Job Design and the Employee Innovation Process: The Mediating Role of Learning Strategies

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this article is to examine whether employee learning strategies is a mechanism through which job design affects the employee innovation process. In particular, we test whether work-based learning strategies mediate the relationship between job design characteristics (job control and problem demand) and key components of the innovation process (idea generation, idea promotion, and idea implementation). Design/Methodology/Approach Data were collected from a survey of 327 employees in a UK manufacturing organization. Findings Structural equation modeling confirmed the mediating role of learning strategies in the relationship between job design and idea generation. The effects of job control on idea generation were mediated by work-based learning strategies and the effects of problem demand on idea generation were partially mediated by work-based learning strategies. Problem demand also had a direct relationship with idea generation and idea promotion. The findings provide support for the general idea that learning is a mechanism thorough which job design affects outcomes. Implications The results of the study show practitioners that creating jobs with high control or high problem demand can help to promote the employee innovation process; and that this is partly due to the role that such jobs play in stimulating the use of learning strategies at work. Originality/Value This article develops and tests a new theoretical model that explains how learning is a route through which job design influences employee innovation.

Job Design and Innovative Work Behavior: One Size Does Not Fit All Types of Employees

“…First, the complexity of the relation between job characteristics and employee outcomes is rarely taken fully into account. Although theoretical models like the Job Demands-Resources model of Bakker & Demerouti (2007) stress the need to focus on the interaction effects between various job characteristics, this is rarely put into practice (Holman et al, 2011;Martín, Salanova, & Maria Peiro, 2007). Second, various studies have established the fact that HR practices like reward policies (Baer, Oldham, & Cummings, 2003;Dewett, 2004) have different effects on employees, depending on their personal and group characteristics.…”

To Study the Impact of Mediating Role of the Learning Strategies between the Knowledge Characteristics of a Job and Employee Innovation Process

“…The response point of scale consists of five points used (1=Never, 5=Always). The developed scale of Holman et al [26] is used to measure the Cognitive learning strategies. The total items of the scale are 8.…”

Modelling Course-Design Characteristics, Self-Regulated Learning and the Mediating Effect of Knowledge-Sharing Behavior as Drivers of Individual Innovative Behavior

“…Holman, Totterdell, Axtell, Stride, Port, Svensson & Zibarras, 2012) suggested that SRL has a significant positive effect on the innovative work behaviour of employees. The results of this study complement these works by demonstrating that, at the individual level, SRL is a significant antecedent of IIB.…”