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Topicus case study on the relationships between innovative personal features, the work contextual factors, innovation energy and employees showing innovative work behaviour (IWB) in their work units.
"Not to tell them we have to cross a river, but rather tell them where we want to go; maybe you don't have to cross at all and there is another way"
- Respondent: M8 about managing innovative professionals.
Faculty Behavioural Management and Social Sciences (BMS) Department Human Resource Management and Innovation
Promotor Prof. T.V. Tanya Bondarouk
Co-promotor Dr. Jan de Leede
PhD student Henk Jan van Essen MsC (76636935)
Topicus research mentor Kirste Hollander MSc Learning & Development Advisor Period research 2-4-2020 – 31-12-2020
Index
Abstract ... 1
1 Introduction... 4
1.2 Research rationale, academic and practical relevance ... 5
2 Theory ... 7
2.1 Theoretical framework ... 7
2.4 Research question ... 25
2.5 Conceptual model 1.0. for the case study ... 27
3 Methodology ... 28
4 Findings ... 32
4.1.1 Findings on the employees’ level in four business units ... 32
4.4.1 Findings of the finance division... 32
4.4.2 Findings education and social services divisions ... 42
4.4.3 Findings on the health care division ... 53
4.5 Findings on the managers’ level ... 62
4.6. Total findings of four division about the presence of IWB and personal features ... 68
5 Conclusions and discussion ... 70
5.1 Conclusions on the employee level ... 70
5.2 Conclusion on the managers level ... 70
5.3 Answering the main and sub research questions ... 71
5.3 Discussion (related to both case studies) ... 75
5.4 Practical HRM recommendations ... 78
5.5 Triangulation usability of the report ... 79
5.6 Conceptual model 2.0 ... 80
5.7 The working out of three persona’s using the research data. ... 81
6 Reflection, limitations ... 85
7 Bibliography... 86
List of tables and figures
Table 1 Characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership ... 19
Table 2 legend for colours used in tables ... 30
Table 3 Stages IWB finance division ... 32
Table 4 Creativity determinants finance division ... 33
Table 5 Psychological empowerment determinants finance department ... 34
Table 6 Work conditional factors finance department ... 36
Table 7 Stages of IWB education and social services divisions ... 43
Table 8: Creativity determinants education and social services divisions ... 44
Table 9 Psychological empowerment determinants education and social services divisions ... 45
Table 10 Work conditional factors education and social services departments ... 47
Table 11 Stages of IBW health care division ... 53
Table 12 Creativity determinants care division ... 54
Table 13 Psychological empowerment determinants care division ... 56
Table 14 Work conditional factors care division ... 58
Table 15 Number of transactional and transformational managerial quotes by managers ... 63
Table 16 Number perceived autonomy quotes managers ... 65
Table 17 Total number stages IWB 4 divisions ... 68
Table 18 Personal features employees with 4 or no stages IWB ... 69
Table 19 Total present determinants personal features ... 69
List of figures Figure 1 Conceptual model 1.0 ... 27
1
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to develop more knowledge about the relationships between work contextual factors, innovative personal features, and innovative work behaviour (IWB) of employees. Most previous studies had a strong orientation on managerial methods for stimulating innovation. In our study the central research objective is distinguishing employees who are showing IWB, driven by their own creative and psychologically empowered nature.
Design, methodology, and approach
After a literature review and a first case study at Philips R&D a conceptual model was developed, and relevant dimensions and determinants were defined. An explorative qualitative case study was conducted at the IT company Topicus in Deventer in the Netherlands from April 2020 until December 2020.
We chose this research environment for the case study because we expected to find many
employees with IWB. Topicus has the reputation of a fast growing and innovative organisation. In 20 years it grew from 2 employees to 1000. At Philips we researched IWB in more radical innovative research and development circumstances.
In this second case study we want to complete our research with data from an organisation with more incremental (process) innovations on an operational level. We conducted 22 interviews with employees and 15 interviews with their operational managers, which were mostly part of the team. The interviews were fully transcribed and coded using the Atlas TI software. We used a deductive approach. The variables of the conceptual model where axial coded directly, and explorative new findings were open coded and afterwards axial bundled.
Some of the variables of our conceptual model were only used to recognise important case elements like the leadership style of the manager, or whether we could define a respondent as an employee with IWB. We did 4 extra in-dept interviews to compile personas of young and middle-aged employees with IWB, and one persona of an employee without IWB. The method of inter-coding reliability was applied.
Findings
Employees with IWB were recognised with our model. We found that 18 of the 22 respondents showed innovative work behaviour, and 4 of them showed all 4 stages. The 4 employees who showed all 4 stages quoted all personal features, while the employees with no IWB quoted almost none of these features. 13 out of 15 of the managers had a supportive transformational leadership style, while 2 displayed a transactional style.
The supportive style was an important positive influence factor of IWB. We found that employees with IWB are optimistic, and two of the employees without IWB are pessimistic. All 4 employees without IWB did not display optimism.
Topicus is an organisation with many young employees, little power distance of the management and a lot of room for autonomy for the employees. However, many managers and employees feel that time pressure, high customer satisfaction focus, and new projects lowered this autonomy space and resulted in less time for innovation.
2 There is a low degree of formalization and the respondents feel that this is very important for their IWB. Working in self-organizing teams is one of the success factors of the organisation, but some employees quoted the side effect of wanting to share more knowledge between teams and divisions. They are also not aware of the future vision of the organisation, which could help them to focus their innovations on that vision. The co-creating way of working stimulates the IWB of the respondents. Just like in the first case study, the respondents are intrinsically motivated to show IWB, and not by salary or bonusses. The meaningfulness and impact of their innovations and working in a youthful organisation with a lot of freedom motivated them. Working in a team with colleagues with different competences and building friendships within the team stimulated them in their IWB. This was also mentioned in case study one, where the diversity was more multidisciplinary. This was quoted so many times that we placed the (multidisciplinary) innovative team as a new important IWB influencing factor in our conceptual model. In this model we placed the innovation energy central, as we observed this as a key factor of IWB which is affected by all the influencing factors of our conceptual model. Using and combining several existing definitions about innovation and energy allowed us to define innovation energy and we concluded that this definition could be a good starting point for other researchers who are interested in this phenomenon.
Research limitations
Topicus is working with many small teams. We did the research in four divisions to cover all business focusses of the organisation. It was not useful to interview the division managers and analyse the data on a division level. To collect data on the relationship between leadership and IWB we spoke to 15 operational managers and analysed the relation between their management style on the IWB of some of their employees. We drew our conclusions directly from all four divisions at once, because we saw that there was no special influence of the kind of business conducted in the division and the IWB of employees. This is a result of the very strong companywide innovative low power distance culture of Topicus.
Because of the Covid19 pandemic and lock down in the Netherlands we could only have online contact and did the interviews by computer. This went very well but we did not have the opportunity because of this circumstances to do some observations on the working spot.
Reflection
The PhD research provides empirical data based on two cases of highly innovative circumstances. Further quantitative research in more sectors and countries is needed to increase the external validity.
Value
There is a need for innovation in a world with fast, global and sometimes disruptive transitions. There is also a growing awareness that sustainability is becoming an important business factor for survival and that it is necessary to stop polluting our environment. The scientific contribution of this case study is linking several existing theories of IWB, innovative personal features, and work
contextual factors into one holistic conceptual model, and supplementing this with new explorative findings. This knowledge can be helpful to identify, understand, and facilitate employees with IWB. We formulated some practical HRM recommendations using the outcomes of our research. Personal characteristics of an employee with IWB combined with the characteristics of supportive leadership should be used during recruitment, selection, and coaching to identify in job profiles in which specific innovative qualities are desired. Offering room for autonomy, stimulating external contacts including co-creation and being cautious with a bonus system in relation to innovation are additional important factors to focus on intrinsic innovation stimuli.
3 Working in (multidisciplinary) innovative teams can stimulate IWB, but also requires a system for knowledge sharing and connecting with the overall vision and strategic course of the organisation. The personas we comprised can be used to recognize (aspirant) employees with IWB.
Keywords
IWB, innovative work behaviour, work contextual factors, innovation energy, innovative personal features, supporting leadership, case study, and qualitative.
4
1
Introduction
1.1 ”Crossing a river”
Much has been written in the business administration and HRM literature about the resistance of employees to innovation and the important role reserved for the organisational culture, teams, and managers.
This issue was often viewed from the problem perspective, followed by a range of management and HR tools to cope with it. Every few years there is a new vision on this theme which is propagated in books, congresses, and lectures. However, historically speaking there is less attention for the individual employee who deals in a positive and creative way with the need for innovation. What drives them? Do they have special personal features, and what makes them different? These are the employees who are capable of resisting group pressure and sometimes even management or organisation opposition against change.
In literature this kind of behaviour is seen increasingly more from different perspectives. It is called: organisational behaviour citizenship (Bester, Stander, & Van Zyl van, 2015), intrapreneurial behaviour (Anoncic and Hisrich, 2001; Pinchot, 1985), self-determination behaviour (van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, de Witte, Ryan and Deci, 2000), or IWB (Scott & Bruce, 1994; De Spiegelaere, Van Gyes and van Hootegem, 2014).
The present Topicus case study is part of a PhD program focussed on the Innovative Work Behaviour (IWB) perspective and aims to give a holistic scientific contribution to the growing understanding of this phenomenon. We took the concept of IWB as the basis for the research, since it focusses on the behaviour of the employee in all phases of innovation, as we will explain in the theoretical section (De Spiegelaire, 2014).
Before the Topicus case study we did a case study with the same subject at Philips Research and Development in Eindhoven (Van Essen, de Leede, 2020). After a literature study on the phenomenon IWB we made a conceptual model and used it in the case study at Philips to provide some direction, but we were still open for new explorative findings. Just like in the Topicus study we used an abductive method. The result of this first case study was that the IWB influencing factors we found in the literature study were recognizable in the interviews we had with employees with IWB. In addition to that, we also found new influencing factors on IWB.
The result was a new conceptual model which is a starting point of the case study at Topicus. In this study we could also recognize the influencing factors of this model, with which we got a deeper insight in the relations between the determinants, and once again a new influencing factor was found. This factor is innovative (multidisciplinary) teamwork. This is a well-known innovation influencing factor in the literature, but as a result of our research we were able to make a connection between this factor and IWB.
All this information will be worked out and connected in the PhD dissertation and publications. On the frontpage of this case study report we quoted respondent M8, who is an operational manager at Topicus and gave a very clear metaphor about the way he is managing innovative professionals: “Not to tell them we have to cross a river, but rather tell them where we want to go;
maybe you don't have to cross at all and there is another way."
This method of management is called supportive leadership, which is one of the influencing factors of IWB in our conceptual model and one we will work out in the theoretical part of this case study report.
5
1.2
Research rationale, academic and practical relevance
In innovation science, there is a difference in approach between the proponents of rational and planned change, and the constructivists who state that a change will occur when employees have positive sense-making feelings towards change (De Moor, 1998; Van Oss and Van 't Hek, 2008). In business research, the relationship between stress, workload, and distortions has been analysed. When employees cannot control their own distortions, this becomes a major stress factor, according to De Sitter (1998), founder of the self-organisational teams in the Netherlands.
Teams can perform well, as long as they can handle their own work-related disturbances. Since this theory was named socio technique, many other theories have been developed that point out the great importance of highlighting the human factor in business to enhance the innovative and adaptive ability of organisations.
This knowledge can be grouped under the collective term, social innovation. The influence of the individual employee on innovation is recognized as important for the innovation ability of organisations. This comes after a period of more unilateral technical way of approaching change (Oeij, Kraan and Vaas, 2009).
Evidently, innovation is the key to the survival of companies in the global transition. We cannot go on with our technical innovations without paying more attention to the consequences for our own environment. We must innovate! The present study attempts to shed light on the relationship between the personal features of individual innovative employees, some work contextual factors necessary for innovation, and IWB. The theoretical part of this case study will point out that there are many evidence-based theories which are helpful in explaining IWB and the effect of the work
contextual factors which are stimulating or frustrating this behaviour. The contribution of this case study to science will be to connect several existing theories of IWB, innovative personal features, and work contextual factors to one holistic model. And we will give a deeper insight in the relations between this features and factors and IWB. We will present a new connecting factor of all influencing factors on IWB which we called innovation energy. This is the vitality, strength and enthusiasm to generate, introduce or apply new ideas, processes, products or procedures.
This knowledge can be helpful to identify, understand, and facilitate employees with IWB, which is necessary to influence the contradiction between organisations and employees that strive for stability versus the need for innovations in an environment with fast, global and sometimes disruptive transitions with a growing awareness of the need for more sustainability.
6
1.3
The case Topicus
1.3.1 Why Topicus was chosen for the case study
Topicus was chosen for this case study because this organisation has the reputation of a quickly growing innovative organisation. We expected to find rich information about innovative work
behaviour in this organisation, and we expected to find ample respondents with IWB. We want to get more insight in incremental operational innovation, because improving software and working
processes in self-organizing teams is daily business for Topicus.
Topicus cooperated in this PhD research of the Human Resource Management and Innovation department of the Behavioural Management and Social Sciences (BMS) of the University of Twente. The university has got a scientific interest in this case study and Topicus can use the outcome in their development process in which they want to maintain their self-organisation innovative culture despite the necessary structuring process because the organisation grew in 22 year to a successful IT company with more than 1000 employees and are in the middle of a process of implementing a division structure.
1.3.2. Topicus generally
Topicus was founded in 1998 by a former lecturer and two students of the University of Twente. The title of the annual report 2019 is “Impact through IT” which illustrates the purpose of the Topicus organisation (Dijkhuizen, Knol, & Noordeman, 2020).
Topicus summarized their mission and vision as follows: “The force that drives us: giving people empowerment. We aspire to make people’s lives easier and better through fast, accessible and convenient insight, and by streamlining systems. Ensuring everybody gets the best out of healthcare, education, finance, and social services. We want people to be autonomous and self-manage their own transactions or, where needed, have professional advisors help on their behalf. Whether it’s taking out a mortgage for a house, being referred to secondary care by a general practitioner, adaptive learning in primary and secondary education, or diagnosing and appointing the right social welfare package. This is what drives us to do what we do. This is how we want to make an impact in society. Doing so, by creating solutions to empower people to have self-directed, engaged, efficient and social lives, whether it is in business or in person. In person through adaptive learning, e-health, and personal finance” (Dijkhuizen et al., 2020, p. 5).
Topicus is located in the Netherlands, with over 1.000 employees currently and its main offices located in Deventer. Topicus innovates with co-creation with its customers, and their specialty is building IT systems which are not operating in isolation, but instead are connected with each other. Momentarily, there are four divisions: social services, healthcare, education, and financial services. These divisions are divided in business lines and in every line several self-organizing teams have responsibilities for aspects of the business line. For example technical support, innovation, and customer contact. More information of the divisions can be found in the result part of this case study report.
Almost every Dutch citizen is using Topicus platforms in their daily life. Internationally Topicus started with some IT platforms in the United Kingdom, United States of America, and Brazil in 2018, and Vietnam, Romani,a and Belgium in 2019. The core values of Topicus are: entrepreneurship, responsibility, autonomy, and teamwork
7 The net turnover grew from approximately 73,5 million euro’s in 2017 to 101,5 million euro’s in 2019. The consolidated net result after taxes was 0.9 million in 2019. This was a decrease of 4.1 million compared to 2018 due to acquisitions, results of participations, and interest (Dijkhuizen et al., 2020). Topicus is a healthy organisation even when several businesses are experiencing tough times in 2020 because of the Covid19 crises. The expectations are optimistic because the software of Topicus was very useful in the process of digitalizing labour, education, healthcare, and financial processes.
2
Theory
2.1 Theoretical framework
IWB in general, what did we find in the literature and former case study at Philips research
In the book, the art of innovation, Kelley & Littman (2016) described their vision of how they became the founders and owners of the global innovation company IDEO. The core business of this company is to help other companies develop new products and services. According to them, the key to innovation is creative "out of the box thinking". They utilize the knowledge and creativity of users, the environment, and employees. Kelley says, "You learn from people who break the rules" (Kelley & Littman, 2016, p. 39).
In the research rationale of this case report, we explained that businesses seek innovative solutions to survive and act more sustainably. The need for innovation calls for more ambidexterity in
organisations. Simultaneous with innovation, there is the normal conduct of the business. Fundamental changes are going on, which demand new competences of the employees and
managers (Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst, & Tushman, 2009). We explained that both organisations and employees strive for stability, in contrast with the need for innovation (van Oss and van 't Hek, 2008; van Hootegem, 1999; Vermeulen , 2011). To cope with this reality, scholars have suggested utilising the power of individual innovations by employees (Kessels, 2015; Spreitzer, 1995 & 2008; Amabile, 1988/1998).
The phenomenon of IWB by individual employees was intensively researched after Scott & Bruce (1994) published about this subject. IWB has several phases, and in this research, we are using the phases described by Dorenbosch, Van Engen and Verhagen (2005) as determinants of IWB. These phases are: problem recognition, idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realisation. We argue that creativity and psychological empowerment are expected to be important innovative personal features in showing IWB (Amabile 1988/1998; Spreitzer 1995/2008). The expectation is that because of their creative and psychologically empowering personal features, these employees will find a way to innovate even when the circumstances are not positively stimulating (de Jong, 2007, Nederveen-Pieterse, Knippenberg, Schippers and Stam, 2009, Amabile 1988/1998, Spreitzer 1995/2008). In our first case study we were able to recognize employees showing IWB had the aforementioned personal features, but another aspect was found as well. Because of all the barriers they face with innovating, employees with IWB need an optimistic nature. We will process this new aspect in the theoretical section of this case study report, and investigate the influence of this new dimension in the second case study at Topicus on IWB.
The literature study showed that transformational leadership, perceived room for autonomy, and innovative influences from the external environment have positive effects on IWB. In contrast, transactional leadership, little perceived room for autonomy, and no external innovative contacts can have a negative influence on IWB (de Jong & den Hartog, 2010; Nederveen-Pieterse et al.2009). However, transactional leadership is also mentioned in the research literature as a positive factor in the implementation phase of innovation (Anderson, Potočnik and Zhou, 2014).
8 The focus of our study is not on these influences themselves, but on the question of whether they have an impact on an employee with IWB. In the case study at Philips we could not find a single transactional leader, but the positive influence of transformational leadership was found. We found more specifications of the sort of transformational leadership in the way the employees with IWB talked about their leader. This pointed in the direction of what in literature is referred to as supportive leadership (Schyns, Van Veldhoven & Wood, 2009; Rafferty & Graffin, 2006).
In the first case study we also found that the degree of formalisation influenced the perceived room for autonomy of the employees and through this influenced their IWB. The supportive leaders facilitated the employee with IWB by giving enough space for innovation, by for example negotiating for them in the organisation, sourcing funding, being a shield for politics or power aspects, and lowering the degree of formalisation. Some of them even provided more freedom to the employee with IWB then was formally proscribed in procedures.
Being in contact with external innovative influences also has a positive effect on IWB in our first case study. We found in a research department which, was also a venture, that co-creation with clients had an positive innovative and entrepreneurial effect. In this new case study, we will theoretically work out the aspects co-creation, supporting leadership, and the degree of formalisation, as well as investigate these aspects on their influence on IWB.
Lastly, we have to point out an interesting explorative observation in the first case study, which is the different level of “innovation energy” of the employees with IWB. The interviewees have different outlooks when they talk about their IWB. They looked combative, tired, enterprising, unruly, cooperative., enthusiastic. This of course can also have other causes outside of work, so we will observe these aspects in the Topicus case study to gain a deeper insight.
Personal features of an employee with IWB
Various researchers have tried to express the personality of people in several factors, making research is possible. The most famous is 'The Big-Five Factor Structure' developed by Cattel (1945), which compressed 171 characteristics into 16. Goldberg (1990/1993) then formulated 5-character types that are widely used in psychology. 'The Big Five' are: Extroversion, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience. Although there is a broad consensus on the value of these character types, it is not possible to connect them directly to innovative personal features. Madrid, Patterson, Birdi, Leiva, and Kausel (2014) showed in their research that 'openness to experience' interacts with innovation. But this personality feature alone is insufficient to explain IWB, because the person with this behaviour needs to be creative and
persuasive. Peterson & Seligman (2004) studied all kinds of personality classifications. From their point of view they produced the positive psychology perspective with a focus on “building the best
things in life and repairing the worst” (Peterson and Seligman 2004, p.4.), which is a classification
system from strengths resulting from character. In their handbook of 799 pages, this classification system funnelled 24 strengths into 6 virtues. The virtues are: Wisdom and Knowledge, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence.
In our research on IWB, these personality or strength definitions are useful to give the researcher some background information, but we needed to gain knowledge about specific personal features for innovative behaviour. Therefore, we looked in the more business administration-oriented literature.
9 De Jong and Den Hartog (2005) formulated determinants of IWB. Characteristics of the personality determinant are, according to them: tolerance for uncertainty, self-confidence, independence, flexibility, expertise, career anchors, and above average intelligence. They did not investigate these personality characteristics but asked other researchers to do so. It is remarkable that the relationship between the personality trait intelligence and innovation is defined differently by separate
researchers. Taylor (in Gough 1979) stated that personality factors other than intelligence play a greater role. Swaab (2016) noticed that a certain intelligence is required for creativity, but he found no significant relation with an IQ higher than 120. Nusbaum & Silvia (2011), on the other hand, concluded that creativity and intelligence are more related than is conventionally assumed in
science. They argued that creativity involves the interaction between competence factors. In addition to personality traits, domain knowledge and motivation, cognitive skills such as the (crystallized) intelligence, which is build up in life, and visualization have a role in various forms of creativity. Other personality characteristics of De Jong and Den Hartog (2005) like tolerance for uncertainty, self-confidence, and independence are part of the psychological empowerment theory of Spreitzer (1995, 2008). She also acknowledges the relationship between empowerment and innovation.
The personality characteristics of flexibility, expertise, and career anchors (or motivators) mentioned by De Jong and Den Hartog (2005) resemble the description of the characteristics of creativity theory by Amabile (1988/1998). They stated that individual creativity is a crucial element in the innovation process and argued that as IWB is in line with the concept of creativity in their research, the distinction between the two concepts is beginning to fade.
The above considerations show that creativity and the ability to bring this creativity into practice, which is called psychological empowerment, can be considered innovative personal features. These features together with work circumstantial factors, it can stimulate or create IWB. We already mentioned that these personal features were recognized in our first case study and that they are supplemented with a new important feature: the optimistic nature. And we observed that aside from all these personal features there was a different “innovation energy level”.
We will conceptualise all these aspects in the next part of this theoretical exploration and visualise all the determinants and relations with IWB in a conceptual model.
Towards a conceptual model 1.0
First, we will briefly describe the four stages of innovative behaviour based on the model of Dorenbosch, Van Engen and Verhagen (2005).
Four stages of IWB
IWB has four stages: problem recognition, idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realisation. These are used as variables in our research.
We searched the literature for a correct definition of IWB. De Spiegelaere et al. (2014) argued that a comprehensive definition has not yet been developed and that many authors rely on the definition of innovation of West & Farr (1990). De Spiegelaere et al. came to the following formulation:
"IWB is all employee behaviour aimed at the generation, introduction and/or application (within a role, group or organisation) of ideas, processes, products, or procedures, new and intended to benefit the relevant unit of adoption" (De Spiegelaere et al., 2014, pp. 144-145).
Dorenbosch Van Engen and Verhagen (2005) divided IWB into two main determinants: creativity-oriented work behaviour and implementation-creativity-oriented work behaviour. They also distinguished four stages as sub-determinants within these determinants: problem recognition, idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realisation. We used this definition and the four stages of IWB for the
conceptualizing process of our research.
10 Creativity-oriented IWB
Employees who show creativity oriented IWB must be able to identify problems and come up with new solutions which sometimes also integrates experiences outside the workplace (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2008).
The definition of a problem and finding solutions form a complex process that starts with redefining or reconstructing a problem, which requires creativity (Mumford, 2000). Innovative solutions do not necessarily have to be factually new. It can also be something that already exists elsewhere. It is new to the people who are involved (Van de Ven, 1986). The stages of creativity-oriented work behaviour are briefly described:
1. Problem recognition:
Creating an opportunity, a problem, or a puzzle that must be solved, conditions that must be improved, or a threat that requires an immediate response. The product, manufacturing, services, and delivery logistics must be different (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2008). Problem recognition is the recognition of problems, different patterns or changing trends. (Drucker in Janssen, Schoonebeek and Van Looy, 1997).
2. Idea generation:
This is the next stage which transforms problem recognition into solutions (Janssen et al., 1997). A search for every useful new idea starts. There is recognition and information gathering (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2008). "Often, new ideas come about by the re-arranging and combining
of pre-existing concepts, methods, and products" (Kanter in Janssen et al., 1997 p. 180).
In our research we call the creativity-oriented stage the development-oriented stage because the implementation phase also requires creativity, and we don’t want to mix up the IWB stages with the creative personal features we are going to use in our research. This is purely a practical semantic choice.
Implementation oriented IWB:
The implementation oriented IWB aims to promote and implement an innovation. This is meant to create support for the implementation and/or contribute to the effective implementation itself (Dorenbosch et al, 2005. De Jong and Den Hartog, 2008). The stages of implementation work behaviour are briefly described:
1. Idea promotion:
This stage means that ideas must be sold and legitimised by managers, colleagues, or clients. Sometimes coalition formation and negotiation occur. The innovative employee who starts the process is often not formally identified, but feels very connected to the new idea (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2008). "Research shows the importance of support from colleagues, key figures, and
specialists within and outside their own work team in order to accept ideas in the organisation"
(Maidique and Quinn in Janssen et al., 1997, p. 180).
2. Idea realisation:
This stage implies that the ideas must be put into practice. This requires adaptation of the processes and procedures, creating new products and a result-oriented attitude (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2008). This phase arises after obtaining political support. Sometimes it is realized by one person, but when it comes to complex innovations, different roles and competencies are necessary (Janssen et al., 1997).
11 The influence of creative personal features on showing IWB
To be innovative, the employee must have a fresh, alternative view of products or processes and he/she can think outside of existing frameworks. Different scientists therefore link creativity to innovation. Employees with IWB not only possess creative abilities, they also desire to put them into practice. Therefore, creativity in our research model is seen as an important innovation personality feature. De Jong and Den Hartog (2008, pp. 5-6) defined creativity in the context of IWB as follows:
"Creativity is defined as the production of new and useful ideas concerning new products, services, processes, and procedures."
Amabile (1989/1998) sees three distinct, broad components that coincide with creativity: expertise, task motivation, and creative thinking skills. These components are used as determinants in our research. These determinants are defined as follows:
1. Expertise:
The simplest explanation of the concept of expertise is having skills. Expertise is the extent to which someone understands his or her subject. Ericsson and Smith (1999) argue that expertise has four characteristics:
• generally: personality and intelligence, • specifically: for example, musicality,
• teaching experience: for example, speaking different languages,
• domain-specific: such as training and experience in the art of craftsmanship.
2. Task motivation
Task motivation is a strong force that stimulates creativity. One person, in the same environment, can be very enthusiastic about his/her work or a particular task, while others experiences it differently (Amabile, 1988/ 1998).
3. Creative thinking skills
Amabile (1988, p.131) defines creative thinking skills as follows: "a cognitive style favourable to
taking new perspectives on problems, an application of heuristics for the exploration of new cognitive pathways, and a work ethic conducive to persistent, energetic pursuit of one's work."
After several studies, Amabile (1989/1998) has demonstrated that these three components are intrinsically linked to creativity and are used in our model as innovative personality determinants which influence IWB.
12 The influence of psychologically empowering personal features on showing IWB
Creativity alone does not lead to IWB given the possible resistance against change of colleagues, managers, or the organisation itself. Therefore, we argue that to be able to show IWB, a
psychologically empowering force will be necessary as described by Spreitzer (2008). She distinguishes two types of empowerment: social structural empowerment and psychological empowerment. By social structural empowerment she refers to the organisation which can accommodate the power of its employees by participatory decision making, knowledge and profit sharing, open information flow, flat organisational structure, and skills.
Psychological empowerment is the power of the employee him- or herself to achieve performance by intrinsic motivation.
Kanter (1993) examined the entry of women in industrial organisations and found the sociocultural characteristics, which determined whether they were successful. Spreitzer (2008) claimed that Kanter's research formed the basis for many later empowerment publications, but argued that even if employees are in an environment where all these cultural tools are widely present, it is possible that they do not feel empowered. This also requires psychological empowerment.
The definition of psychological empowerment by Spreitzer (2008, p.56) that we used in our research:
"Psychological empowerment refers to a set of psychological states that are necessary for individuals
to feel a sense of control in relation to their work. Rather than focusing on managerial practices that share power with employees at all levels, the psychological perspective is focused on how employees experience their work. This perspective refers to empowerment as the personal beliefs that employees have about their role in relation to the organisation.”
Thomas & Velthouse (1990) indicated that empowerment as intrinsic task motivation consists of four cognitions that determine the orientation of work for a person: "sense of impact, competence, meaningfulness, and choice". Janssen et al. (1997) confirmed this empowerment cognitions, based on further investigation. Spreitzer (2008) has slightly modified the cognitions as follows:
1. meaning (in our research called meaningfulness, like Thomas & Velthuis), 2. self-efficacy,
3. self-determination, 4. impact.
Spreitzer (2008) calls these four attributes collectively an active attitude. Huiskamp et al. (2008) described the organisational determinants as: job characteristics, leadership, organisational
structure, and organisational policy. They mentioned, just like de Jong & Den Hartog (2005), that the personality of the employee is a key factor of IWB. Huiskamp et al. (2008) described the professional aspects of the personality and concluded in their research that: "A proactive attitude of the employee
is positively related to showing IWB. The employee's self-confidence also contributes significantly to IWB” (Huiskamp et al., 2008, pp. 64-65). They came to these two features from literature sources
13 The four cognitions of Spreitzer (2008) are used as determinants in our research. These determinants are conceptualized as follow:
1. Meaningfulness
Spreitzer uses the word ‘meaning’ for this dimension but also related this dimension to the term ‘meaningfulness’ according to the team empowerment determinants of Kirkman and Rosen (Kirkman and Rosen in Spreitzer 2008). We are using the term ‘meaningfulness’ in our research, because this gives a broader explanation of the term if we translate it to Dutch, which is often the case because the research is being done in the Netherlands. Meaning in Dutch is a
completely different term than meaningfulness.
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) stated that meaningfulness is the assessment of the employee or the value of the task goals in accordance with his own ideals and standards. This provides energy, commitment, and involvement. Hackman & Oldham (1975, p. 162) define the perceived meaning as follows: "The degree to which the employee experiences the job as one that is generally
meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile."
2. Self-efficacy
Bandura (in Tierney & Farmer, 2002) referred to various studies and argues that self-efficacy (with self-confidence) is necessary for creative productivity and the development of new knowledge. Tierney & Farmer (2002, p. 472) then stated that "Creative self-efficacy has greater
creative achievements than mere 'job self-efficacy’.” Gist (1987, p. 472) defines confidence,
which is related to self-efficacy, as follows: "one's belief in one's capability to perform a task."
3. Self-determination
The term 'self-determination' has been embraced since the beginning of this century from the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Spreitzer (2008) refers to this theory in her article. The SDT is a motivation theory developed by Ryan and Deci (2000). It is stated in this theory that people are attracted to activity and integration by their nature, however they are vulnerable to passivity under the influence of the surroundings. According to the SDT, extrinsic motivation can displace intrinsic motivation because this reduces the autonomy. For example, someone does his best for a higher salary but not the work itself (Van Den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, White, Lens, and
Andriessen, 2009).
Impact,
Ashforth (in Spreitzer 2008, p. 57) defines impact as follows: "The degree to which one can influence
strategic, administrative or operative outcomes at work." So, it does not mean the impact itself, but
the extent to which a person thinks he/she can influence the results. In this concept, it is a preliminary consideration of feasibility that the idea can be realized.
14 The influence of an optimistic personal feature on showing IWB
The optimistic personal feature, mostly named in the literature: dispositional optimism.
Dispositional optimism is defined by Kavussanu and McAuley (in Burke, Joyner, Czech, & Wilson, 2000, p 130) as “a generalized belief that good things will happen”. We apply this simple but very
understandable definition to our research.”
Scheier, Carver, & Bridges (1994”, p 1063) stated that a person with dispositional optimism “Is beneficial for physical and psychological well-being”. Contrary to the pessimist they have stable coping tendencies for example with diseases and concerns about health threats. They can show a problem coping focus, and if that is not possible to show a more adaptive emotional coping focus like acceptance, humour, or positive reframing of the situation.
We can assume that these are very helpful personal characteristics in the not always even smooth process of innovation. We found some research results about the relation between optimism and IWB.
Hsu, Hou, & Fan (2011) concluded after their research that employees with a high level of creative self-efficacy, also have a high level of innovative behaviour at work. Optimism played a moderative roll in this relation. Employees with more optimism showed more IWB. Li & Wu (2011) also saw the connection between these three determinants but stated that creative self-efficacy was a mediator on the relationship between optimism and IWB. Based on both those conclusions, we can determine that there is a relation, however we do not know if the relation between the determinants are: dependant, independent, mediating, or moderating. For our qualitative research we can presume that there is a possible positive stimulating relation between these determinants, which correlates with the outcome of our first case study.
Innovation energy
Innovation and energy combined as one construct was not found in literature.
In the energy literature we found a division of energy in two related forms: organisational energy and human energy (Cross, Baker, & Parker, 2003; Quinn, Spreitzer, & Lam, 2012; Schiuma, Mason, & Kennerley, 2007; Reinders, 2008 ). We can conclude on the small amount of research and the time period of these kinds of research articles that the research on energy became more popular the last two decades. At the same time, much more is written about a phenomenon which has a close explanation with human energy: engagement.
The (interchangeably) terms employee engagement and work engagement were used for the first time in 1990 by an organisation called “the Gallup”. It is not easy to distinguish energy from engagement and all kind of other terms which sometimes have, according to Chaufelli and Bakker (2010), have an overlap with these constructs. These are terms such as extra-role behaviour, personal initiative, job involvement, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and positive affectivity, flow, and workaholism. They advised to define engagement as umbrella term of all the other terms.
(Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006) considered that work engagement is the opposite of burnout. They defined work engagement as: “A positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind that is
characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006, p. 702).
The vigour aspect in this definition is interesting for our research because this is characterized by the authors as “high levels of energy and mental resilience while working” (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006, p. 702). We can conclude that if an employee has a high level of vigour, he/she also has a high level of energy.
As a result of their analysing process Schaufeli & Baker explained that work engagement is “the
psychological state that accompanies the behavioural investment of personal energy” (Schaufeli &
Bakker, 2010, p. 22). From this statement we can derive that engagement is not the energy, but the method of utilizing it.
15 But what is energy as phenomenon itself? When searching the literature on the word energy, we find most hits correlating with the world of physics. Of course, the way the human body functions has a lot to do with physics and it has a big influence on the human energy, but this is not the subject of our research. We want to explore human energy related to IWB, in the organisational context. The Cambridge Dictionary (2020) gives two explanations of energy. One is about strength: “The
power and ability to be physically and mentally active”. The other is about power: “The power from
something such as electricity or oil that work, such as providing light and heat”. Our research is about the strength. Quinn, Spreitzer, & Lam, 2012 divided human energy in two main components. Physical energy as the (used and unused) “capacity to do work”. And energetic activation as a “biobehavioural
system of activation” (Quinn et al., 2012 p. 342). Energetic activation is explained by Quin et all.
(2012 p. 342) as “experiencing feelings of vitality, vigour, or enthusiasm. It can manifest itself in emotions (feelings with short duration targeted toward a specific object, event, or person), moods (longer-lasting, less-targeted feelings), or dispositions (enduring tendencies to be energetic or not).” When we use energy in the dimension innovation energy in our research we talk about this energetic activation. Schiuma, Mason, & Kennerley, (2007 p. 70) define individual energy, which has a lot of similarity with the explanation of Quin et all (2012), as follows: “Individual energy is a complex result of multiple causes, which can be traced back to the fundamental laws affecting the conditions of well-being: the physical state, i.e. the body’s conditions; the cognitive state, i.e. the mind’s conditions; and emotional state, i.e. feelings, both conscious and unconscious (p. 70).
In the literature we found several (metaphysical) explanations about the interaction of the human energy and the organisational energy in one energetic system. Reinders (2008) wrote about
energetic connectedness, which is the spirit and the intrinsic direction of an organisation. She argued that to stimulate energy, managers need charisma, must be authentic, create focus with respect for the history of an organisation, and use the power of words. Ofman (2007) is internationally well known as the founder of the “Core Quality Quadrant method”. He stated that historically, the organisational science has focussed on structuring people and resources to achieve goals. According to him, this is only a part of the organisational process. The history, the values, and the mission and vision of an organisation are more important. He wrote that an organisation is an organism, a spiritual unit with a soul. Which is sometimes visible or tangible. It can be felt if an organisation is healthy. He also mentioned the importance of respect for the history and values of an organisation. He stated that structure is needed to channel the energy. Schiuma, Mason, & Kennerley (2007 p. 76) stated that there are three types of energy: individual energy, team energy, and organisational energy and that “organisational energy represents one of the key ingredients for competitive success
and excellence.” They cited Bruch and Ghoshal: “Without a high level of energy, a company cannot achieve radical productivity improvements, cannot grow fast, and cannot create major innovations”
Schiuma, Mason, & Kennerley (2007 p. 76).
We found several authors who related human energy with room for autonomy, just like we did in our conceptual model after analysing the literature on IWB. Wingerden and van de Laak (2012) wrote about task demands such as workload, routine, and time pressure conflicts, which all consume energy. Work-related resources can stimulate intrinsic motivation if basic psychological needs as relationship, competence, and autonomy are met. Ryan & Deci (2008) the founders of the self-determination theory also researched energy and vitality and concluded that activities that satisfy psychological needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy will have energy maintenance or enhancement as a result.
In this review we explored the human energy construct, but in our conceptual model we talked about innovation energy. We must make a clear definition about that to have a construct validity in the interviews and analysing process afterwards.
In our review we argued that the focus of our research is not on the physical but the energetic activation (Quinn et al., 2012). We have in our observations the awareness that there is an interaction between the organisational energy and the individual employee energy.
16 To define IWB in our research, we adopted the definition of (De Spiegelaere, 2014) partly based on the broadly used definition of West and Farr (1990):
“IWB is all employee behaviour aimed at the generation, introduction and/or application (within a role, group, or organisation) of ideas, processes, products, or procedures, new and intended to benefit the relevant unit of adoption" (de Spiegelaere et al., 2014, p. 144-145).
And we are going to use the individual energy definition of Schiuma, Mason, & Kennerley (2007 p. 70) (2012):
“Individual energy is a complex result of multiple causes, which can be traced back to the fundamental laws affecting the conditions of well-being: the physical state, i.e. the body’s conditions; the cognitive state, i.e. the mind’s conditions; and emotional state, i.e. feelings, both conscious and unconscious.”
We use this definition in combination with the definition of Quin et al. (2012 p.342) of energetic activation:
“Experienced as feelings of vitality, vigour or enthusiasm. It can manifest itself in emotions (feelings with short duration targeted toward a specific object, event, or person), moods (longer-lasting, less-targeted feelings) or dispositions (enduring tendencies to be energetic or not).”
If we connect these three definitions, with a focus on innovation and the energetic activation combined with the organisational influence our definition is:
“Innovation energy of an employee is a complex result of multiple causes, as the conscious and unconscious cognitive and emotional state interact with organisational conditions which result in the vitality, vigour, or enthusiasm to generate, introduce, or applicate new ideas, processes, products, or procedures to benefit the relevant unit of adoption”.
Relationship between the innovative personal features and IWB
Creativity and psychologically empowering personal features reinforce each other in relation to IWB. Spreitzer (1995) stated that because of the autonomy and the feeling of having an impact, it is likely that people with psychological empowerment are also creative.
As we described, IWB includes multiple stages focused on creative development and
implementation. Scott and Bruce (1994) argued that each stage requires a different behaviour, and individuals with IWB may be involved in any combination of the desired behaviours. In our research, we stated that creative personal features are strongly related to problem identification and idea generation (Dorenbosch, Van Engen and Verhagen, 2005), while the psychologically empowering personal features are related to idea promotion and idea realisation (Spreitzer 1995/2008). Although the various innovative personal features can reinforce each other and explain work behaviour, they can be present to varying degrees with co-operating team members. Because of all the possible resistance against innovation in organisations where mostly teams and managers strive for stability, we presume that having a high level of innovation energy (as defined above) in combination with an optimistic personality feature (as defined above) has a positive stimulating influence on the whole innovation process of employees with IWB.
17 The influence of the work environment on IWB
In the introduction to this study, the interests of scientific research in the influence of environmental factors on innovation was already mentioned. The present concept takes another angle, exploring deeper into the individual employee with IWB. From the literature review, we would expect the environmental factors to be determinants which influence IWB, but the question is whether these factors can also stop or encourage this behaviour given the fact that the creativity and empowering personal features of the employee have an important influence on it.
The literature is not conclusive about the interaction between the work circumstances, the personal features of the innovative employee, and showing IWB.
Bretani (in De Jong and Den Hartog 2005) stated that environmental aid was not a major factor in incremental innovations, but with radical innovations, this factor is more desirable. De Jong and Den Hartog (2005) mentioned that the support from the environment plays a larger role in the
implementation versus the development phase.
De Jong (2007) concluded in his dissertation that the innovation climate is not directly linked to IWB. He gave the plausible explanation that an enabling environment is less important in this context, because individuals can innovate without the help of others given their high degree of personal autonomy. This is consistent with the psychological theory of empowerment (Spreitzer 2008). The literature on innovation reveals that there are many influencing factors. The most mentioned ones we found are:
- Transformational, transactional leadership (Gumusluoğlu and Ilsev , 2009; Spreitzer,2008); - Innovation-stimulating team culture (West, Hirst, Richter and Shipton, 2004);
- Being in contact with external innovation influences (Veenendaal, 2015; van Leeuwen, 2012); - Nature of change, incremental or radical (Coberg, Detienne and Heppard, 2003; de Visser et
al. 2014);
- Environmental, perceived room for autonomy (Kessels, 2004; Nonaka 2004).
Coberg, Detienne and Heppard (2003) researched the environmental, organisational, and process factors affecting incremental and radical innovation. They suggested distinguishing the scope of the innovation into important factors. They found that “factors that favour the frequency of incremental
innovation include environmental dynamism, age and size of the firm, intrafirm structural linkages, and the age of the CEO. Factors that favour the frequency of radical innovation include environmental dynamism, intrafirm linkages, experimentation, and transitioning or sequencing from project or product to another” (Coberg, Detienne, & Heppard, 2003, p. 38).
Scott and Bruce (1994) mentioned a small but weak influence of the working climate on IWB, but also noticed that other studies made a distinction between incremental and radical circumstances. For example Bretani (2001) concluded that in radical circumstances, the working climate has a more important role (Bretani, 2001).
In our research we did not investigate innovation but rather IWB with a focus on the employee exhibiting this behaviour. We also wanted to know what the influence of the environment is on this behaviour in order to give the research a more holistic view. It is impossible to take all possible influences into account in one study and it is also not necessary because of our focus.
18 We noted three important influences which were mentioned most frequently in the literature review on IWB: transactional or transformational leadership, external innovation contacts, and perceived room for autonomy. In the following sections of this report, we provide some theoretical background about these three environmental influences. Along with the results of the former case study, we give a deeper theoretical insight in supportive leadership as a, to be expected, strong influencing form of transformational leadership on IWB. Now we will theoretically work out the possible influence of the degree of formalisation on IWB.
Transformational and transactional leadership
Many theories developed in the business administration field focus on leadership and its effect on the performance of employees.
Gumusluoğlu and Arzu Ilsev (2009) found that studies that argued transformational leadership has a positive effect on innovation, coincides with the outcome of their own research. They stated that managers with transformational leadership are aware of their employees' aspirations and skills, and encourage them to view old problems in new ways.
Transformational leaders focus more on how the hopes and talents of their employees are linked to common goals and the creation of involvement. The transactional leader, in contrast, focuses more on the result and growth (Quinn, Faerman, Thompson, McGrat &; Bright 2016).
Transformational leadership and empowerment are positively influencing each other (Spreitzer 2008). This is confirmed by Pieterse, van Knippenberg, Schippers, & Stam, (2010) who found a positive relationship between transformational leadership and IWB, influenced by a high
psychological empowerment. Under the same conditions, transactional leadership had a negative influence on IWB.
De Jong and Den Hartog (2007) argued that theory-based leadership styles are often not aimed at individual innovation by employees. The theories are more so based on the result of leadership on performance or effectiveness and less so on innovation-oriented outcomes. In their own research, De Jong and Den Hartog concluded that leaders who stimulate innovation behaviour among employees ensure sufficient autonomy, recognize and stimulate innovative initiatives, and create a positive, safe atmosphere in which openness is encouraged as well as risk-taking.
In daily practice, employees with IWB encounter many obstacles. Often the first obstacle is their own boss. Amabile (1998) stated that in practice, innovation and creative thinking are often discouraged by managers, she wrote in an essay with the title, "How to Kill Creativity".
Mumford (2000) pointed out the importance of managers learning to think about employees before they start working, which is difficult under constant production pressure. In addition, "freedom" is necessary to promote creative work. He stated that creative people need effective leaders, but he recognized that this is not always the situation. He advises managers to train themselves to not use conventional methods but to promote creativity instead with a focus on the individual employee at work. Bass (1990) researched the phenomena of transactional and transformational leadership and produced several publications on this theme together with Avolio. He summarized the characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership based on the findings from clinical and case
evidence and several surveys. He arrived at a set of 7 characteristics: charisma, inspiration,
intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, contingent reward, management-by-exception, and laissez-faire leadership (Bass, 1990). Together with Avolio and Jung (1999), Bass concluded that charismatic and inspirational leadership were different theoretical constructs, however they were not easy to distinguish empirically.
Bass (1990) then made another change to his original topic list of leadership. Correlations were found between ratings of passive management-by-exception and laissez-faire by Den Hartog, Van Muijen, & Koopman (1997). They used the Bass framework when analyzing Dutch data and were able to
distinguish transformational, transactional, and laissez-fare factors. They concluded that passive management-by-exception and laissez-faire should be combined into one passive factor because they could not be distinguished.
19 Bass modified his Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire to contain six factors, named the MLX5X: charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, contingent reward, management by exception active, and passive avoidant.
In our research we used his findings to recognize the style of leadership of the manager of the departments where we interviewed the employees. We took the originally separated factors of charisma and inspiration because we felt that in an interview this would give a better understanding of the manager’s leadership style. We combined the factors management by exception passive and laissez-faire into one factor: passive avoidant, like Bass (1990) did in his six-factor questionnaire, and used his indicator: “intervenes only if standards are not met”. This would better distinguish
transformation from transactional leadership. A laissez-faire factor can give a bias in coding the interview transcriptions since this can be considered a complete absence of leadership. We adopted the following factors of Bass in our research:
Table 1 Characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership
Transformational leader
Charisma Provides vision and sense of mission, instils pride, gains respect and trust.
Inspiration Communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses important purposes in simple ways.
Intellectual Stimulation Promotes intelligence, rationality and careful problem-solving. Individualized Consideration Gives personal attention, treats each employee individually,
coaches, advises.
Transactional leader
Contingent Reward Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises rewards for good performance, recognizes accomplishments.
Management by Exception (active)
Watches and searches for deviations from rules and standards, takes corrective action.
Passive avoidant Intervenes only if standards are not met.
Table composed using Bass (1990) combined with Bass et al. (1999)
Bass (1990) argued that transformational leaders are necessary for an organisation to be successful and that it is possible to develop or improve this leadership style by training.
Supportive leadership
In our first study we could not investigate the effects of transactional leadership on IWB because we did not meet transactional leaders in the Philips case study. In the Topicus case we met two
transactional leaders. In the analysing part of this report we will work out the relation we found between this form of leadership and IWB.
In the Philips case we found the positive effect of transformational leadership on IWB. Analysing and coding the transcriptions of the interviews gave us more specifics on transformational leadership, which we called supportive leadership.
20 In the literature the two forms of transactional a transformational leadership can be considered as the two main umbrella groups for all kinds of other scientifically explored leadership phenomena. However, there are all kinds of other explanations of these two forms. For example, the servant leadership style which is a kind of transformational leader. Stone, Russel, & Patterson (2004) posted that the purely transformational leader focusses on the organisation and tries to get commitment on the organisational objectives, while the servant leader focusses on the followers with as a
subordinate result the obtainment of the goals of the organisation.
Nanjundeswaraswamy & Swamy (2014) did a literature study on leadership forms. Aside from transformational and transactional leadership, they summarized the following theoretical constructs: laissez-faire-, participative-, supportive-, instrumental-, autocratic-, democratic-, and active
participant leadership. As a result of this review they stated that: “leadership style, organisational
commitment, and work satisfaction are interrelated. Thus, leadership styles can affect the quality of work life” (Nanjundeswaraswamy & Swamy, 2014, p. 58).
In our own research we concluded about IWB stimulating leadership, that the employee with IWB needs a supportive leader. Not someone who interferes in the research process itself, which most of the time is also impossible because the manager has a different expertise from the employee. But the employee with IWB needs a manager who is helpful to deal with or even shield from the procedures and bureaucratic rules. Someone who finds funding and gives room for autonomy. Sometimes even gives more room for autonomy than officially is prescribed in the organisation” (van Essen, 2019). Respondent R3-4 was an employee who showed all four stages of IWB and quoted: “As a researcher you don’t need the opinion of the boss, but you need the direction.”
We proposed an influencing dimension on IWB for the next case study: supporting leadership. We did a literature review on the phenomena supportive leadership and found that this form of leadership has not been as much explored as for example the other mentioned styles. Mostly the umbrella styles transactional and transformational leadership are mentioned. Supportive is used as an adjective to general leadership or to describe the influence of the leader on the climate of the workplace.
Schyns, Van Veldhoven, & Wood (2009) described supportive leadership as one of three climate concepts. In this research supportive leadership was associated with job satisfaction. They defined supportive leadership in relation with the climate as: “Supportive leadership is associated with a
concern for the needs and well‐being of followers, and the facilitation of a desirable climate for interaction between leaders and followers. A climate of supportive leadership is one where members of the organisation perceive that the leadership is equally highly supportive of them and particularly encourages their empowerment and development.” (Schyns, Van Veldhoven, & Wood, 2009, p. 651).
However, this description suits the outcome of our research well. We need to define supportive leadership as a phenomenon itself and not in relation to the climate for the next case study to get a good construct validity.
Rafferty & Griffin (2006) stated that individualized consideration is an important leadership behaviour in the workplace. Individualized consideration is one of the determinants of transformational leadership according to Bass (1990), and it is used in our research.
Rafferty & Griffin, 2006 divided individualized consideration into developmental leadership and supportive leadership. Developmental leadership focusses more on the personal development of the employee’s competences like giving possibilities for education. They defined a supportive leader as
“One who provides emotional, informational, instrumental, and appraisal support to followers” and stated that emotional support “Occurs when leaders express concern for, and take account of, followers’ needs and preferences when making decisions.” (House in Rafferty & Griffin, 2006, p. 39).
