A Conceptual Framework to Measure the Innovative Behaviour of Employees and To Automatically Analyze the Affecting Variables

Abstract

The UAE’s organizations are driven to achieve the Vision 2021 to become a competitive knowledge economy and one of the key performance indicators is to keep improving the gross innovation index until UAE becomes the most innovative nation by the year 2021. To that effect, the organisations are experiencing an innovation movement and contributing through various innovation initiatives to achieve the national objective. Hence, it becomes quintessential to measure the innovative practices implemented in an organisation and the growth and sustainability of the innovation will be determined by the behaviour (innovative) of the employees. The main research objective is to develop a conceptual framework to electronically measure the innovative practices and the innovative behaviour of the employees working in the higher education organisations in UAE. The epistemological belief that the innovative behaviour of employees is contingent on the context of the organizational setting, the constructivist research paradigm has been applied to investigate the research. The primary data has been collected using the interview method and the secondary data is collected through a systematic review of literature extracted from the various database using the keyword search criteria. Thematic analysis and Narrative analysis has been conducted to analyse the data.

The study has been conducted in the context of UAE higher education organisations. The educators working in private organisations (local and international) were interviewed to determine the constructs of innovative behaviour, associated measures, and the affecting variables. The research found that the innovative behaviour is context specific and is dependent on micro and macro variables; the dominating ones being the organizational policies, the degree of employee engagement and the leadership style. The data can be captured through employees recording the new practices or methods or ideas implemented by them on the official portal on pre-set frequency interval and record the variables that prompted them to implement the innovative practice and/or prevented them to implement the innovative practice. The conceptual framework to measure the innovative behaviour and the practical model to analyze the affecting variables will assist policymakers to capitalize on the behavioural promoter variables and take relevant measures to achieve organizational as well as national objectives.