How to promote managers’ innovative behavior at work: Individual factors and perceptions

With the rapid development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), digital technology changes how banks translate new customer demands into new products and services. To achieve this translation, banks should increase their intrapreneurship capability through Individual-level Innovative Behavior (IIB).

However, research on how to manage and promote manager's IIB in the workplace is still at the nascent stage. Therefore, this study investigates an under-researched topic: how Perceived Organizational Innovativeness (POI) affects manager's IIB through self-leadership strategies, and whether perceived organizational risk-taking and the gender of the respondents facilitate or impede the process.

The study surveys 340 managers in the Turkish banking sector and analyses the results through SEM. The findings indicate that POI, self-leadership, and strategies of self-leadership are positively related to manager's IIB. Further, the results show that self-leadership fully mediates the relationship between POI and manager's IIB and that the perceived organizational risk-taking and gender of the respondents moderate the mediating effect of self-leadership on the relationship between POI and manager's IIB.

Overall, the contribution of the research is not only to gain a more holistic understanding of manager's IIB antecedents but also to provide managers or practitioners with guidance on designing organizational environments that encourage innovation in the technology-driven sector.