What Drives Innovation? The Interplay Between Job Characteristics, Personal Resources, and Teachers' Proactive Behavior

• In Event: Professional Networks for Educational Change

Abstract

Individual teachers’ future-oriented engagement is central to schools’ capabilities for change and innovation. Drawing from the organizational psychology construct of proactive behavior and the Job Demands - Resources Model, this study investigates how time pressure, job resources (flexibility and innovative climate) and personal resources (teachers’ professional knowledge, self-regulation and self-efficacy) contribute to teachers’ individual proactive behavior in a sample of N = 130 German teachers. While direct effects of job characteristics are non-significant, the results point to personal resources as directly influential factors, as well as to their mediating effect on the impact of job resources on teachers’ proactive behavior. Consistent with previous research, reverse effects of teachers' proactive behavior on their subsequent personal resources are evident.

Authors

• Verena Jörg, DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education

• Ulrike Hartmann, DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education

• Mareike Kunter, DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education