Organizational Justice, Leader Humility, and Service Employees' Innovative Behavior in a Collectivistic Culture: The Case of Pakistan.
| Autor | Abbas, Wasim |
I Introduction
Due to the fast-changing environment of recent years, organizations have been increasingly adopting and applying innovation (Li & Hsu, 2016; Quintane, Casselman, Reiche, & Nylund, 2011). In service industries, however, even though innovation is a key factor of firms' development and performance (Campo, Diaz, & Yague, 2014), the rate of innovation in the sector lags behind that of manufacturing, where a lot more attention continues to be focused on research (Axtell et al., 2000; Li & Hsu, 2016; Ramamoorthy, Flood, Slattery, & Sardessai, 2005). Consequently, there have been calls for research on the key factors related to innovative behavior in service firms (Li & Hsu, 2016; Sheehan, 2006).
Although a number of studies have investigated factors related to innovative behavior in services (Garg & Dhar, 2017), the sector's importance to developing economies has received little attention despite the significant role it plays in economic growth (Thakur & Hale, 2013). This study focuses on innovation in services in Pakistan, a developing economy (Ramirez-Pasilla, Brundin, & Marko wska, 2017). Pakistan's growing services sector has drawn attention in recent years, particularly with the construction of the China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) (Ministry of Finance, 2018b). The most recent Pakistan Economic Survey (PES) reports that the services sector comprises the highest share of the country's gross domestic product and has experienced stable growth over the two-year period from 2016 to 2017 (Ministry of Finance, 2018a). In order to enhance or maintain a similar level of growth, the sector must improve its services through innovation. For this to occur, however, various supporting factors must be in place.
Innovative behavior in services may depend, in part, on perceptions of the exchange relationships within an organization (Young, 2012), where a benefit is conferred either in return for a comparable benefit received or for a benefit that is anticipated in the future. These exchange relationships may be economic or social in nature (Blau, 1964). For example, a relationship that consists of an economic exchange may be formal in nature and involve explicit legal sanctions; however, an exchange relationship that is social in nature may have unspecified returns, whether long term, intangible, or discretionary (Blau, 1964; Young, 2012). Exchange relationships within organizations could be developed through perceptions of organizational justice or the fair treatment of employees (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001; Cropanzano & Rupp, 2008; Young, 2012).
Perceptions of organizational justice may serve as stimulants to exchange relationships (Akram, Haider, & Feng, 2016a; Momeni, Ebrahimpour, & Ajirloo, 2014) and have significant effects on work-related behaviors (Kerwin, Jordan, & Turner, 2015). Folger and Cropanzano (1998) note that perceptions of positive or negative fairness result in positive or negative outcomes, respectively. Similarly, Jakopec and Susanj (2014) point out that positive perceptions of fairness result in positive outcomes, whereas negative perceptions of fairness encourage destructive behaviors (Akram, et al., 2016a; Kerwin et al., 2015; Priesemuth, Arnaud, & Schminke, 2013). Therefore, when employees perceive fairness in an organization, they exhibit innovative behavior in exchange.
Perceptions of organizational justice also differ across cultures (Chao & Moon, 2005; Conner, 2003; Young, 2012). Individualistic societies tend to value justice more than collectivistic ones do (Mueller & Wynn, 2000). Consequently, the relationship between organizational justice and innovative behavior has not been extensively studied in non-Western settings and this factor's generalizability to a collectivistic society remains underexplored (Young, 2012).
Shalley and Gilson (2004) note that innovation does not occur in isolation, but rather when personal and contextual characteristics interact (Wang, Zhang, & Jia, 2017). In organizational settings, managers are traditionally the contextual factor and they usually decide on an idea's utility and innovativeness (Wang et al., 2017; Zhang & Bartol, 2010). In recent years, research on leadership has drawn greater attention, particularly regarding the role managers play as leaders (Afsar, Badir, & Saeed, 2014). Contemporary work settings are increasingly knowledge-based, so managers generally act as leaders who motivate employees to innovate (Afsar et al., 2014). Here, studies have focused on leadership styles and how these affect innovative behavior; however, leader humility as a leadership style that affects employee behavior has received little attention (Akram, Lei, & Haider, 2016b; Judge, Fryxell, & Dooley, 1997; Nusair, Ababneh, & Bae, 2012), although some studies have discussed its importance (GonCalves & Brandao, 2017; Seijts, Crossan, & Carleton, 2017).
Managers who demonstrate humility enable their organizations to become adaptable and develop the necessary continuous transformations required for their survival (Owens & Hekman, 2012). Similarly, a leader or organization that does not possess humility as a virtue exhibits a crucial weakness (Vera & Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). One of the vital characteristics of humility is that those who demonstrate this trait encourage greater openness to experimenting (Owens & Hekman, 2012). This allows individuals to openly discuss and develop new ideas that aim to achieve a competitive advantage for the organizations they work for (GonCalves & Brandao, 2017; Owens & Hekman, 2012). Additionally, humble leaders permit the trials and errors that come with nurturing innovative behavior among individuals and groups (GonCalves & Brandao, 2017; Owens & Hekman, 2012). However, as most of the literature on leader humility is theoretical (Owens & Hekman, 2012), this construct lacks empirical support (GonCalves & Brandao, 2017). In particular, the effects of humble human interactions on individuals' innovative behavior remain obscure.
This research uses the lenses of social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) and signaling theory (Connelly, Certo, Ireland, & Reutzel, 2010) to analyze the constructs of organizational justice, leader humility, and service employees' innovative behavior. These approaches see managers in organizations as signalers and employees as receivers. Managers signal which behaviors the organization values and rewards. If employees receive signals that their organization values certain behaviors, then they will tend to exhibit those behaviors. In return, they would expect positive reciprocal behavior from the organization, such as in a positive social exchange. Stinglhamber and Vandenberghe (2003) note that expectations of reciprocation may account for the achievement of organizational goals. When employees receive signals for open discussion, trial and error, and the development of new ideas, or if they perceive fairness and rewards, then they will reciprocate with innovative behavior.
In light of the above, this study has two objectives: first, it analyzes the effect of the overall perception of justice on service employees' innovative behavior and, second, it investigates whether leader humility moderates the relationship between the two aforementioned constructs. The results of our empirical study contribute to the literature in five ways. First, the study addresses the call for research on innovative behavior in service industries. Second, the findings redirect the focus of scholars from each type of perception to the overall perception of justice and open up avenues for understanding the relationship between the overall perception of justice and innovative behavior in service industries. Third, the study advances the literature on the interactional effect of leader humility. Fourth, it enhances the understanding of the role of leader humility in service innovation in the context of Pakistan, which is both a developing economy (Ramirez-Pasilla et al., 2017) and a collectivist country (Hofstede, 2018). Fifth, the study advances the understanding of organizational justice and leader humility in the context of both social exchange theory and signaling theory.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Service employees' innovative behavior
Innovative behavior identifies a problem (Larson, 2011), generates ideas related to the problem, finds possible solutions (Janssen, 2000), and implements useful ideas by turning them into reality (Scott & Bruce, 1994). Innovative behavior has been widely acknowledged in the literature and is considered a crucial resource in contemporary business environments. For example, innovative behavior enables organizations' long-term survival as it allows them to attain competitive advantages (Akram, Lei, Haider, & Hussain, 2020). For organizations to encourage innovative behaviors, they must often rely on the innovation capabilities of individual employees (Castro & Guimaraes, 2020). Employees' innovative behaviors are also categorized as positive deviant behaviors, since such behaviors enable individuals to deviate from existing norms and to challenge the status quo (creativity) (Wang, Liu, & Zhu, 2018) to achieve desirable outcomes that favor the organization and its stakeholders, or both. This positive deviance is considered constructive deviance that is voluntary, discretionary, and extra-role behavior (Cohen & Ehrlich, 2019).
Innovative behaviors in service industries include both employees and customers (Lee & Hyun, 2016). On one side of the equation, employees are involved in identifying the problem, in the decision-making process regarding the problem, and in implementing a solution (Kesting & Ulhoi, 2010); on the other side, customers cognitively ascertain whether the services delivered meet their needs and, if so, they generate loyalty to the service firm (Yuan & Woodman, 2010). Service innovation may also help organizations achieve their goals and desired outcomes. For...
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