The impact of proactivity, leader-member exchange, and climate for innovation on innovative behavior in the Korean government sector

Abstract

Purpose In the current business environment, no organization is assured of survival without continuous innovation. Employees’ innovative behavior is critical to enhance the innovation of an organization. While most literature on innovative behavior has focused on employees in the private sector, the purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that affect innovative behaviors in the government sector. In particular, it examines how proactivity, leader-member exchange (LMX), and climate for innovation affect employees’ innovative behavior in the Korean government sector, which is generally characterized as highly hierarchical, structured, and formalized. Design/methodology/approach The authors selected a sample of government employees in the Ministry of Education in Korea. Through the researchers’ contacts, ten government agencies agreed to recruit their employees to participate in the study. Data from 1,011 respondents were analyzed in two steps using structural equation modeling. First, to examine the construct validity of the measures, the authors examined the measurement model using the confirmatory factor analysis. Second, the interrelationships among the four variables were assessed. The hypothesized structural model was examined and compared to several alternative models to explore the best model fit to the data. The authors then examined the regression coefficients to determine the hypothesized relationships in the final structured model. Findings The results revealed the following: proactivity and climate for innovation had positive relationships with innovative behavior; LMX had a positive relationship with proactivity although it did not have a direct relationship with innovative behavior; and organizational climate for innovation did not ensure proactivity of employees. Originality/value The antecedents included in this research have been studied in relation to innovative behavior in several studies, but studies have called for further study. Few studies have examined innovative behavior in the public sector and they have examined innovation in the public sector which has mostly been focused on environmental factors surrounding government organizations or policy choices of government leaders while ignoring the individual traits of public workers, relational dynamics among people, and the cultural aspects of the organizations. This study investigated the interrelationships among the antecedents in the process of impacting innovative behavior in the public sector in Korea. In addition, little research has examined the antecedents of innovative behavior together. This study expands our knowledge of the roles and interrelationships of proactivity, LMX, and organizational climate for innovation as they relate to innovative behavior.

Innovation climate: A systematic review of the literature and agenda for future research

“…In addition, researchers have found a strong relationship between employee perceptions of the organizational innovation climate and their work behaviours such as creativity (Chang, Chuang, & Bennington, 2011;Hsu & Fan, 2010) and innovative behaviour (Hsu & Chen, 2015;Hsu & Fan, 2010;Park & Jo, 2018;Ren & Zhang, 2015;Yu, Yu, & Yu, 2013). However, although Hsu and Fan (2010) found significant relationships between employee perceptions of the organization's innovation climate and both their creativity and innovative behaviour, they also established that the relationships were stronger when time pressure was lower.…”

Exchange variables, organizational culture and their relationship with constructive deviance

“…Identity enactment also takes place within the context of social relationships (Wry and York, 2017). The organizational climate is a factor that affects individual behavior by influencing employees to develop an optimistic or pessimistic forecast about the outcomes of their behavior (Park and Jo, 2018). A climate that encourages innovation in an organization should be cutting-edge, exhibit a forward-thinking atmosphere and offer psychological safety to employees to encourage experimentation and possibly constructive deviance (Chou et al, 2019).…”

Advancing employee’s innovative work behaviors in the workplace

“…In step two, namely the Structural Modelling, the researchers tested the relationship among all variables in the model. To examine indirect effects and direct effects among the variables, we adopted bootstrapping algorithm in Amos 23, as this approach doesn't require assumptions about the shape of the distributions of the variables (Park & Jo, 2018). We adopted a bootstrapping approach in this analysis based on the three main reasons; first, it is an evidenced approach (Hayes, 2009), to be more valid (Fairchild & MacKinnon, 2009), and impressive method for measuring the mediation effects (Hayes, 2009) explicitly.…”

“…As recommended by Hayes (2009), Bootstrap Results for indirect effects determine whether the indirect effect a × b is significant and whether it is mediation or non-mediation. We then evaluated Bootstrap results in four paths namely; IV→M (a path), M→DV (b path), IV→M→ DV (c'path) and IV→DV (c path) (Park & Jo, 2018;Hayes 2009).…”