Employee Innovativeness And Corporate Performance Of Selected Insurance Companies

INTRODUCTION

• Background Information to the Study

Organizations have increasingly become interested in creativity and innovation, in part as a response to the pressures associated with globalization, competition, economic factors, and technology changes. Many organizational leaders recognize creativity as an opportunity for gaining a sustainable competitive advantage. To remain competitive in the global market, organizations must continuously develop innovative and high quality products and services, and renew their way of operating. In the heart of all innovation lies creative ideas and it is in individual employees, who alone or in groups, generate, promote, discuss, modify and realize these ideas (Scott & Bruce 2020). Clearly, organizations are becoming more vulnerable to environmental threats and shocks, irrespective of their varied objectives or type. It is the duty of managers or heads of organizations to pursue the necessary means through which it can thrive and surmount pressures or changes prevalent in the environment taking into cognizance the nature of such change; be it sudden or otherwise. Changes could come as a result of shock, crisis, or organizations disconnection with the environment (Coleman & Adim, 2019).

It is therefore not surprising that innovative employees are the chief currency for contemporary organizations. Arising from this, question how to promote and support employees’ innovativeness presents a key issue that faces academics and organizational managers. Employee innovativeness can be defined as an engagement in innovative behaviours, which includes behaviours related to the innovation process, i.e. idea generation, idea promotion and idea realization with the aim of producing innovations (Ramamoorthy, Flood, Slattery & Sardessai 2015). Innovations which have to do with the implementation or adoption of ideas can in turn be categorized as either technological (changes in products, services, production processes) or administrative (changes in activities, social processes, structures), and as either radical or incremental, depending on the extent of their influence for existing products or service (Damanpour 2018).

Employee innovativeness requires that the individual is able and willing to be innovative. With respect to abilities, such employee should possess above average general intellect, certain cognitive capabilities, general skills and task and context-specific knowledge. These are facilitators of innovativeness (Taggar 2022). Beyond knowledge and skills, innovativeness requires intrinsic motivation and a certain level of internal force that pushes the individual to persevere in the face of challenges inherent in the creative work (Shalley & Gilson 2018). Moreover, the internal force keeps the employee going even when the challenges are successfully overcome. Employee innovativeness can thus be examined throughout the innovation process, from the initial idea generation to product development and eventually to product commercialization, or to the adoption of new processes or structures in the organization (Axtell, Holman, Unsworth, Wall, Waterson & Harrington 2019; Vincent, Decker & Mumford, 2020).

Corporate performance is viewed as the total wellbeing of business entity in terms of results measurable against resources committed to achieve predetermined goals or objectives (Agwu, 2018). One of the major issues that preoccupy the minds of most business owners and/or managers is their firm performance in the marketplace (Tseng, Lan, Lu, & Chen, 2013). Thus, corporate performance has been regarded as a primary dependent variable in the field of strategic management (Gupta & Wales, 2017). This is so because, the core aim of strategic management revolves around the provision of answers to the ultimate question of why some business firms outperform others despite they all operate in and face the same business environmental challenges.

Indeed, an organization’s investment into employees may tremendously benefit the company and the individuals who work for it. According to Awan and Sarfraz (2013), it aids in the growth of individuals to become more industrious, allowing the company to function better. Employees are key basis of financial success for a corporation, thus investing in employees may boost workers innovation as well as financial returns (Hitt, Bierman, Shimizu, & Kochhar, 2021; Pfeffer, 2018). Assisting individuals in developing knowledge, competency, and skills strengthens the organization’s human capital. Individuals are more qualified to accomplish their duties, which benefit the organization in general (Cunningham, 2022). According to the resource-based approach by Barney (2015), employee innovativeness is determined by how successfully managers construct their companies nearby resources that are treasured, scarce, unique, and cannot be replaced. Because employees has the skill and sense of innovation, the business should look after and safeguard them, as doing so can boost the overall corporate performance.