Company innovative values differentiation in the context of personal mechanisms of employee proactivity and work types

Abstract

A culture that supports personnel initiatives is of critical importance when building a holistic mechanism for the innovative development of an organization. At the same time, in both theory and practice, there is a lack of understanding of the reasons behind the insufficient effectiveness of such cultures. We assume that this is a consequence of employees’ selective perception of company innovative values, which is due to differences in the personal mechanisms of proactivity (PMP) of employees performing different types of work. The study aims to identify the innovative values corresponding to the PMP and the nature of employees’ work. The methodological framework of the research is the concepts of personal initiative and proactive behavior of employees. The data are obtained from six companiesin the city of Perm (Russia) during a survey of 265 employees, whose work implies taking the initiative (creating new intelligent products and services, promoting and selling products). The research method is a questionnaire based on the model of company values that are focused on workers initiatives, and three types of PMP – self-leadership, self-development and engagement. To process the data, the author uses PLS analysis and SPSS software platform. As a result, we identify three groups of corporate values that support employees’ proactive behavior: (a) in the field of sales and promotion of products and services – values of leadership and personal success; (b) in the creation and development of intelligent products and solutions – self-directed learning, creative search and innovation; (c) regardless of the type of professional activity – engagement in improving the organization’s activity. The obtained results make an additional contribution to understanding the mechanisms of the influence of innovative culture on the initiative behavior of personnel.