When employee performance management affects individual innovation in public organizations: the role of consistency and LMX

Abstract

Public sector challenges translate in more complex job demands that require individual innovation. In order to deal with these demands, many public organizations have implemented employee performance management. In a multilevel study, we examine when employee performance management affects individual innovation. We contribute by focusing on consistent employee performance management and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). Based on goal-setting theory, we first argue that employee performance management fosters individual innovation when it entails consistent subpractices. Subsequently, LMX is theorized to function as a moderator in this linkage. We use multilevel data from 68 elderly homes and 1095 caregivers in Flanders to test our hypotheses. The study reveals that individual innovation is related to consistent employee performance management, and that LMX functions as a moderator in this relationship. Our findings contribute to scholars' understanding of effects from employee performance management in public organizations.

We Know the Yin—But Where Is the Yang? Toward a Balanced Approach on Common Source Bias in Public Administration Scholarship

“…Examples include, for instance, studies on individual innovation in public organizations (e.g., Audenaert et al, 2016), perceived quality of strategic decisions (e.g., George & Desmidt, 2016) and HR outcomes such as JS, organizational commitment, and job involvement (e.g., Moynihan & Pandey, 2007). Taking into account the potential mediating role of such variables in explaining the public management-performance relation (Paauwe, 2009), editors, reviewers, and authors alike need to acknowledge their importance.…”

When does performance management foster team effectiveness? A mixed‐method field study on the influence of environmental extremity

“…When performance management is highly consistent, the same attitudes, values, and behaviors are set, monitored, and, eventually, evaluated during the overall performance management process (Audenaert et al, 2016;Karim, 2015). This eliciting, monitoring, and evaluating of the same required behaviors, attitudes, and values offers consistent guidance to teams (Audenaert et al, 2016;Decramer et al, 2013), fostering team effectiveness (Aguinis et al, 2013;Bowen & Ostroff, 2004). We expect that this effect of performance management consistency on team effectiveness is amplified by higher levels of environmental extremity.…”

“…By frequently repeating and reconfirming the same values, behaviors, and attitudes, performance management consistency offers the team something that is responsive to their own efforts. These aspects are minimally affected by the unexpected events (Audenaert et al, 2016), which teams that operate in high levels of environmental extremity encounter frequently (Hällgren et al, 2018). As such, performance management may secure team effectiveness, even when the demands of the work environment are extremely high (Bechky & Okhuysen, 2011;Driskell et al, 2017).…”

When innovation requirements empower individual innovation: the role of job complexity

“…HRM can pursue the formation of job-level perceptions that are in accordance with the intended job characteristics. These collective perceptions can be pursued by providing a consistent message about job characteristics across the HRM system (Audenaert, Decramer, George, Verschuere and Van Waeyenberg, 2016;Bowen and Ostroff, 2004;Tsui and Wang, 2002). Furthermore, the emergence of job-level perceptions can be followed up in existing job satisfaction surveys.…”