oa De invloed van werk en organisatie op innovatief werkgedrag

Work characteristics and innovative work behaviour: results from the Netherlands' Working Conditions Survey

Innovation has become an important issue in many organisations, from business sectors to health care. Most research on conditions that enhance innovation is about markets, technology and strategy. Little research has been done on the innovative behaviour of employees and the factors that are connected to that behaviour. In a representative sample survey of the Dutch working population, we investigated to what extent work characteristics and an innovative organisational climate do affect innovative work behaviour (contributing to better and/or new products and/or services). The variance of innovative work behaviour can be explained to a large extent by innovative organisational climate and work variety, to some extent by task autonomy and external contacts. Neither social support from supervisor or colleagues, nor HR-policies appear to be important. Contrary to our expectation, quantitative job demands do not hinder innovative work behaviour; a weak positive correlation was shown.