Fostering Innovative Work Behavior Among Plantation Workers in

North Sumatra, Indonesia by Applying Employee Growth Climate

Vivi Gusrini Rahmadani

, Rahma Fauzia

and Dina Nazriani

Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Jl. Dr. Mansur, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Employee Growth Climate, Innovative Work Behavior, Plantation Workers, North Sumatra

Abstract: North Sumatra, Indonesia has a large plantation area and extensive agricultural industry, and this industry was

proven giving benefits for the national income of this country. However, to develop the national agro-industry

in the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) era, innovative human resources in agro-

industry should become the building blocks for the companies to survive and to stay competitive. The current

study focuses on the effect of employee growth climate on innovative work behavior. 607 plantation workers

from one of the biggest companies in the agro-industry in North Sumatra, Indonesia were participated in this

research. The result show that to increase the employees’ innovative work behavior that consist of three

components: idea generation, idea promotion, idea implementation, the company should aware of its

organizational climate that support the employees to be innovative, which called employee growth climate.

A growth climate is an organizational climate or work environment which perceived by the employees where

the organizational practices, policies, and procedures encourage employee professional growth and

development. Thus, the companies in the agro-industry should adapt to the current disruptive business

challenges by nurturing the innovative behavior of their employee by providing supportive climate and

enforcing practices and policies that stimulate innovation.

1 INTRODUCTION

Every company or organization has a goal to be

achieved. Companies or organizations need assets

that can help achieve these goals. One of the most

valuable assets for the company is human resources

(HR). HR is all humans involved in a company in

order to strive for the realization of company goals.

The contribution of people within the company is the

most important thing for organizational effectiveness.

One of the contributions that employees must make is

to create new things in the company. A study says that

80% of ideas come from company employees and

only 20% come from planned innovations that have

been set by the company.

Innovation is a fairly broad and growing concept.

One form of innovation is innovative work behavior.

Innovation is at the organizational or company level,

while innovative work behavior is simpler.

Innovative work behavior focuses on people working

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3726-5585

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9600-3489

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1694-0414

in a company. Kheng, Mahmood, and Beris, (2013)

describe innovative work behavior as employee

actions directed at the generation, implementation

and implementation of new ideas, products,

processes, and methods for their job positions,

departmental units, or organizations.

Innovative work behavior is very important to

support the achievement of company or

organizational goals. Innovative work behavior can

change an organization, but unfortunately this

discussion is still often ignored or underestimated.

Much research has focused on innovation within

organizations, but little has focused on individual

processes for innovating. This is supported by the

opinion of Amo (2005) which states that most

researchers studying the process of change in

organizations mainly focus on organizational or

management characteristics that are the source of

innovation and organizational change initiatives, but

rarely studies that focus on employees. Furthermore,

446

Rahmadani, V., Fauzia, R. and Nazriani, D.

Fostering Innovative Work Behavior Among Plantation Workers in North Sumatra, Indonesia by Applying Employee Growth Climate.

DOI: 10.5220/0011904500003460

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 2022) - Human Security and Agile Government, pages 446-451

ISBN: 978-989-758-618-7; ISSN: 2975-8300

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

the innovative work behavior structure is not yet

robust enough to measure the required differences.

Janssen (2000) says that the ability to innovate

and improvise products, services, and work processes

is crucial in today's organizations. Every employee

needs both the desire and the ability to innovate if s/he

wants to realize her/his innovation. Research

conducted by Solomon, Winslow, and Tarabishy

(2004) found that organizational climate is an

essential factor that may influence innovative

behavior in individuals. Organizational climate

reflects the beliefs and psychological meanings of

each employee to the environment and tries to make

it happen. Organizational climate is defined as a set

of behaviors, attitudes, and feelings, which are seen

on a daily basis in the organizational environment and

every person from the organization experiences and

understands it. Moreover, organizational climate is

the perception that employees share, and the meaning

they associate with practices, procedures, policies,

and behaviors in the workplace that are supported,

valued, and expected by the organization. The current

study investigates the employee growth climate

which is in line with Schneider's (1975) argument that

the characteristics of organizational climate depend

on two climates, namely the overwork climate and the

employee growth climate.

This innovative work behavior can be seen in

Agro-industry companies, because the territory of

Indonesia is a very large area of agriculture and

plantations, especially in North Sumatra, known as an

agricultural country with advanced and developing

agro-industry. However, continual technological

advances, dynamic and unpredictable social and

political turmoil, as well as the pandemic situation

that has hit the whole world, including Indonesia, are

the main obstacles to strengthening the agro-

industrial sector. Despite many obstacles,

agribusiness has enormous potential to make a

significant contribution to the progress and change of

economic growth. In the context of developing a

national agro-industry in the VUCA (Volatility,

Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) era, the

government encourages the industry to take active

steps which include ensuring the achievement of

goals and objectives and continuing to foster a spirit

of innovation and improvement. so that business

actors are always ready to anticipate the worst

scenario.

The role of human resources for plantation

workers is seen as critical and strategic targets for

increasing competitiveness and productivity in the

industrial sector have been achieved in terms of the

contribution of agricultural exports to national

exports, but not in terms of human resources (HR)

productivity. This research has been conducted in

North Sumatra, Indonesia to describe the effect of

organizational climate, especially employee growth

climate on innovative work behavior among

plantation workers.

2 HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

Innovative work behavior is defined as the creation,

introduction, and application of new ideas in a job,

group, or organization to benefit the performance of

an individual, group, or organizational role, thereby

improving organizational function. Apart from that,

innovative work behavior is also defined as the

intentional development, introduction, and

application of new ideas in job roles, groups or

organizations for the appropriate roles of group or

organizational performance including adequate

promotion and application of creative ideas. Li and

Zheng (2014) suggest that innovative work behavior

is influenced by organizational innovation

atmosphere factors. Organizational innovation

atmosphere refers to individual perceptions about

whether the organization provides a conducive and

safe environment for learning and innovation, and to

what degree. The atmosphere of organizational

innovation will directly affect the innovative

behavior, capabilities and organizational

performance of employees. If employees perceive a

safe work environment (secure), then innovation

behavior is easier to implement.

Organizational innovation atmosphere is closely

related to organizational climate, organizational

climate is defined as a perception shared by

employees, and the meaning they associate with

workplace practices, procedures, policies, and

behaviors that are supported, valued, and expected by

the organization. The current study investigates the

employee growth climate as mentioned by

Schneider's (1975) that there were two climates,

namely the overwork climate and the employee

growth climate. The current study focuses on the

effect of employee growth climate on innovative

work behavior.

Organizational climate is related to an important

job investment, the climate of employee growth. A

high performance climate maximizes engagement,

resulting in better business outcomes. Studying the

influence of psychological safety climate on job

involvement in educational institutions. The study

revealed that a climate of psychological security

predicts the level of teacher involvement after one

Fostering Innovative Work Behavior Among Plantation Workers in North Sumatra, Indonesia by Applying Employee Growth Climate

447

year of increased job resources. The current study

adopts a similar approach, but focuses on the

employee growth climate, including organizational

practices, policies, and procedures that promote

employee growth and professional development.

Employee growth climate is related to the availability

of job resources where job resources increase

employee engagement. Various scholarly works have

documented how job resources such as performance

feedback, social support, job control, learning and

career opportunities, increase employee engagement.

When an organization views employee growth as

important, feedback practices reinforce learning and

innovation. Organizational policies that stimulate

employee careers provide a conducive and safe work

environment with a focus on the strengths of each

employee, namely the employee growth climate. The

higher the organizational climate that facilitates

employees to achieve goals by rewarding them when

they take responsibility and work, the more engaged

workers will be to fulfill their work goals.

Furthermore, the employee growth climate

encourages creative thinking and new solutions from

employees. Thus, a climate like this will strengthen

the connection of the workers involved to carry out

innovative work behaviors.

Thus, we formulate:

Ho: There is no positive relationship between

employee growth climate and innovative work

behavior.

Ha: There is a positive relationship between

employee growth climate and innovative work

behavior.

3 RESEARCH METHODS

3.1 Sample and Procedure

607 plantation workers were included in this research.

They all men and come from the biggest companies

in the agro-industry in North Sumatra, Indonesia

especially in producing the crude palm oil. The

measuremant scales were distributed directly to the

workers in a sealed enveloped due to a confidential

guarantee of their responses. The mean age of the

praticipants was 44.6 years (SD=7.7); and more than

half of the participants (59.6%) had completed

secondary education, and only less than 20% of them

had completed a higher education; futhermore, more

than half of the participants (56.5%) had over 20

years of job tenure. In sum, the workers were

experienced workers working in operational levels

with routine tasks in the plantation such as the planter,

the harvester, the land clearer, the plant nurture, and

so on. The entire data collection process took three

months due the varied sites and locations of the

company.

3.2 Measurument

The measurement scale consisting of two summated-

rating questionnaires, was used to measure innovative

work behavior and employee growth climate. All

items in the questionnaires were translated from

English into Bahasa Indonesia following the double

translation procedure.

a. Innovative Work Behavior

The four-item innovative work behavior

questionnaire was used to assess innovative work

behavior. Three components were involved: idea

generation, idea promotion, and idea application, with

sample items such as "I create new ideas for difficult

issues," "I make important organizational members

enthusiastic for innovative ideas," and "I introduce

innovative ideas into the work environment in a

systematic way." All items were measured on a rating

scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly

agree). Cronbach's alpha values for this scale were

0.92.

b. Employee Growth Climate

Six out of eight items of the employee growth climate

questionnaire developed by Schaufeli (2015) were

used. The plantation workers evaluated the extent to

which their organization encouraged their growth and

development. The sample of items included “In the

organization where I work, employees are

encouraged to come up with new ideas and

solutions.” All items were measured on a rating scale

ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly

agree). Cronbach's alpha values for this 7-item scale

were 0.79, whereas when eight items were used, the

values went down to 0.72. Thus, one item was

deleted.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Descriptive Statistic

Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics. Table

1 presents the mean scores, standard deviations,

between the study variables.

ICOSOP 2022 - International Conference on Social and Political Development 4

448

Table 1: Mean scores, Standard Deviations, between the

Study Variables.

Table 1

N Min Max Mean

Std.

Deviation

IWB

607 9 45 30.75 7.449

EGC

607 11 30 25.01 2.688

Valid N

(listwise)

607

4.2 Testing of Hypotheses

Based on the results of a simple regression test, it is

proven that the significance value is 0.000 <0.05, so

it can be concluded that the employee growth climate

variable has an effect on the innovative work

behavior variable. Furthermore, seen from the simple

linear regression equation model, namely Y = a + b

X, then the value of Y changes to 11.224 + (.781) X.

This means that if innovative work behavior (Y)

increases, then employee growth climate (X) will

increase by .781. In other words, this research shows

that the higher the level of employee growth climate,

the higher the level of innovative work behavior.

Table 2.

Model

Unstandarized

coefficients

Standarized

Coefficients

t Sig.

Beta

Std.

error

Beta

Constant

EGC

11,224 2,719

.282

4.128 .000

.781 .108 7.224 .000

Based on the results of the model summary, the

magnitude of the relationship value is 0.282. From the

output, the coefficient of determination (R-squared)

is 0.078, which means that the employee growth

climate variable has a 7.8% impact on the innovative

work behavior variable.

Table 3.

Model R R Square

Adjusted R

Square

Std. Error of

the Estimate

1 .282

.079 .078 7.153

4.3 Discussion

Based on the analysis, the results of the study reveal

that the employee growth climate has a positive

influence on the innovative work behavior of

employees. This result shows that the higher the level

of employee growth climate, the higher the

employees’ innovative work behavior. The results of

this test conclude that the research hypothesis is

supported. The result of this study is in line with

previous research that showed employee growth can

also be seen as a positive organizational climate that

provides employees with job resources and thus, from

Resource Conservation Theory, enabling employees

to achieve positive work outcomes, that is, innovative

work work. The higher the organizational climate that

facilitates employees to achieve goals by rewarding

them when they take responsibility and work, the

more strongly engaged workers will fulfill their work

goals innovatively. This is also in accordance with

research conducted by Solomon, Winslow, and

Tarabishy (2004) which found that organizational

climate is an essential factor that may influence

innovative behavior in individuals.

The results of the research between the employee

growth climate variable and innovative work

behavior have a relation of 0.282 and the coefficient

of determination (R Square) is .078, which implies

that the effect of the employee growth climate

variable on the innovative work behavior variable is

7.8%. This is in accordance with research that

organizational climate has an impact on innovation.

Churchill, Ford, and Walker (1976) have suggested

that organizational climate displays perceptions of

work situations, organizational characteristics and

how the relationships between employees in everyday

life. Several foreign studies have shown that

innovative behavior has nothing to do with

organizational climate. In line with previous research,

De Jong and Den Hartog (2008) found an

insignificant relationship between the two constructs.

Meanwhile, other studies say that there is a significant

relationship between innovative behavior and

organizational climate.

5 LIMITATION AND FUTURE

RESEARCH DIRECTION

This study only involves one source of data –from the

workers– and one method to evaluate our theoretical

model, which was a self-report measurement scale.

Spector claims that the issue of common method

variance (CMV), a bias that occurs when both

predictors and predicted variables come from the

same source, is exaggerated, however, we still

recommend future studies to collect data using

multisources and mix methodologies. Furthermore,

the current study relied on a small sample of data from

a single Indonesian agricultural holding company,

Fostering Innovative Work Behavior Among Plantation Workers in North Sumatra, Indonesia by Applying Employee Growth Climate

449

raising concerns about generalizability. Thus, caution

is advised when applying our findings to other

organizations. Again we suggest to future researcher

to replicate this study to increase the robustness of the

research model.

6 CONCLUSIONS

There is a positive and significant relationship

between employee growth climate and innovative

work behavior among the plantation workers. Hence,

the higher the workers perceived the company has

employee growth climate, the likely the worker will

show innovative behavior at work. Thus, organization

and management should aware that the way they

build certain climate in the organization, it relates to

the higher the workers will engage in innovative work

behavior. Innovative work behavior is crucial not

only in a non-routine-high technology jobs, but also

in the low-operational level jobs. This state-owned

company should nurture the innovative behavior of

their workers by providing supportive climate and

enforcing practices and policies that stimulate

innovation.

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