How having job impact leads to employee innovative behavior: a moderated mediation model of servant leadership and work meaningfulness

• Date: 23 August 2023
• Pages: 382-403
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-11-2022-0254
• Published date: 23 August 2023
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: Safeya Almazrouei,Shaker Bani-Melhem,Faridahwati Mohd Shamsudin

How having job impact leads

to employee innovative behavior:

a moderated mediation model

of servant leadership

and work meaningfulness

Safeya Almazrouei, Shaker Bani-Melhem and

Faridahwati Mohd Shamsudin

Department of Management, College of Business Administration,

University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Purpose –Prosocial job characteristics have received the least scholarly attention among the antecedents of

employee innovative work behavior (IWB). Hence, antecedents’role remains largely unknown, especially in

public sector organizations. Based on the relational job design theory, job characteristics theory (JCT) and

public sector innovation literature, the authors examine whether job impact (JI) promotes public sector

employees’IWBmediated by work meaningfulness (WM). This study also assesseswhether servant leadership

(SL) strengthens the influence of JI on IWB (via WM).

Design/methodology/approach –The model was examined on a sample of 180 employee-supervisor dyads

(90 supervisors and 180 employees) recruited from various government departments in the United Arab

Emirates (UAE).

Findings –The finding supports the proposed moderated mediation model in which JI enhances IWB.

The association between JI and innovative behavior via WM is found to be stronger under high SL

behavior.

Originality/value –The authors’findings offer prescriptive insights into SL’s crucial role in illustrating

when and how JI promotes IWB and offer relevant managerial recommendations for encouraging public

sector employees to demonstrate innovative behavior. The authors also provide empirical evidence on

the significant contribution of a prosocial job characteristic, i.e. JI, to IWB. In addition to having

theoretical and practical significance, the authors’study is aligned with the UAE National Innovation

Strategy 2015.

Keywords Job impact, Work meaningfulness, Innovative work behavior, Servant leadership,

Public sector organizations

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

During the past decade, the public sector has rapidly transitioned from a heavily bureaucratic

system toward a more integrated market-based and private sector model of management (De

Vries and Nemec, 2013;Thøgersen, 2022) to address the challenges related to productivity,

cost savings and service quality, forcing organizations to redesign and re-scope their

processes, structures and systems (Hijal-Moghrabi et al., 2020). The United Arab Emirates

(UAE) public sector is no exception (Bani-Melhem et al., 2023). For public sector organizations

to be innovative in their operations, they need people who can demonstrate innovative work

behavior (IWB). However, scholarly work on this topic in the public sector is limited

compared to the private sector (Baafi et al., 2021;Houtgraaf, 2022) due to the stereotypical

portrayal of the former as being “change resistant”,“sluggish”and inept (Houtgraaf, 2022;

Bani-Melhem et al., 2022). In their systematic review of barriers to public sector innovation

process, Cinar et al. (2019) identified organizational factors, such as rigid organizational

IJPSM

36,4/5

382

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

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Received 29 November 2022

Revised 18 February 2023

12 May 2023

9 July 2023

Accepted 2 August 2023

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 36 No. 4/5, 2023

pp. 382-403

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-11-2022-0254

structure/culture, hindered primarily the innovation process. Borins (2001) highlighted that

asymmetric incentives, lack of venture capital and adverse selection against public service

careers as additional obstacles.

Several antecedents of innovative behavior have been considered in the public sector

innovation literature. De Vries et al. (2016) reviewed public sector innovation research

between 1990 and 2014 and identified four categories of antecedents: organizational level

(e.g., structural and cultural features), environmental level (e.g., political mandate),

innovation level (e.g., complexity of innovation) and individual level (e.g., empowerment).

However, they failed to list job-level antecedents possibly because they focused on public

administration journals only. However, previous studies have reported the constraining

effects of job design, such as red tape, on public sector employees’work outcomes (Blom

et al., 2021). We draw from job design theories and their variants in the organization/

management literature to address this void and examine a specific prosocial job

characteristic, i.e., job impact (JI), defined as an employee’sjob’s impact on various

beneficiaries (Grant, 2007) to contribute to the public sector literature because this job

characteristic resonates with public sector jobs to make a positive change in other people’s

lives (Grant, 2007,p.394).

The job characteristics theory (JCT; Hackman and Oldham, 1980) postulates that the

structural characteristics of the job (i.e., task significance, task identity and skill variety) are

likely to induce individuals to experience a psychological state of perceived meaningfulness,

defined as the degree to which work duties have a positive implication and aid accomplish

purposes in line with an individual’s principles and values (Mostafa and Abed El-Motalib,

2020). We draw from this theory to test whether the influence of prosocial characteristics,

such as JI, on IWB is mediated by WM.

The role of leadership in shaping employees’work attitudes and behaviors has been

empirically well-documented (Gelaidan et al., 2022). Servant leadership (SL) style is argued

to be the most suitable for public sector managers (Luu, 2016;Nguyen et al.,2023) because

suchleadersstrivetohelpothersbeforethemselves, promote their employees to their

highest potential and aim to serve the community, which is the ultimate goal of the public

sector (Liden et al., 2015;Gnankob et al., 2022). Empirical evidence also suggests that SL

enhances IWB of public sector employees (Nguyen et al.,2023). However, whether such

leadership further strengthens the effect of JI on WM and subsequently IWB is yet to be

ascertained.

Purpose of study

Based on the gaps identified above, we examine the direct effect of JI on IWB, investigate the

mediation of WM in the JI-IWB link and test whether SL moderates the influence of JI on WM

and subsequently, IWB.

Relevance and significance of study

Our study contributes to the limited literature on public sector employee IWB in several

ways. Firstly, drawing from job design theories and public sector innovation literature, we

test a moderated mediation model (shown in Figure 1) to offer new insights into how (and

why) JI promotes IWB through the mediation of WM, as a potential psychological

mechanism and when the influence is further heightened. The validity of our model has

both theoretical and practical significance in promoting IWB in public sector organizations

in the UAE.

We focus on JI because it is the key feature of public sector jobs (van der Voet et al., 2017),

captures the prosocial purpose of the public sector (Grant, 2008b, p. 49) and because serving

the public and making a difference in people’s lives motivate individuals to find employment

Job impact

and employee

innovative

behavior

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