The contribution from employees to organizational development and innovation is underestimated and under-explored. Even so, employees contribute to the innovation process in several ways. Some achievements are proactive in the sense that they represent intentional constructional change. In this dissertation, employee innovation behavior is defined as behavior related to the development of new products, the development of new markets, or improvement of business routines within their organization. The empirical basis for this dissertation is three surveys with 634, 153, and 555 respondents and a qualitative study examining four cases. The findings reported in this dissertation show that employees involve themselves in innovation behavior in order to benefit their organization. An organizational strategy of entrepreneurship is utilized to explain employee behavior. The motivational factors that employees find stimulating with regard to innovation behavior are also discussed. Moreover, the dissertation indicates how involvement in innovation behavior can be implemented at several organizational levels. Characteristics of the organization and employees are found to be associated with employees’ innovation behavior. These characteristics are portrayed and discussed. The findings in this dissertation have importance in relation to promoting employee innovation behavior when designing an organization, and when choosing employees to fill the specific organizational roles.

Doctoral thesis (Ph.D.) – Bodø Graduate School of Business, 2005