Purpose The purpose of this article is to examine whether employee learning strategies is a mechanism through which job design affects the employee innovation process. In particular, we test whether work-based learning strategies mediate the relationship between job design characteristics (job control and problem demand) and key components of the innovation process (idea generation, idea promotion, and idea implementation). Design/Methodology/Approach Data were collected from a survey of 327 employees in a UK manufacturing organization. Findings Structural equation modeling confirmed the mediating role of learning strategies in the relationship between job design and idea generation. The effects of job control on idea generation were mediated by work-based learning strategies and the effects of problem demand on idea generation were partially mediated by work-based learning strategies. Problem demand also had a direct relationship with idea generation and idea promotion. The findings provide support for the general idea that learning is a mechanism thorough which job design affects outcomes. Implications The results of the study show practitioners that creating jobs with high control or high problem demand can help to promote the employee innovation process; and that this is partly due to the role that such jobs play in stimulating the use of learning strategies at work. Originality/Value This article develops and tests a new theoretical model that explains how learning is a route through which job design influences employee innovation.

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This article describes a study carried out to investigate the relationship between individual scores on the Innovation Potential Indicator (IPI), a measure of individual innovation behaviors for use in personnel selection, and the Team Selection Inventory (TSI), an individual-level measure of a person's preferred team-working climate for innovation. Results from a sample of 142 Greek employees found that the Motivation to Change scale of the IPI positively correlated with all of the TSI scales, and that the Adaptation scale positively correlated with the TSI's Vision and Task Orientation scales. Findings are discussed.