Do autonomous and trusting hospital employees generate, promote and implement more ideas? The role of distributed leadership agency
European Journal of Innovation Management
ISSN: 1460-1060
Article publication date: 27 October 2020
Issue publication date: 3 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Employees constitute an important source of innovation in organizations. Innovation management strategies often include attempts of stimulating employees' innovative contribution by instilling managerial trust and granting job autonomy. However, the authors suggest and investigate the role of employees' distributed leadership agency (DLA) in hospital employee-driven innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested the hypotheses using survey data from 1,536 nonmanagerial employees at a hospital in Denmark. In order to deal with a methodological risk of survey designs, the authors assessed and adjusted the results for common method variance (CMV).
Findings
The authors validated a DLA measurement instrument and found an indirect relationship between job autonomy and trust in management on the one hand, via DLA, and with idea generation, promotion and implementation on the other hand. In addition, the results showed a small direct relationship between job autonomy and the three innovative behaviors. The results showed that CMV did bias relationships and reliabilities but only little.
Practical implications
The study introduces distributed leadership to the field of innovation management and confirms that this concept is highly relevant for employee innovation. In order to strengthen an organization's innovative potential, leaders may not only need to grant autonomy and instill trust in their employees, but also gain from employee innovation by distributing leadership tasks to employees.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to introduce distributed leadership to the field of employee innovation management. By identifying distributed leadership as a key variable, the findings add to one’s extant understanding of how employee involvement encourages employee innovation.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Professor Hans-Jeppe Jeppesen. The project was funded by The Velux Foundation, project no. 904123.
Citation
Jønsson, T.F., Unterrainer, C.M. and Kähler, H.G. (2022), "Do autonomous and trusting hospital employees generate, promote and implement more ideas? The role of distributed leadership agency", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 55-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-08-2019-0234
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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