Determinants of Innovative Behavior: A Path Model of Individual Innovation in the Workplace

Abstract

The present study integrated a number of streams of research on the antecedents of innovation to develop and test a model of individual innovative behavior. Hypothesizing that leadership, individual prob-lem-solving style, and work group relations affect innovative behavior directly and indirectly through their influence on perceptions of the climate for innovation, we used structural equation analysis to test the parameters of the proposed model simultaneously and also explored the moderating effect of task characteristics. The model explained ap-proximately 37 percent of the variance in innovative behavior. Task type moderated the relationship between leader role expectations and innovative behavior. The central role of innovation in the long-term survival of organizations (Ancona & Caldwell, 1987] provokes continuing interest among social sci-entists and practitioners alike. Since the foundation of innovation is ideas, and it is people who "develop, carry, react to, and modify ideas" (Van de Ven, 1986: 592), the study of what motivates or enables individual innova-tive behavior is critical. However, West and Farr noted that "there has been scant attention paid to innovation at the individual and group levels" (1989: 17). The present study integrated a number of independent streams of re-search on the antecedents of creativity, innovation, and organizational cli-mate to develop and test a theoretical model of individual innovative be-havior. Van de Ven (1986) noted that one of the central problems in the man-agement of innovation is the management of attention. Managing attention is difficult because individuals gradually adapt to their environments in such a way that their awareness of need deteriorates and their action thresholds reach a level at which only crisis can stimulate action. A number of theorists M. Ann Welsh and Harold Angle provided thoughtful and insightful comments during both the conceptual and data analysis stages of the study, Deborah Bruce was extremely helpful in the crafting of the multiple drafts of this article. We would like to enthusiastically thank each of them as well as this journal's reviewers for their constructive assistance.