Innovating HRM for Employee-Driven Innovation: A Multilevel Perspective

Organizations introduce new Human Resource Management activities to boost innovativeness. Although an increasing number of studies has shown that HRM can contribute to innovation, little research has been done that uncovers in what ways HRM makes employees more innovative and how employees can contribute to innovation processes across organizational levels. Therefore, this thesis adopts a multilevel perspective to study the underlying mechanisms of the HRM – innovation relationship and examines the role of multiple (HRM) actors in these processes.

This thesis demonstrates that employee-driven innovation can be stimulated by HRM, and that this process should be characterized by its multilevel nature. By adopting a multilevel perspective, our current understanding of how organizations can stimulate employee-driven innovation is improved. In particular, three different mechanisms are examined that help to understand the multilevel nature of the HRM – innovation relationship. First, innovative HRM that is introduced to increase the involvement and autonomy of employees changes the HRM function and consequently the implementation process. Second, employees’ perceptions of HRM lead to more innovative behaviour of employees through increasing their autonomy and commitment. Third, HRM contributes to the bottom-up development of innovation by influencing both the types of ideas generated and the processes that lead to idea implementation. These findings inform organizations and their various HRM actors how they can improve innovativeness of their work-floor employees.