Joint effects of job demands and job resources on vocational teachers’ innovative work behavior

The purpose of this paper is to investigate interactions of job demands and job resources in the facilitation of innovative work behavior (IWB). In particular, the paper aims at researching interactive effects of psychological empowerment and participative safety and their potential to buffer negative effects of job demands.

A cross-sectional questionnaire study with 239 vocational teachers was carried out. For hypotheses testing, multiple linear regression models were analyzed.

The study provides evidence for psychological empowerment and participative safety as individual and interactive predictors of IWB. Furthermore, the findings indicate that effects of job demands are substantially more positive when psychological empowerment is high and, conversely, when participative safety is low.

Future studies should address the issues of the current study using a longitudinal approach and additional data sources. Moreover, concerning generalizability, future studies could move beyond the current study context of innovative vocational colleges and teachers.

The paper highlights the importance of creating resourceful work environments, which empower employees and provide fellowship and minority acceptance. Furthermore, the findings call for paying attention to individually varying perceptions of job demands and corresponding needs for compensatory job resources.

The study adds to closing the gap of lacking insight into interactions among established predictors of IWB. In particular, this regards interactions among demanding and resourceful characteristics of the work environment that need to be balanced in order to activate proactive behaviors such as IWB.