Effect of High Commitment Work System on Employee Innovative Work Behaviour in Public Universities in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

The vitality of innovative work behavior is crucial to the universities in today’s knowledge economy for their employee’s work performance and competitive advantages. This obligates public universities to embrace human resource practices that conform to the paradigm of high commitment work system for their sustainability. However, most organizations underestimate the importance of high-commitment work systems in driving their employee innovative work behavior without exception to Universities in Kenya. Despite this, there are limited studies on enhancing innovativeness amongst employees in the knowledge-intensive public sector organizations as public universities. Thus, the current study was designed to analyze the effect of High commitment work system on employee innovative work behavior in public universities in Uasin Gishu County. Pursuant to this, the study sought to; assess the effect of knowledge sharing on employee innovative work behavior, examine the effect of Job design on employee innovative work behavior, evaluate the influence of career development on employee innovative work behavior and assess the effect of inclusive leadership on employee innovative work behavior. This study relied on social exchange theory and theory of reasoned action. The research used a cross-sectional research design with a target population of 1982 employees in two public universities that is Moi University and University of Eldoret. A sample size of 333 respondents was determined using Slovins formular and a multi-stage sampling technique was used to narrow down to the sampling units. Self-administered questionnaire which was tested for validity and piloted at Egerton University to test for reliability was used for data collection. Scale reliability was ensured through a Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha of above 0.7, which is generally considered reliable. Validity was achieved by ensuring relevance of the research results with theoretical approaches and literature reviews. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics of correlation and simple regression analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 25.0. High commitment work system (Knowledge Sharing, Job Design, Career Development and Inclusive Leadership) on the dependent variable (Innovative Worker behaviour). From the finding of this study, each of high commitment work system indicators from simple regression results which included knowledge sharing, job design, career development and inclusive leadership had a positive and significant effect on innovative worker behaviour. Based on the significant t values each of high commitment work system indicators understudy have a statistically significant effect on innovative worker behaviour in public universities. Thus, the rejection of the null hypotheses. This has been illustrated empirically that the public universities management should strive to wholistically embrace the High commitment work system for maximal innovative work behaviour. The findings have contributed to human resource management in terms of providing valuable input to and awareness of the high-commitment work systems to consider with regard to enhancing innovative work behaviour.”