma, Chiu, Lin, & Lee, 2009).…”