How to Facilitate Innovative Behavior and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Evidence From Public Employees in Korea

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0091026020977571
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026020977571

Public Personnel Management

2021, Vol. 50(4) 509 –537

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026020977571

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Article

How to Facilitate Innovative

Behavior and Organizational

Citizenship Behavior:

Evidence From Public

Employees in Korea

Yoon Jik Cho1 and Hyun Jin Song1

Abstract

For decades, scholars and practitioners have paid serious attention to how to facilitate

extra-role behaviors of employees. While many studies have been conducted, it is

not yet clear what factors facilitate or suppress those behaviors within organizations

and how those factors interact with each other. The current research focuses on

two extra-role behaviors of employees: innovative behavior and organizational

citizenship behavior (OCB). Both behaviors have been discussed as determinants

of individual and organizational performance. Filling the gap of the existing studies,

the current research comprehensively considers organizational characteristics, task

characteristics, and motivational factors in explaining those behaviors. Integrating

two data sets, the 2015 and 2016 Perception of Public Officials Surveys administered

by the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), we conducted a hierarchical

linear model (HLM) analysis to examine the effects of determinants in the Korean

context. Based on the multi-level analysis, this research demonstrates the positive

influence of autonomy and PSM on both behaviors. Among organizational-level

variables, cooperative culture increases the innovative behavior, whereas the lack

of organizational support decreases it. We provide several managerial implications

based on the findings.

Keywords

innovative behavior, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), perceived organizational

support (POS), job demand-resource (JD-R)

1Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Corresponding Author:

Yoon Jik Cho, Professor, Department of Public Administration, Yonsei University, 50 yonsei-ro,

Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.

Email: yoonjikcho@yonsei.ac.kr

977571PPMXXX10.1177/0091026020977571Public Personnel ManagementCho and Song

research-article2020

510 Public Personnel Management 50(4)

Introduction

While citizens’ trust in government has been decreasing in many countries, the

expectations and demands for government have not decreased (Grimmelikhuijsen,

2012; Kim, 2010; Lee & Schachter, 2019; Miller & Listhaug, 1998; Van De Walle

et al., 2008). Rather, citizens want more services and higher quality policies from

government and expect that government should actively tackle various social prob-

lems (Carvalho & Brito, 2012; Hetherington & Husser, 2012). In this regard, many

governments, including the United States and the United Kingdom, seek to increase

the capacity of public employees (Hameduddin & Fernandez, 2019). While one can

define the capacity of public employees from several perspectives, the current

research focuses on the capacity for voluntary and proactive behaviors by organi-

zational members to achieve organizational purpose. As proxy measures of those

behaviors, it employs innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior

(OCB), both of which can be considered as a type of extra-role behaviors of

employees.

For higher performance of government, public employees need to be more active

in identifying critical social issues, creating initiatives to solve them, and taking

risks as policy entrepreneurs (Bhatti et al., 2015; Teske & Schneider, 1994). For

example, in dealing with the recent COVID-19 pandemic problem, the Korean gov-

ernment showed its entrepreneurship by rapidly adopting innovative diagnostic

methods such as drive-through and walk-through tests. However, proactive actions

sometimes fail. In tackling the same issue, the Korean government alleviated the

“social distance” policy after the national election in April. The decision was made

against the warnings of experts from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (KCDC) and the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases (KSID), which

resulted in the second outbreak of COVID-19. In addition, some public employees

have been slow to confront environmental changes due to their passivity and blame

avoidance (Hansson, 2015; Hood, 2010). Scholars in the field of public administra-

tion have also been slow to address this issue (Hinterleitner, 2017; for exceptions,

Howlett, 2014; Weaver, 1986).

Seeking to fill the gap, this research asks the following research questions: What

organizational and individual factors lead to innovative behavior and OCB of public

employees? How does the lack of organizational support interact with individual fac-

tors in affecting those behaviors? This research examines which factors facilitate or

suppress those behaviors, and it mainly relies on the perceived organizational support

(POS) theory and the job demand-resource (JD-R) model in identifying core anteced-

ents. Accordingly, organizational, task, and motivational characteristics are considered

as the determinants. In detail, the research considers cooperative culture, capacity of

change management, and lack of organizational support as organizational characteris-

tics, while the task and motivational characteristics include autonomy, role conflict,

and public service motivation (PSM). In addition, this research also explores whether

a lack of organizational support moderates the effect of autonomy, role conflict, and

PSM on innovative behavior and OCB.