Jeroen P.J. de Jong

How leaders influence employees' innovative behaviour

Purpose – To provide an inventory of leader behaviours likely to enhance employees’ innovative behaviour, including idea generation and application behaviour. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a combination of literature research and in-depth interviews, the paper explores leadership behaviours that stimulate employees’ idea generation and application behaviour. The study was carried out in knowledge-intensive service firms (e.g. consultants, researchers, engineers). Findings – It was found that there were 13 relevant leadership behaviours. Although innovative behaviour is crucial in such firms, it has received very little attention from researchers. Leaders influence employees’ innovative behaviour both through their deliberate actions aiming to stimulate idea generation and application as well as by their more general, daily behaviour. Research limitations/implications – Future quantitative research could condense our overview of leader practices, explore which practices are most relevant to employees’ idea generation and/or application behaviour, which contingency factors influence the leadership-innovative behaviour connection and provide information as to whether different practices are relevant in other types of firms.

Organizing successful new service development: a literature review

Organizing new service development is an important topic for decision makers in service firms, since continuous innovation is expected to pay off. Although the literature on organizing new service development has grown rapidly over the last decade, the numerous publications are highly fragmented, each concentrating on a small piece of the complex innovation puzzle. This paper classifies current literature on organizing new service development (NSD) into two evolutionary stages: managing key activities in the NSD process, and creating a climate for continuous innovation. For both stages its consequences for the initiation and implementation of new services are discussed. The paper ends with limitations and suggestions for future research.

Measuring Innovative Work Behaviour

Both scientists and practitioners emphasize the importance of innovative work behaviour (IWB) of individual employees for organizational success, but the measurement of IWB is still at an evolutionary stage. This article is concerned with developed a measure of IWB with four potential dimensions: the exploration, generation, championing and implementation of ideas. From a pilot survey among 81 research professionals and their supervisors, we derived an initial version of ten items. Next, analysis of validity drew on survey data from 703 matched dyads of knowledge workers and their supervisors in 94 knowledge intensive services firms. It included confirmatory factor analyses and hierarchical multilevel regressions to test hypothesized relationships of IWB with related constructs, including participative leadership, external work contacts and innovative output. These analyses demonstrated sufficient reliability and criterion validity. Evidence for the distinctiveness of the four dimensions was, however, weak, suggesting that IWB is one-dimensional. We conclude that further research on this issue is merited.

Determinants of Product Innovation in Small Firms A Comparison Across Industries

Many studies have investigated the determinants of product innovation in small firms, suggesting product, firm, market and innovation process factors are its key drivers of success. Variations across industries relating to the determinants of product innovation are often expected, but due to a lack of data this is still under-researched. This article explores if composite effects due to broad samples indeed blur ones view. Drawing upon a database of 1250 small firms across 7 industries, we investigate if any differences are found in the presence and impact of various firm-level determinants. Controlling for size and age differences, the analysis reveals some major differences to the extent small firms use innovative practices, and their connection with new product introductions.

Need for Cognition as an Antecedent of Individual Innovation Behavior

The authors propose that need for cognition, an individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking, is associated with individual innovation behavior. Moreover, drawing on an interactionist perspective, the authors suggest that need for cognition becomes more important when individuals face lower job autonomy and time pressure in their work. This is because, when these job characteristics are low, there is no contextual driving force for individual innovation, so personality has a stronger influence. In a multisource study of 179 employees working in a Dutch research and consultancy organization, the authors’ expectations were largely supported. They found that need for cognition was positively associated with peer-rated innovation behavior, as were job autonomy and time pressure, even when controlling for openness to experience and proactive personality. Furthermore, the relationship between need for cognition and innovation behavior was strongest for individuals with low job autonomy and low time pressure and indeed was nonexistent at high levels of these contextual variables. This study, therefore, suggests that context can substitute for an individual’s need for cognition when it comes to individual innovation.

Identifying key determinants for new product introductions and firm performance in small service firms

Small firms have gained increasing attention in the innovation literature. Focusing mainly on manufacturing based literature we identified several key factors that contribute to the innovative potential of small firms. However, we do not know if these factors are recognised and used in small service firms. Distinguishing various types of service industries, our goal with this paper is threefold. First, we describe to what extent service firms use the key factors to their advantage. Second, we try to establish if there is a relation between the key factors and new product introductions. Third, we want to see if new product introductions indeed contribute to firm performance. After a survey among 502 Dutch service firms, we reveal some major differences between various types of service industries.

Exploring a theoretical framework to structure the public policy implications of open innovation

Open innovation is increasingly popular among practitioners and scholars, but its implications for public policy making have not yet been analysed in detail. This paper explores a theoretical framework to structure the debate about public policy making that facilitates open innovation. We first define open innovation in terms of firms’ open innovation practices and external conditions that encourage enterprises to practice open innovation. We show that policies for open innovation are legitimate as traditional arguments like market and system failures continue to apply. Next, we identify several guidelines for policymaking. Rather than just offering R&D and interaction-oriented policies, we conclude that open innovation warrants attention in a broader range of policy areas, including entrepreneurship, education, science, labour markets and competition. Developing truly horizontal policies is a major challenge to facilitate open innovation in developed economies.

Entrepreneurial Behavior in Organizations: Does Job Design Matter?

We take a first step to explore how organizational factors influence individual entrepreneurial behavior at work, by investigating the role of job design variables. Drawing on multiple–source survey data of 179 workers in a Dutch research and consultancy organization, we find that entrepreneurial behavior, indicated by innovation, proactivity, and risk–taking items, is a higher order construct. Job autonomy is positively related with entrepreneurial behavior, as well as its innovation and proactivity subdimensions, while job variety is not. This suggests that interventions related to the vertical scope of jobs will promote entrepreneurial behaviors more than horizontal job expansion.

The Decision to Exploit Opportunities for Innovation: A Study of High‐Tech Small‐Business Owners

We collected longitudinal data from 160 high�?tech small�?business owners to analyze if the planned behavior constructs are related to their decision to innovate, as evidenced by their behavior (rather than their intentions to do so). Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are directly related with innovation exploitation. Attitude towards the opportunity is significant only when respondents perceive both positive subjective norms and being in high control. This multiplicative effect suggests that the planned behavior constructs can be thought of as necessary conditions beneath which business owners are much less likely to exploit identified opportunities. Implications are discussed.

Feedback seeking from peers: A positive strategy for insecurely attached team-workers

Feedback inquiry is a proactive behaviour that is instrumental for gaining information about job performance. However, feedback inquiry also has a social component, especially in the context of flexible team-work environments. Feedback inquiry implies interacting with others, suggesting that relational considerations might affect whether individuals accept and apply feedback to improve their performance. Drawing on this relational perspective, we examined the role of attachment styles in employees’ peer-focused feedback inquiry, as well as the subsequent association of feedback inquiry with job performance. We proposed that individuals higher in attachment anxiety would be more inclined to engage in feedback inquiry from peers, whereas those higher in attachment avoidance would be less likely to do so. We also proposed that individuals higher in attachment anxiety would benefit more from feedback inquiry, such that the association between feedback inquiry and performance is stronger for these individuals. Results from multi-source data from 179 employees in a flexible team-work environment and up to three of their peers generally supported these hypotheses. This study broadened our understanding of the dispositional antecedents of feedback inquiry, and suggests a boundary condition for when such behaviour is associated with enhanced job performance.