Envisioning, planning and innovating: a closer investigation of proactive goal generation, innovative work behaviour and boundary conditions

Purpose. Building on goal-regulation theory, we examine a) whether the regulatory elements of proactive goal generation, namely envisioning and planning, can sequentially stimulate individual innovative work behaviour, with planning acting as a mediator in the envisioning–innovation relationship and b) whether the link between envisioning and planning can be strengthened by the joint contributions of psychological empowerment and team support for innovation (TSI). Design/Methodology/Approach. Data were collected from 268 employees of five Italian companies. Findings. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses indicated that planning was positively predicted by envisioning, and partially mediated its effect on innovative work behaviour. In addition, employees who were highly involved in envisioning activities reported the highest levels of planning when both psychological empowerment and TSI were high. Implications. The results of this research indicate that an effective means by which managers and practitioners can increase employees’ innovative efforts is by encouraging their involvement in proactive goal setting and goal planning activities. Additionally, our findings highlight the importance of creating an innovation-supportive team environment and nurturing individual psychological empowerment to increase the odds that employees will translate their envisioned proactive goals into effective action plans. Originality/Value. This is the first study to assess the envisioning–planning mechanism in relation to innovation, thus advancing our understanding of how individual and contextual conditions can amplify the effects of envisioning on planning activities.