Employee Innovative Behavior and the Role of Creative Personality, Conscientiousness, and Psychological Safety

Abstract

The capacity of employees to generate and implement innovative ideas in the workplace is a key source of gaining and sustaining a competitive edge and achieving organizational effectiveness (Zhu & Zhang, 2019). Specifically, the innovative behavior of employees, defined as an employee’s ability to generate and implement useful ideas at work, is critical to overall organizational innovation (Newman, Tse, Schwarz, & Nielsen, 2018). Under the umbrella of employee innovation are two closely linked, but distinctly different, constructs: idea generation and idea implementation (T.M. Amabile, 1988).

Research is scarce in the examination of both individual antecedents and various moderating factors and their effects on idea generation and idea implementation as separate dimensions. The present study sought to examine the relationship of the personality variables of self-reported creativity and conscientiousness on idea generation and idea implementation as distinct outcome measures. Additionally, psychological safety—a workplace environment variable—was examined in its potential moderating influence personality and innovative behavior.

To address the impact of both personality and environmental variables on employee innovative behavior, participants were recruited from Qualtrics, a research platform. Measures of the personality variables of self-reported creativity and conscientiousness combined with the moderating variable of psychological safety were evaluated to assess the effect on both idea generation and idea implementation as separate outcomes.

By demonstrating both the effects of personality characteristics and the quality of the work environment on employee innovation, this research adds to what scholars know about employee innovative behavior. Companies who use research as a guide to design specific interventions could benefit from this study’s potential contribution.