Designing innovative jobs: a fuzzy-set configurational analysis of job characteristics

Purpose How to design jobs to support innovation is an issue that has received plenty of consideration over the past years. Building on the job characteristics model, the present study is set up to identify configurations of perceived job characteristics for innovation. Design/methodology/approach By adopting a fuzzy-set configurational approach (fsQCA), the research question is addressed through a two-wave self-report survey of 199 employees of an Italian manufacturing company. Findings Results reveal four compatible configurations of job characteristics leading to high levels of innovative work behavior and two for low levels. Practical implications The results offer guidance for managers and organizations that aim to strengthen employee-driven innovation by offering different recipes of job design to maximize the chance of boosting innovative behaviors among their workers. Originality/value This research is one of the first to empirically test the relation of job characteristics for innovative behavior using a configurational approach. By doing so it contributes to the literature by advancing the notion that innovative endeavors are determined by the holistic effects of different interdependent configurations of job characteristics.