LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 Theories of Innovative Work Behavior (IWB)
Figure 2.2 The Leadership-Profit Chain.
Source: Ken Blanchard Companies, 2009.
The Leadership-Profit Chain then led to the exploration of many studies afterward including the Work Passion Model of Zigarmi, Nimon, Houston, Witt, and Diehl (2009a), as shown in Figure 2.1. The Work Passion Model clearly identifies the consequences of the organization’s role behaviors from 5 significant intents of work passion as follows: productivity/discretionary effort, altruism, intent to stay, organizational commitment, and peak performance.
The following topic will discuss more on one of the positive outcomes or behaviors as a result of work passion, which is innovation, from an extensive literature review and from previous studies.
unfulfilled needs of people, or forecasting change (De Jong, & Den Hartog, 2007).
Innovative work behavior involves more than idea generation; it also includes a combination of generation, promotion, and the application of new ideas.
Thus, in order to gain a full understanding of innovation, the definitions of key terms, innovative work behavior, as well as the related theoretical background will be clarified in the next section.
2.2.1 Definitions of Creativity and Innovation
Creativity, innovation, and innovative behavior have been studied in different areas of management, economics, sociology, psychology, and so on. Creativity has been perceived of as the generation of new ideas, while innovation has been argued to be both the production of creative ideas, and the implementation (West, & Farr, 1990;
Amabile, 1996; Oldham, & Cummings,1996; Shalley, & Zhou, 2008).
More recent literature in the field states that the boundaries between creativity or innovation are not clear. Some scholars noted differences in concepts (Oldham, &
Cummings, 1996; Rank, Pace, & Frese, 2004). Others argued the difference lies in the implementation process (Paulus, 2002) whereby creativity puts an emphasis on idea generation while innovation accentuates idea implementation (Amabile, 1996;
Mumford, & Gustafson, 1988; West, 2002a, 2002b).
Schumpeter, the first theorist that introduced the term innovation, discussed a concept of innovation as the creation of new products or services, new production processes, new markets, new suppliers, or management systems (Schumpeter, 1934).
Schumpeter described innovation as “doing things differently in the realm of economic life” (Schumpeter, 1939, p.84). King and Anderson (2002) consider an innovation as something new to the social setting in which it is introduced even if it is not new to the person(s) introducing it.
Later on, innovation was defined by many scholars as the production of new products or processes that are different or better than existing ones (e.g., Brown, 1994; Dehoff, Jaruzelski, & Kronenberg. 2005; Kuniyoshi, & John, Tadao, 1988). In addition, innovation also means the production of something that provides better customer benefits (Chandy, & Tellis, 1998). Many scholars also have viewed innovation as how to create wealth for the organization (Drucker, 1985; Kuniyoshi, &
Tadao, 1988), and competitive advantages and sustainability for the organization (Brown, 1994: Brown, & Eisenhardt, 1995; Kanter, 1997; Tushman, 1997; Martins,
&Terblanche, 2003).
A study of Pivcevic and Pranicevic (2012) found that most hotels tend to imitate, such as selling products or services already implemented by their competitors.
Moreover, small hotels do not fall behind large hotels regarding innovation. Since innovation is a major driver of competitiveness, hotel managers are encouraged to strengthen their innovation efforts.
Based on the definitions of innovation mentioned in previous studies, the researcher views innovation as the process of converting new ideas into something new, such as products, services, and processes or something better than the existing one, which is commercialized, in order to increase guest satisfaction as well as organizational performance.
However, individual innovation has been studied in terms of personality characteristics, outputs, and behaviors. For instance, Hurt, Joseph, and Cook (1977) focus on a personality-based aspect of individual innovation. West's (1987) measure of the number of changes an individual has initiated in his or her job in compared to the previous role occupant. Similarly, Axtell et al.’s (2000) measure assesses individuals' self-ratings of their suggestions and realized innovations. Those studies take an output- based view of individual innovation. Other studies conceptualize individual innovation as a set of discretionary employee behaviors (e.g. Scott, &
Bruce, 1994). Here, the researcher takes the behavioral approach.
In addition, innovative behavior is mostly a discretionary behavior which could eventually support the company to accomplish innovative goals (Ramamoorthy et al., 2005). For this reason, innovative behavior could be rated the same as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Jafri, 2010). The difference between both is that innovative behavior seems to solve problems for employees (Janssen, 2000) while OCB helps people advance in their jobs (Robbins, & Judge, 2003). However, there are a number of studies that have investigated the effect of personal characteristics on innovation-centered results (Anderson, de Dreu, & Nijstad, 2004).
Consequently, individual characteristics such as tolerance, self-confidence, openness of experience, creativity (Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002), and personal initiative
were found in individuals at different levels of creativity or innovation (Woodman et al., 1993). Thus, the researcher will discuss in detail innovative work behavior in the next section.
2.2.2 Definition of Innovative Work Behavior
Innovative work behavior (West & Farr, 1989; Scott, & Bruce, 1994; Kleysen,
& Street, 2001; Yuan, & Woodman, 2010) is a concept related to the employee’s individual characteristics within particular forms of activity. It is defined as the individual’s intentional actions of generation, promotion and implementation of new ideas within the work, group or organization for better performance of the unit (Janssen, 2000), or any level of the organization (West, & Farr, 1989). De Jong (2006, p. 19) also defined it as “individuals’ behaviors directed toward the initiation and intentional introduction of new and useful ideas, processes, products, or procedure within a work role, group or organization”.
According to the definition mentioned above, innovative work behavior is considered to be a multistage process of generation, adoption and implementation of new ideas (Kanter, 1998; Scott & Bruce, 1994; Xerri & Brunetto, 2013). Various examples of the definitions of IWB are presented in sequential order in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 Definition of Innovative Work Behavior
Authors Definitions
Kanter (1988, 173) “Innovative work behavior is: 1) idea generation and activation of the drivers of the innovation; 2) coalition building and acquisition of the power necessary to move the idea into reality; 3) idea realization and innovation production, turning the idea into a model – a product or plan or prototype that can be used; 4) transfer or diffusion, the spreading of the model – the commercialization of the product, the adoption of the idea”.
Table 2.1 (Continued)
Authors Definitions
Scott and Bruce (1994, p. 582)
“Innovation is viewed as a multi-stage process, with different activities and different individual behavior necessary at each stage”.
Janssen (2000, p.288) “We conceive innovative work behavior in the workplace as complex behavior consisting of a set of three different behavioral tasks: idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization”.
De Jong (2006, p. 19) ‘‘Individuals’ behaviors directed toward the initiation and intentional introduction of new and useful ideas, processes, products, or procedure within a work role, group or organization’’.
Xerri & Brunetto (2013, 3167)
“Innovative behavior as a process that should improve the efficiency and effectiveness of problem-solving in the workplace”.
From an organizational perspective, it is shown that innovative work behavior ensures effective processes and organizational performance (Janssen, 2001).
Innovative work behavior is therefore considered as an asset which helps organizations succeed in dynamic business environments (Yuan, & Woodman, 2010).
Based on the discussion of the above definition of innovative work behavior, the researcher defines innovative work behavior in this dissertation as how individual generate new ideas and implement to the job, unit, or organization which benefits others. Next will be a discussion of the multi-stage process of innovative work behavior.
2.2.3 Innovative Work Behavior as a Multi-Stage Process
According to the literature review of innovative work behavior, different researchers agree to determine IWB as a multi-stage process which can be divided
into several dimensions. Kanter (1988) originally defined innovation as a multi-stage process where the work behaviors of an individual engage in each stage of the innovation process. There are distinct tasks involved at each stage: 1) idea generation and activation of the drivers of the innovation; 2) coalition building and acquisition of the power to change the idea into reality; 3) idea realization and innovation production, turning the idea into practice.
In line with Scott and Bruce (1994), Kanter (1988), and Janssen (2000), innovative behavior was defined as complex behavior consisting the generation and introduction and the implementation of new ideas. Commitment innovative behavior drives the proper functioning and endurance of the firm (Amabile, 1988; Ancona, &
Caldwell, 1992).
Scott and Bruce (1994) stated that innovative work behavior is an acceptable multi-stage process involving idea generation, coalition building, and implementation.
Individual innovation begins with problem recognition and the generation of new or adopted ideas. Next, an innovative individual seeks support for the idea. In the last stage, the innovative individual contributes to idea implementation by producing a model of the innovation (Carmeli et al., 2006). Scott and Bruce emphasized that idea generating engulfs a wider horizon from breeding ideas to acknowledging the problem (Scott, & Bruce, 1994, p. 581) while other studies indicate that these two behaviors rely on distinct cognitive abilities (e.g. Runco, & Chand, 1994; Basadur, 2004).
Following Scott and Bruce (1994), Jannsen conceived IWB in the workplace as a set of three different behavioral tasks: idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization. The first task, idea generation, results in producing new and useful ideas (Amabile et al., 1996; Kanter, 1988; Woodman et al., 1993). The second task, idea promotion, finding supporters to encourage and up-hold the idea (Galbraith, 1982;
Kanter, 1983, 1988). The final task of idea realization is by producing a model of the innovation that can be applied within a work role, a group or the organization (Kanter, 1988). Simple innovations are often completed by individual workers involved, while complex innovation requires teamwork based on a variety of specific knowledge, competence, and work roles (Kanter, 1988).
Some authors often describe the innovation process according to two main phases: initiation and implementation (De Jong, & Den Hartog, 2007). The distinction between the two phases is in relation to the point where ideas are first adopted. The first stage ends with the production of an idea, while the second stage ends when the idea is implemented (King, & Anderson, 2002). Later on, De Jong and Den Hartog (2010) distinguished four types of IWB and labeled them as follows: 1) exploration, 2) generation, 3) championing, and 4) implementation. Various examples of the IWB as mentioned are presented in sequential order in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2 A Summary of IWB as a Multi-Stage Process
Authors IWB as a Multi-Stage
Kanter (1988) 1) idea generation; 2) coalition building; 3) idea realization; and 4) transfer or diffusion
Scott and Bruce (1994) 1) idea generation; 2) coalition building; 3) implementation
Janssen (2000) 1) idea generation; 2) idea promotion; and 3) idea realization
De Jong and Den Hartog (2010) 1) exploration; 2) generation; 3) championing; and 4) implementation.
From all of the IWB definitions above, it becomes clear that the basis of the innovative behavior construct still lies in the model of Kanter (1988). Furthermore, De Jong and Den Hartog (2010) concluded that the method of Scott and Bruce (1994) still holds great value and clearly indicates the relevance of their work. The researcher is interested in applying the study of Janssen (2000), which was developed from Scott and Bruce (1994), in this study.
2.2.4 Innovation and Passion
Though passion can lead to success for both the individual and the organization, along the path one may face countless obstacles and failures. Not only do passionate people enjoy what they do but they also show their high devotion to
customers, which in turn benefits the whole organization and could lead to organizational vitality. Passionate people are able to accept any inconveniences or obstacles in order to accomplish something important. Passion helps people work long hours, try difficult things, and stretch their talents as far as they will go. The important point is to learn from failure and ultimately to become better and more successful. Not everyone has the elasticity to stand up when things go wrong. Once passion is presence, it becomes transmittable (Cardon, 2008). Passion translates into something incredible. It motivates co-workers, leaders, partners, investors, owners, and customers.
Tehrani et al. (2015) stated that love and passion are major drivers of innovation. Love creates innovation, but passion keeps it going. Hence, it is through love and passion that innovations are both born and developed. Human passions fuel innovation and passionate innovators share their passion with others. For example, the study conducted by Thompson and Heron (2006) indicated that employees that have affective commitment tend to share knowledge. In addition, the study by Chughtai (2013) indicated that employees’ commitment to the supervisor has the potential to enhance employees’ learning, work engagement and innovativeness. Furthermore, the research by Liu et al. (2011) suggested that positive interaction and exchanges among employees lead to a feeling of commitment, which enhances the sharing of technical knowledge among team members.
The researcher has highlighted the theoretical background and importance of innovation and innovative work behavior, because the diverse needs of customers require hotel businesses to respond in an innovative manner in delivering superior service (Chebat, & Kollias, 2000; Wang, & Netemeyer, 2004). Interestingly, innovations are heavily influenced by passion. The next topic will discuss the factors leading to work passion that could influence innovative work behavior from previous studies.