Organizational Climate, Leadership, Organization Size, and Aspiration for Innovation in Government Agencies

Scholars of organizational innovation emphasize the importance of employees’ perceptions and point to dissatisfaction with the status quo as a force facilitating innovation adoption and innovative behavior. This study applies the efficiency-focused perspective on innovative behavior to explore how perceptions of organizational climate and leadership explain employees’ aspiration for innovation in public organizations. It notes that the association of the predictors varies according to organization size (number of full-time employees). Using samples of full-time employees in South Korean government agencies, regression analyses suggest that employees’ perceptions of the hierarchical climate, as opposed to the innovative climate, relate positively to their aspirations for organizational innovation. One unexpected result is the positive association of the current facilitative leadership with the criterion variable. Organization size moderates the influence of the predictors, except for the current facilitative leadership. The academic and practical implications of these findings are presented in the discussion and conclusion section.