Reactive Innovation - Essay Example

Additionally, researchers have come up with three approaches that lead to employee empowerment. These include feministic theory, structural empowerment, and psychological empowerment (Jeannette and Roland, 2009). Based on the fact that nurses are not included in the oppressed group, this study covers structural and psychological empowerment theories as a theoretical framework.

Aim of the research based on four key hypotheses

This research aimed to investigate the relationship between structural empowerment as well as psychological empowerment and innovative behavior. This was undertaken using four hypotheses as indicated below.

Hypothesis 1(H1): There is a positive relationship between innovative behavior by nurses and structural empowerment.

Hypothesis 2(H2): There exists a positive correlation between innovative behavior by nurses and psychological empowerment.

Hypothesis 3(H3): Through psychological empowerment, structural empowerment leads to more innovation by nurses.

Hypothesis 4(H4): The extent to which psychological empowerment leads to innovative behavior is significantly influenced by structural empowerment.

Methods

In its effort to study the relationship between structural as well as psychological empowerment and innovative behavior, this research involved 847 nurses who were working in two Netherlands-based hospitals that were aiming at forming a merger.  Work Effectiveness Questionnaire II was used to measure structural empowerment. On the other hand, psychological empowerment was measured by psychological empowerment instrument. To measure the innovative behavior of the nurses, the Dutch questionnaire innovative behavior that was established by de Boer was emulated (Jeannette and Roland, 2009).

To ensure that adequate information was collected to come up with proper analysis, this study collected data from February and March 2007. This was followed by dividing the questionnaire that consisted of 58 items into four major categories. These included structural empowerment, innovative behavior, demographic data, and psychological empowerment. To enhance the response from the interviewers, the research adopted various techniques that included a cover letter, stamped envelopes, follow-ups, in-house newsletters, and book tokens. Confidentiality and ethics during the research were upheld by emulating the guidance of the ethics committee and the use of code numbers.

By the use of the SPSS Version 12.0 the data was analyzed. This entailed the use of Q-Q plots also referred to as normal probability plots to identify whether the distribution was normal. According to the t-Test that was conducted on the data collected, Jeannette and Roland, 2009 study indicated that 6.2% of the missing values differed statistically significantly from the average obtained from the innovative behavior. The notable method that this study used to identify the relationship between variables was the bivariate tests of correlation. In the same way, regression analyses and one-way analyses of variance were conducted to test the hypothesis.

Results

The studies indicated that 92.6% of the respondents were female within the age of 41-44 years and those who were married with children. Additionally, 75% of the respondents indicated that they had worked for more than 5 years or more in the hospitals. By the use of the clinical specialty as one of the categories, 37.6% of the respondents had worked as specialty nurses while 46.9% had worked in general wages. Through the analysis that was conducted using Pearson correlation, the study indicated a positive relationship between structural empowerment and innovative behavior as depicted in hypothesis 1. Similarly, the study indicated a statistically significant relationship between psychological empowerment and innovative behavior. Being a mediator between structural empowerment and innovative behavior, psychological empowerment was confirmed to be having an impact on the performance of nurses thus meeting hypotheses 3 and 4.

Discussion

The major limitation that faced this study was that the hospitals were in the process of merging. This created a weak relationship between variables within the organization. This study indicated that psychological and structural empowerment leads to innovative behavior among nurses. The research also pointed out that nurses’ power and positions within an organization make them adopt innovative behavior that is essential for the growth of their organizations. In the same way, nurses with higher psychological empowerment are deemed to undertake a higher innovative behavior as compared to nurses with low psychological empowerment. Jeannette and Roland (2009) argue that the key issue that future researchers need to incorporate is to study the personal characteristics and culture of the nurses in various work settings and their implications on innovative behavior.