Information sharing and innovative work behavior: The role of work‐based learning, challenging tasks, and organizational commitment

• Author: C. Odoardi,L. Piccione,C. Vandenberghe,Adalgisa Battistelli,G. Di Napoli
• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21344
• Published date: 01 September 2019

QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Information sharing and innovative work behavior:

The role of work-based learning, challenging tasks,

and organizational commitment

Adalgisa Battistelli

1

| C. Odoardi

2

| C. Vandenberghe

3

| G. Di Napoli

4

|

L. Piccione

4

1

Department of Psychology EA4139,

University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux Cedex,

France

2

Department of Education and Psychology,

University of Florence, Florence, Italy

3

HEC Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

4

Italian Air Force, Rome, Rome, Italy

Correspondence

Adalgisa Battistelli, Department of Psychology

EA4139, University of Bordeaux, 3 ter, place

de la Victoire, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France.

Email: adalgisa.battistelli@u-bordeaux.fr

The present study examines a model linking perceived information

sharing as a Human Resource Management practice to employee

innovative work behavior, using survey data collected from

756 employees of a military organization. Work-based learning,

challenging tasks, and organizational commitment were used as

factors that could account for the relationship between information

sharing and innovative behavior. Using structural equation

modeling, findings indicated that information sharing had a positive

relationship with task-related and interactional dimensions of

work-based learning. Task-related learning had a positive relation-

ship with innovative behavior through challenging tasks while inter-

actional learning had an indirect, positive relationship to innovative

behavior via organizational commitment and challenging tasks. This

article contributes to extend knowledge about the role of informa-

tion sharing and work-based learning in innovative work behavior.

It also breaks new ground by uncovering potential antecedents of

innovative behavior in military organizations.

KEYWORDS

challenging tasks, information sharing, innovative work behavior,

military organizations, organizational commitment, work-based

learning

1|INTRODUCTION

Promoting and fostering innovation has become a strategic objective for all types of organizations: private and public,

profit and nonprofit, and large and small companies. In the past 30 years, organizational scholars, practitioners, and

managers have increasingly recognized the importance of innovation as a critical resource for ensuring effectiveness,

growth, and continuous development within organizations. Particularly, organizational scholars are interested in the

relationships between personal and contextual factors and employee innovative work behavior (Hammond, Neff,

DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21344

© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2019;30:361–381. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrdq 361

Farr, Schwall, & Zhao, 2011). Innovative behavior refers to the intentional generation, promotion, and implementa-

tion of new and useful ideas to benefit the individual, group, organization, and wider society (West & Farr, 1990). If

innovation is considered a strategic objective for the competitiveness and growth of companies, creating and sup-

porting innovation requires implementing specific Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and using particu-

lar workforce characteristics.

Organizations need employees with appropriate knowledge, skills, abilities, and other resources (KSAOs) and to

use HRM practices oriented toward promoting development and effective utilization of knowledge. Training and

development in organizations contributes to increase employees' explicit and implicit knowledge, which is necessary

to innovation, and builds competitive advantage. While explicit knowledge is developed through training courses and

other structured learning activities, implicit (or tacit) knowledge is developed through on-the-job experience.

“It is important to emphasize that human capital resources are likely not simply the aggregation of

individual characteristics to the organizational level, but rather are emergent, that is, they are influ-

enced by interactions among individual characteristics and team- and organizational-level factors

(Ployhart & Moliterno, 2011). This means that organizations’human resource policies and talent

management practices, including training and development initiatives, as well as the organizational

context (e.g., structure, culture, and work design) play an important role in the utilization and develop-

ment of human capital resources”(Noe, Clarke, & Klein, 2014, p. 246).

This article intends to fill important gaps in the literature on HRM practices and employee innovation. First, we

examine perceived learning in the workplace, and challenging tasks and organizational commitment as sequential

mechanisms through which the HRM practice of information sharing ultimately relates to employee innovation. As

such, we propose a processual model linking information sharing to innovative behavior, which provides a deeper

understanding of how the two constructs are related to one another. Second, we explore the neglected role of chal-

lenging tasks and affective organizational commitment (hereafter organizational commitment) as mechanisms that

connect work-based learning to innovative work behavior. Thus, we make the case that work-based learning at least

partly leads to innovation because it helps employees craft their tasks and make them more challenging, and fosters

organizational commitment. Third, and more broadly, the present study attempts to clarify how HRM practices can

be framed to promote learning opportunities, and consequently innovative behavior. Finally, the present endeavor is

one of the first attempts to look at the antecedents of innovative work behavior in military organizations.

2|THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES

2.1 |HRM practices and innovative work behavior

In the last 30 years, psychological and managerial studies looked at identifying the effects of HRM practices on orga-

nizational and employee outcomes (Sanders, Shipton, & Gomes, 2014) such as business performance and productiv-

ity, and innovation and employee performance (Becker & Huselid, 1998). HRM practices can be defined as “all

management decisions and activities that affect the nature of the relationship between the organization and its

employees –the human resources”(Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Quinn Mills, & Walton, 1984, p. 1). Some scholars focus

on systems of HRM practices, like high-performance work systems (Collins & Smith, 2006; Huselid, 1995; Huselid &

Becker, 1996) and high-commitment HRM (Walton, 1985). The HRM practices often considered are hiring, training

and development, participative decision-making, and performance appraisal (Boselie, Dietz, & Boon, 2005; Combs,

Liu, Hall, & Ketchen, 2006). Other researchers focus on the effects of specific HR practices, such as recruitment and

selection, training, performance appraisal, and team working. Laursen and Foss (2003) proposed a nine-dimension

model of HRM (grouped into two HRM systems), including interdisciplinary workgroups, quality circles, systems of

employee proposals, planned job rotation, delegation of responsibility, integration of functions, performance-based

362 BATTISTELLI ET AL.