The determinants of innovative behaviors in organisations

The determinants of innovative behaviors in organisations

Innovative behaviour in organisations is a key area of research to be competitive, organisations need to innovate, and this requires employees to be motivated, skilled and fostered in an organisational environment to realise such innovations. The innovation itself is primarily seen in the product domains, originating especially from private enterprises. The literature indicates that prior to the year 2000, such innovations were realised in the manufacturing industries, with the male gender dominating the innovation list. Studies that explored innovative behaviours, or innovative work behaviours as known otherwise, identified skill and management frameworks to assist organisations to meet the demands required to innovate in an organisational context. Despite the fact that the idea is generated by an individual in an organisational context, the realisation of such an idea is implemented by many related entities, and as there are pragmatic advantages for organisations to realise innovations to maintain their competitive market advantages, organisations focused on various elements such as skillsets, leadership, processes, talent and knowledge. Among these factors, talent and knowledge appear to be high levels of innovations and are treated differently as these are categorised as intrinsic motivations. On the other hand, skillset, human resource processes and motivational factors are managed by human resource departments, and hence organisations have found that innovative behaviours can be fostered through these extrinsic behaviours.

The overarching aim then became, ‘what factors contribute to the innovative behaviours in the UAE public service?’. With this focus, the literature was reviewed. The literature reviewed indicated that recurring patterns of behaviour are a result of a combination of skills, knowledge and abilities, which help to evaluate employee performance and propose the ideal patterns that are required for remarkable performance. Senior leaders identified employee skills as a more valuable source of competitive advantage, and innovation is a central piece of new business models to realise products and services (Bilan, Hussain, Haseeb, & Kot, 2020). The importance of organisational climate for innovation alignment is also emphasized in the literature, highlighting the need for organisational capacity to innovate (Cropley & Cropley, 2017).

The literature also focused on identifying factors that may encourage and enable employees to demonstrate innovative behaviour at work and the various elements included individual characteristics, motivation and affect, as well as contextual antecedents such as organisational culture, job characteristics, leadership, and social relationships (Kondratenko & Zaporozhets, 2018; Muhammad Anwar ul, 2017; Pilotti, Anderson, Hardy, Murphy, & Vincent, 2017).

In terms of gender, the literature is still emerging, specifically in the context of this study and it is unclear whether within the context of public service, gender is a key driver.

Based on the initial review of literature, this study set its overarching objective to explore how key organisational factors such as organisational culture, gender, skill sets, HRM reforms and motivational factors influence innovative behaviours in organisations and determine variables that contribute to such an influence.

With this objective in mind, this study posits the following two main research questions for further exploration. They are:
1. What set of factors influence innovative behaviours in organisations?
2. Do the factors influencing innovative behaviour differ between public and private organisations?

To achieve these two objectives and fill gaps in the literature, this research adopted a sequential exploratory strategy as a specific mixed-methods design. The first objective of the study was met by conducting qualitative multi-method approaches that are commonly used in empirical studies, namely focus group discussions. The second objective of the study was achieved by conducting survey questionnaires, which are universally used in practical quantitative research.

The study concluded that the skillsets of employees positively influenced innovative behaviours; Human Resource Processes positively influence innovative behaviours; and Motivational factors of individuals positively influence innovative behaviour in employees in the UAE public sector.

Theoretical and practical contributions of the study include key process-related factors influencing innovative behaviours in public service organisations, and the various inter-related entities playing a role in realising such an innovation. The practical contributions of this study reveal that innovation can be realised in a public service organisation, and within the context of the UAE. Despite the complexity of the innovation processes in the public service, with the support of senior management, it is possible to realise a transformational leadership model to recognise and foster individual talents leading to innovative ideas, and then taking this to a collective entity by sharing such ideas, thus realising an innovative culture in the public service.