The present study integrated a number of streams of research on the antecedents of innovation to develop and test a model of individual innovative behavior. Hypothesizing that leadership, individual problem-solving style, and work group relations affect innovative behavior directly and indirectly through their influence on perceptions of the climate for innovation, we used structural equation analysis to test the parameters of the proposed model simultaneously and also explored the moderating effect of task characteristics. The model explained approximately 37 percent of the variance in innovative behavior. Task type moderated the relationship between leader role expectations and innovative behavior.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/256701.pdf

Determinants of innovative behavior: a path model of individual innovation in the workplace

This study examined the independent and joint contributions of employees' creativity-relevant personal characteristics and three characteristics of the organizational context—job complexity, suppor...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/256657.pdf

Employee Creativity: Personal and Contextual Factors at Work

An explanation of the effects of leader behavior on subordinate satisfaction, motivation, and performance is presented. The explanation is derived from a path-goal theory of motivation. Dimensions of leader behavior such as leader initiating structure, consideration, authoritarianism, hierarchical influence, and closeness of supervision are analyzed in terms of path-goal variables such as valence and instrumentality. The theory specifies some of the situational moderators on which the effects of specific leader behaviors are contingent. A set of general propositions are advanced which integrate and explain earlier fragmentary research findings. Several specific predictions are made to illustrate how the general propositions can be operationalized. The usefulness of the theory is demonstrated by showing how several seemingly unrelated prior research findings could have been deduced from its general propositions and by applying it to reconcile what appear to be contradictory findings from prior studies. Results of two empirical studies are reported that provide support for seven of eight hypotheses derived directly from the general propositions of the theory. A third study designed to test three of the original eight hypotheses is also reported. Two of these three hypotheses are successfully replicated. In the light of these results and the integrative power of the theory, it is argued that the theory shows promise and should be further tested with experimentallas well as correlational methods.

A Path-Goal Theory of Leader Effectiveness

Social cognitive theory provides an agentic conceptual framework within which to analyze the determinants and psychosocial mechanisms through which symbolic communication influences human thought, affect and action. Communications systems operate through two pathways. In the direct pathway, they promote changes by informing, enabling, motivating, and guiding participants. In the socially mediated pathway, media influences link participants to social networks and community settings that provide natural incentives and continued personalized guidance, for desired change. Social cognitive theory analyzes social diffusion of new styles of behavior in terms of the psychosocial factors governing their acquisition and adoption and the social networks through which they spread and are supported. Structural interconnectedness provides potential diffusion paths; sociocognitive factors largely determine what diffuses through those paths.

Social cognitive theory of mass communication

Based on the innovation and technological diffusion literatures, promising research questions concerning the implementation of a production and inventory control information system material requirements planning: MRP are identified and empirically examined. These questions focus on the interaction of managerial tasks with the information technology and the resulting effect on the adoption and infusion of that technology.

Using a random sample of manufacturing firms across the United States, we find that this interaction does indeed affect the adoption of MRP, though it does not seem to affect MRP infusion. These results support the notion that though rational decision models may be useful in explaining information technology adoption, political and learning models may be more useful when examining infusion.

Information technology implementation research: a technological diffusion approach

Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates for Research and Development

This chapter describes a method for analyzing panel data to indicate which of two intercorrelated variables is more likely to have "causal priority" over the other. A Goal of much scientific research is to identify variables which, when they change themselves, influence other variables. Such influences among variables may be called "causal relationships." The pairs of cross-lagged relationships between height and weight were not different, and they were slightly lower than the simultaneous correlations. To explore further the cross-lagged correlation method, we applied it to a set of panel data dealing with economic behavior. In a series of studies conducted by the Survey Research Center's Economic Behavior Program with support from the Ford Foundation, a national sample of approximately 800 urban families was interviewed in November 1954, and again in November 1955. The network has some interesting characteristics from a sociological standpoint. Dominating almost all the other variables as a determinant was actual change in family income.

Donald C. Pelz

Papers

Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates for Research and Development

Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates for Research and Development

Detecting Causal Priorities in Panel Study Data

Influence: a key to effective leadership in the first-line supervisor.

Caution profile and driving record of undergraduate males