Innovative behaviors: A survey about their associated effects in a dynamic environment.
| Autor | Pigola, Angelica |
1 Introduction
Innovative behavior refers to pioneering behaviors and initiatives to discover opportunities for innovation (Rauch et al., 2009; Segarra-Cipres et al., 2019), particularly in dynamic technological environments, where the pressure for innovative ideas is crucial for business development. According to Segarra-Cipres et al. (2019), despite the benefits of innovative behavior for both individuals and firms, several questions remain unanswered regarding behaviors that positively affect innovation (Segarra-Cipres et al., 2019).
Previous research has investigated how numerous factors shape innovative behavior. For example, one stream has examined individual factors such as self-efficacy (Nisula & Kianto, 2016), motivations (Chiu, 2018), work ethics (Mussner et al., 2017), and employee attitudes (Arshad et al., 2020; Lichtenthaler, 2020). Other authors have investigated how intraorganizational and contextual factors such as job design (Dorenbosch et al., 2005), leadership style (Norouzinik et al., 2022; Schiuma et al., 2021), organizational conflicts (Schweisfurth & Raasch, 2020), culture (Tsegaye et al., 2019; Zhu et al., 2018), HR systems (Abstein & Spieth, 2014), or job insecurity (Van Hootegem et al., 2019) also affect innovative behavior.
However, the interrelationship between innovative behaviors is a promising field that has not yet been explored to understand innovation within firms and delve deeper into the role of employees' innovative behaviors (Rigtering & Weitzel, 2013). Therefore, this study uses the literature on innovative behaviors and their relationships, perspectives, and influences in an interactionist approach to the innovation context, exploring organizational and individual factors to understand how employees' behaviors inhibit or foster creativity and innovation at work (Woodman et al., 1993).
Innovative behaviors are characterized as innovative ideas (Janssen, 2000; Norouzinik et al., 2022), collaboration-oriented behaviors (Ben Jouida et al., 2021; Chiu, 2018; Ruijter et al., 2021), experimentation-oriented behaviors (Arribas et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2004; Swailes, 2004), and innovation performance-oriented behaviors (Janssen, 2000; Norouzinik et al., 2022) that lead firms to innovation performance (Segarra-Cipres et al., 2019). Innovative ideas are solutions to difficult issues or new ways of working in terms of methods, techniques, or tools (Janssen, 2000; Norouzinik et al., 2022). Collaboration-oriented behaviors are actions involving predisposition and proactiveness to facilitate innovations (Labitzke et al., 2014; Segarra-Cipres et al., 2019). Experimentation-oriented behaviors are defined as trial-and-error processes in which each trial generates new ideas or insights about a problem (Allen, 1984; Lee et al., 2004; Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Thomke, 1998). And innovation performance-oriented behaviors are actions to institutionalize processes such as the informal and formal control of innovative ideas (Segarra-Cipres et al., 2019).
We empirically analyze the direct and mediating effects of collaboration and experimentation-oriented behavior on the relationship between innovative ideas and innovation performance-oriented behaviors, and investigate the direct effect of innovative ideas on innovation performance-oriented behaviors to answer the research question: How are the effects of innovative behaviors associated in a dynamic environment?
Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) methods, this study explores a sample of 106 leaders from a Brazilian e-commerce firm to understand how innovative behaviors affect an environment of technology integration that is considered innovative by the firm. The findings reveal that innovative behaviors positively interact to achieve innovation performance-oriented behaviors in this business sector.
This study has theoretical contributions and practical implications. First, it is the first attempt to analyze the interrelationships among innovative behaviors. Second, it investigates the direct and mediating effects among four different innovative behaviors. Third, it attempts to study from an interactionist perspective how innovative behaviors themselves foster innovation in firms. Fourth, it provides practical and managerial implications to foster organizational contexts to increase the impact of innovative behaviors on firms' innovation challenges. Fifth, it demonstrates its relevance by offering a new vision among innovative behaviors as an opportunity to reset organizational practices that enable the creation of new future organizational arrangements to innovate. Finally, this study demonstrates how the behavioral aspects are relevant in innovation contexts to institutionalize ideas and process controls. It uncovers the intangible perspective of innovative behaviors in business management in dynamic environments.
The structure of the study is as follows. First, the theoretical framework for analyzing the relationships between innovative ideas, collaboration, experimentation, and innovation performance-oriented behaviors is presented. After outlining the methodological aspects and presenting the findings, the paper concludes with a discussion of the results and the main conclusions and theoretical and practical implications.
2 Theory and hypotheses
Innovative behaviors have been analyzed in organizational behavior and innovation literature, where proactive behaviors lead employees from innovative ideas to search for solutions to innovation problems (Hassi & Rekonen, 2018; Natalicchio et al., 2017). Researchers pursue the demonstration ofinnovative or proactive behaviors in collaboration to promote innovation performance, particularly in technological environments, where business dynamism pushes for more innovative ideas from employees and self-initiated behaviors oriented toward change (Kraus et al., 2012; Rauch et al., 2009; Segarra-Cipres et al., 2019). Additionally, several authors (Bolino et al., 2010; Strauss et al., 2015) suggest that innovative behaviors involve a number of resources, such as time, organizational support, or job satisfaction. A work context where collaboration and experimentation-oriented behaviors are encouraged gives employees the opportunities and assistance they need to propose innovative ideas and contributes to innovation performance-oriented behaviors (Norouzinik et al., 2022; Tamayo-Torres et al., 2016).
In this section, innovative behaviors are conceptualized under the interactionist perspective and explored in four different aspects, namely innovative ideas (Janssen, 2000; Norouzinik et al., 2022), collaboration-oriented behaviors (Ben Jouida et al., 2021; Chiu, 2018; Ruijter et al., 2021), experimentation-oriented behaviors (Arribas et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2004; Swailes, 2004), and innovation performance-oriented behaviors (Janssen, 2000; Norouzinik et al., 2022), in order to develop the hypotheses.
2.1 Interactionist perspective on Innovative Behaviors
The interactionist perspective assumes that employees who are willing to take risks tend to exhibit behaviors that go beyond the requirements and formal expectations instead of following prescribed methods of working (Al-Hawari et al., 2021; Schneider & Reichers, 1983). It also emphasizes the situational role of behaviors in interaction with employees' personality (Fleeson & Noftle, 2009). Although the seminal interactionist research showed that employee profiles intensify the positive effects of supportive contextual factors on organizational outcomes, including innovations (Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Tierney et al., 1999), other research (Liu et al., 2011; Madjar et al., 2002) showed that these profiles can also weaken these contexts. Zhou and Hoever's (2014) review also highlighted that although the interactionist view is generally supported, the research does not delineate the different processes that give rise to different patterns of interactions (Zhou & Hoever, 2014).
Furthermore, considering that the interactionist perspective in employee contexts suggests that contextual factors interact with their profile characteristics to affect intrinsic motivation (Al-Ghazali, 2023; Chen et al., 2016), this study aims to understand, in a specific business context, how employees' innovative ideas influence innovation performance behaviors through the mediation of collaboration and experimentation behaviors. Some authors (Al-Ghazali, 2023; Liu et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2012) took an interactionist perspective to show that person-context interactions are related to innovative behaviors, specifically innovative ideas and creativity.
Recently, Al-Ghazali (2023) suggested that "[...] an alternative mechanism of the interactionist perspective on innovation might be worth exploring. And from a theoretical standpoint, the inherent tension between employees and innovation process contexts should be more explored" (Al-Ghazali, 2023, p. 231). In this sense, this study sheds light on an additional process of interactions among innovative behaviors in a specific context to contribute to the interactionist perspective and behavioral process toward innovativeness.
2.2 Defining innovative ideas
Innovative behaviors refer to all individual actions at organizational levels that introduce, generate, and apply new ideas (Kleysen & Street, 2001; Norouzinik et al., 2022). Authors have discussed innovative behaviors under different dimensions (de Jong & Den Hartog, 2007; Norouzinik et al., 2022; Schweisfurth & Raasch, 2020), such as introduction, generation and application, when new ideas for difficult situations are regularly used from available knowledge to solve problems (Natalicchio et al., 2017; Norouzinik et al., 2022; Schweisfurth & Raasch, 2020).
Innovative ideas are also considered to be solutions for difficult issues, new ways of working (methods, techniques or tools) or efforts to inspire...
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