A systematic literature review on the mediation effect of support for innovation at workplace to the impact of power distance and employee innovative behavior

Abstract

Research on employee innovative behaviour identifies itself as the central point of organizational success in the long run. Since the foundation of innovative behaviour is ideas, the study of identifying what really motivates innovative behaviour is critical in workplace. Based on the research findings on antecedents of innovative behaviour, it is evident that this has been recognized as a micro level outcome of individuals which have resulted on various dynamics. Moreover, employees are unable to implement innovative ideas on their own in the organizational context without an adequate support receiving from the management, organization and culture (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Hunter, et al., 2007). Yet, innovative behaviour is less visible on present contexts of contemporary organizations due to power distance (Daniels & Greguras, 2014). The research on power distance in different cultural backgrounds shows that power relationships formed among individuals, groups and organizations are a source for various positive and negative individual and organizational outcomes (Tripathi and Bharadwaja, 2018; Rao and Pearce, 2016). Therefore, understanding of power distance on innovative behavior is especially important in organizational research as innovations, support for innovations and innovative behaviour are crucial for a contemporary organization. Though, relatively a few studies have tested how and why power distance is affecting on employee innovative behavior in an organization; their focus was mainly based on broad outcomes which in return call for more research on micro level outcomes of a workplace. Hence, this study mainly focuses on a Systematic Review of Literature on employee innovative behavior at a workplace which is a micro level outcome of power distance and support for innovations.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Research objectives are presented in the next section. Then, theory section briefly reviews the literature pertaining to power distance, employee innovative behaviour and support for innovations. Later, research method is outlined. Results section presents the model developed from the Systematic Literature Review. Finally, a discussion of the research findings and implications for the management and theory are presented.