Abstract
The innovativeness of individual employees is a vital source of competitive advantage of firms, contributing to societal development. Therefore, the aim of this multilevel study was to examine how entrepreneurial firm owners’ authentic leadership relates to their employees’ innovative behaviour. Our conceptual model postulates that the relationship between business owners’ authentic leadership (as perceived by their employees) and their employees’ innovative behaviour is mediated by employees’ personal initiative and their work engagement. Hypotheses derived from this model were tested on data collected from 711 employees working in 85 small firms from three European countries: the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. The results of the multilevel modelling confirmed our model, showing that when business owners are perceived as more authentic leaders, their employees show higher personal initiative and are more engaged at work and, in turn, identify more innovative solutions to be implemented in the organization. A cross-national difference was observed: employees from Spain (in comparison to Dutch and Polish employees) reported engaging less frequently in innovative behaviour. These research findings suggest that the innovative behaviour of employees can be boosted through leadership training, improving the quality of relationships between leaders and subordinates, and strengthening employees’ personal initiative and work engagement.
Highlights
In the present era, the implementation of innovative ideas in organizations is crucial, both for the long-term survival of a firm [1] and for the development of new solutions that protect the environment and the well-being of societies [2]
For the personal initiative and work engagement measures, full metric invariance was confirmed, and for the innovative behaviour measure, full scalar invariance was established between countries
Our results show that employee personal initiative and work engagement are mediators of the relationship between the authentic leadership of entrepreneur-firm managers and the innovative behaviour of their employees
Summary
The implementation of innovative ideas in organizations is crucial, both for the long-term survival of a firm [1] and for the development of new solutions that protect the environment and the well-being of societies [2]. The innovative behaviour of employees, i.e., creation and implementation of new solutions in the workplace as manifested in everyday activities, is an important micro foundation of the innovativeness of the whole firm [6]. This especially prominent in small firms, which provide the majority of private employment [7] and do not have special innovation departments, and the innovative behaviour of their employees is major driver of the organization’s. Public Health 2019, 16, 4201; doi:10.3390/ijerph16214201 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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