(The Effect of Organizational Innovation and Employee Empowerment on Job Performance: A Case of an Industrial Firm)

Abstract

Purpose - Today it can be possible for the firms to increase their innovation performance when the employees whose talents are needed reveal their creative thoughts and ideas. Organizations that enable employees to reveal their creative ideas will be able to survive in the competitive environment. Both job performance and organizational innovation performance will change with employee empowerment. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of employee empowerment and organizational innovation on job performance. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, a questionnaire was administered to 300 employees of Tekkan Inc, which is operated in Kocaeli and produces byproducts of Arçelik Inc. 175 complete questionnaires were included in the study. Organizational innovation performance of the employees was measured by using the 17-item organizational innovation scale developed by Wang and Ahmet (2004). To measure employee empowerment, Spreitzer’s (1995) Psychological Empowerment Scale – a 12-item questionnaire with the dimensions of meaning, competence, self-determination and impact- was used. Job performance was measured by using the 4-item job performance scale developed by Kirkman and Rosen (1999). SPSS program was used to analyze the data, and validity and reliability analyses were carried out for all scales. In the study, factor analysis, correlation and regression analyses were performed to measure the relationship and impact level of the variables. Findings - As a result of the research, employee empowerment and organizational innovation performance were found to have an effect on job performance. Discussion - The relationship between organizational innovation factors such as process and product innovation, behavioral innovation and strategic innovation and job performance has been tried to be determined, and the relationship between employee empowerment factors such as meaning factor, selection factor, impact factor and competence factor and job performance has been investigated.