Give and take: understanding innovative behaviour from a psychological contract perspective

Seunghyun Kim

Public Management Review, 2025, vol. 27, issue 11, 2538-2565

Abstract: Despite numerous studies, little is known about public employees’ motivation to innovate. Based on psychological contract theory, this article examines why they have different levels of motivation for innovative behaviour. Using national-scale surveys of public employees in South Korea, this study demonstrates that employees become less innovative when financially compensated as expected, but more innovative when their expectations regarding career development and well-being are met. This indicates that individual motivation for innovation varies depending on the quality of the relationship with the organization, emphasizing that the organization should make a relational commitment to employees to foster innovative behaviour.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14719037.2024.2354780 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:rpxmxx:v:27:y:2025:i:11:p:2538-2565

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rpxm20

DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2024.2354780

Access Statistics for this article

Public Management Review is currently edited by Stephen P. Osborne

More articles in Public Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().