Innovative work behaviour in public organizations: Does human capital play a role?

Studies deepening our understanding on the association between innovative behaviour and creativity at both individual and collective levels are scarce, specifically in knowledge-intensive organizations such as healthcare. Focusing on the healthcare setting, this study hypothesizes a direct effect between individual creative self-efficacy, creative collective efficacy, and innovative work behaviour. The hypotheses are tested using survey data from 446 clinicians working in public healthcare organizations in 6 different Italian regions. Findings suggest that both managers’ creative self-efficacy and their perceptions about creative collective efficacy are determinants of their innovative work behaviour. The research enters the debate of creativity and innovation behaviour with a focus on the healthcare settings. Our findings provide both theoretical and practical implications and highlight the importance of constructing and developing managers’ efficacy in creativity at both individual and team levels in order to incentivise the emergence of innovation behaviour in knowledge-intensive organizations in general and healthcare organizations in particular. Further research is needed to assess the existence of mediating and/or moderating mechanisms underlying that relationships emerging from this study in order to provide decision-makers with suggestions about how to diffuse innovation and creativity in healthcare organizations.