PHASE-SPECIFIC ANTECEDENTS OF INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOR: THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE JOB CHARACTERISTICS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE

Employee innovativeness has become a major human resource challenge within the global and highly competitive business environment. Recent studies have confirmed organizational climate and job characteristics as critical antecedents and a driving force for innovative work behavior (IWB). Although we know that the micro-innovation process is a multi-stage process we still lack a more clear understanding of the phase-specific antecedents of IWB. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to investigate and determine specific relationships between knowledge job characteristics, organizational climate and different employee IWB stages. A cross-sectional field research was conducted on the sample of 111 knowledge workers from six telecommunication companies in Croatia. Our research findings indicate that employees' knowledge job characteristics in general are positively related to each phase of their IWB while perceived organizational climate seems to be relevant only for idea promotion. Nevertheless, the role and importance of particular job characteristics clearly differ along the innovation process. The present study provided industry-specific empirical insights about the current level of IWB of knowledge workers, as well as comparable results that can offers better understanding of job-level innovations.