HRM Effects on Innovative Work Behavior: Quantitative Evidence from a single field study

Research has shown that innovative work behavior of employees is important for competitive advantage of organizations. However, questions remain unanswered on how this innovative work behavior is stimulated. This paper addresses the effect of human resource management on innovative work behavior. Our concept of innovative work behavior consists of four stages, taking into account the full innovation process. Prior research suggests that innovative work behavior is found to be one-dimensional, even if it was theorized as multi-dimensional. This one-dimensionality makes its understanding more complex. Scoring high on innovative work behavior says little about where the focus or strong points of employees in the innovation process lies. Disentangling innovative work behavior in two phases makes it conceptually possible to find out how human resource management can stimulate two different types of behaviors, associated with either the creativity phase or the implementation phase. The purpose of this paper is therefore to take a closer look at how human resource management affects several stages within an innovative work behavior as an innovation process. The results of the survey among 328 workers in a Dutch manufacturing company have shown that HR practices have an effect on three dimensions of innovative work behavior (creativity, championing, and application) separately. The findings of our study support the overall argumentation and suggest that innovative work behavior can be stimulated by certain HR practices, and by the absence of other HR practices.