Burnout and innovative work behaviours for survivors of downsizing: An investigation of boundary conditions

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore conditions in which innovative behaviour can have either desirable or undesirable effects. The current study surveyed employees who remained in an organization following downsizing. Voice costs and perceived influence were measured as boundary conditions. Based on our understanding of Conservation of Resources theory, these variables may be particularly important to consider how individuals view innovative work behaviours in stressful situations such as experiencing downsizing. The results of this study revealed that engagement in innovative work behaviours (IWB) was associated with reduced burnout in employees when they perceived few costs of speaking up in the post downsized environment, but at very high perceptions of voice cost (above 1.74 standard deviations above the mean), this relationship was positive. Similarly, and contrary to what was expected, engagement in IWB was negatively related to burnout when employees perceived they had little influence within the organization. We discuss possible interpretations of this unexpected result. This study adds to the small body of work that examines outcomes, rather than predictors, of innovative behaviour and also identifies conditions in which engaging in innovative behaviours has a negative impact on the individual.

The social side of innovation: When and why advice network centrality promotes innovative work behaviours

“…Voice behaviour represents constructive change‐oriented communication intended to improve the situation (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). Voice behaviours include proposing constructive suggestions to improve working operations and complete the organizational objectives and expressing concerns regarding matters that may have a negative impact on the organization's growth (Hammond et al, 2019). A preliminary condition for voice behaviour is the employees' awareness of a problem or opportunity that might be important to convey (Morrison, 2014).…”

Impact of Agile Learning on Innovative Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model of Employee Engagement and Perceived Organizational Support

“…Specifically, innovations always imply a degree of change and often uncertainty, which is usually experienced as a form of stress, triggering the individual to be alert and adjust to the changing circumstances ( Cowan et al, 2011 ). In addition, there is abundant empirical evidence showing that innovation induces stress, fatigue, and burnout ( Rafferty and Griffin, 2006 ; Chung et al, 2017 ; Hammond et al, 2019 ). POS, in contrast, prevents the negative consequences of innovation and promotes continuous innovative behavior.…”

Employee innovative behavior and workplace wellbeing: Leader support for innovation and coworker ostracism as mediators

“…Thus, most studies focused on the antecedents of employee innovative behavior to explore how to facilitate such behavior but rarely examined its outcomes. In the literature on the outcomes of employee innovative behavior, most studies focused on the benefits of such behavior to individuals or organizations, and recently, the dark side of employee innovative behavior or creativity has been gaining attention ( Janssen, 2003 ; Janssen et al, 2004 ; Aryee et al, 2012 ; Harari et al, 2016 ; Kim and Koo, 2017 ; Hammond et al, 2019 ; Ng and Wang, 2019 ; Nguyen and Le, 2019 ; Breidenthal et al, 2020 ; Coad et al, 2021 ; Dadaboyev et al, 2021 ). For example, Aryee et al (2012) and Kim and Koo (2017) proved the existence of a positive correlation between employee innovative behavior and job performance.…”