What Makes Employees Behave Innovatively? Empirical Evidence from South Korea

Sora Lee and Jaewon Yoo
Additional contact information
Sora Lee: Department of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Soongsil University, Seoul 06978, Korea
Jaewon Yoo: Department of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Soongsil University, Seoul 06978, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: Although the value of a supportive organizational strategy has been recognized over time, there is a need to better understand its relationship with employees’ psychological and behavioral responses. This study focuses on employees’ innovative behavior as a result of their perceptions of internal market orientation in the organization. It proposes a sequential process model that examines the impact of internal market orientation on employees’ innovative behavior through the ethical climate, psychological ownership, and employee stewardship toward the organization. Using data collected from 310 employees of small and medium-sized enterprises in various industries in South Korea, a linear sequential relationship among the constructs is confirmed. The findings of this empirical study, therefore, suggest that the ethical climate, psychological ownership, and stewardship mediate the effects of internal market orientation on employees’ innovative behavior. The research thus offers a conceptual framework that shows the sequential process of the effect of internal market orientation on innovative behavior. Further, it shows that the perception of an ethical climate can be influenced by management and can develop an employee’s psychological ownership. Implications for managers and directions for future research are also discussed.

Keywords: internal market orientation; ethical climate; psychological ownership; stewardship; innovative behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13819/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13819/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13819-:d:702544

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().