Job demands, perceptions of effort‐reward fairness
and innovative work behaviour
Janssen, O. (2000)
● Job demands -> instigators of work actions
● Workers are demanded to undertake prescribed work behaviours -> meet standards of
performance mandated by organisational work roles
○ No or very little demand to perform innovative work behaviours (generating,
promoting and realizing innovative ideas for improvements)
● Innovative work behaviour (IWB) is widely claimed to be crucial for the effective
functioning and long-term survival of organizations.
● Foundation of all innovative improvement = ideas -> coming from employees who
develop, carry, react to and modify ideas
● Aim of the study: explore the relationship between job demands and IWB using a
social exchange theory framework:
○ Higher job demands -> higher levels of innovative activities from employees ->
to cope with the intensified job requirements
○ The extent to which employees perform more innovatively in response to higher
job demands -> contingent on fairness perception of the ratio between effort
spent and reward received at work
■ The primary aim of this study was to investigate how fairness
perceptions of the ratio between effort spent and reward received at
work regulate the relationship between job demands and innovative
work behaviour (IWB).
Definition of innovative work behaviour
● Innovative work behaviour (IWB) = the intentional creation, introduction and application
of new ideas within a work role, group or organization, in order to benefit role
performance, the group, or the organization.
○ IWB is restricted to intentional efforts to provide beneficial novel outcomes.
○ Profits from innovation could include both better functioning of the organization
and social-psychological benefits for individual workers or groups of individuals,
such as:
■ A more appropriate fit between perceived job demands and a worker’s
resources
■ Increased job satisfaction
■ Better interpersonal communication
● IWB in the workplace has three different behavioural tasks:
○ Idea generation: the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain
■ Instigators can be: perceived work-related problems, incongruities,
discontinuities, emerging trends
○ Idea promotion: once the idea is generated, the employee has to engage in
social activities to find friends, backers and sponsors surrounding an idea, or to
build a coalition of supporters who provide the necessary power behind it
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, ○ Idea realisation: producing prototype or model of the innovation that can be
experienced and ultimately applied within a work role, a group or the total
organization
● Simple innovations -> completed by individual workers
● More complex innovations -> require teamwork based on a variety of specific
knowledge, competence, and work roles
● Innovation processes -> characterised by discontinuous activities -> individuals are
expected to be involved in any combination of these behaviours at any time
○ These behaviours are not directly or explicitly recognised by the formal reward
system -> they are discretionary actions that go beyond prescribed role
expectations
Job demands and innovative work behaviour
● Job demands: psychological stressors such as requirements of working fast and hard,
having more work to do within little time, a heavy workload.
○ Higher job demands -> provide an elevated state of arousal in a worker ->
according to person-environment fit theory, this state activated a worker to cope
by adapting to intensified demands or by modifying his or her work context:
■ Adapting oneself: updating skills and abilities in order to match the
heavy job demand
■ Adapting the workplace: modifying task objectives, working methods,
job approaches, job design, allocation and coordination of tasks,
interpersonal communication
● Dealing with heavy workload -> innovative activities are seen by workers as an
effective way
● Innovative work behaviour may help the individual to improve his or her fit with higher
job demands by generating, promoting, and realizing ideas for modifying oneself or the
work environment.
Perception of effort-reward fairness as a moderator
● The extent to which employees exert innovative activities as a response to job demand
-> might be influenced by other work contextual perceptions:
○ Workplace fairness: could be a condition that could inhibit or facilitate employee
extra-role work behaviours -> this is what this study explores: how perceptions
of effort-reward fairness shape the relationship between job demands and IWB
using a social exchange theory framework.
● Social-exchange theory -> employee behaviour can be captured in terms of two types
of exchange:
○ Economic exchange: a formal transactional contract designed to specify the
conditions of employment and the exact nature of what is exchanged on a quid
pro quo or calculated basis
○ Social exchange: relationships that entail unspecified future obligations, did
not specify the exact nature of future return for contributions, is based on
individuals’ trusting that the exchange parties will fairly discharge their
obligations in the long run, and allow exchange parties to reciprocate through
discretionary, extra role acts.
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