A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Izold Guihur and Gilles Marcoux
leadership could exert a positive impact on the employees’ affective commitment. Other studies also
suggest that dimensions related to transformational leadership are positively related to the affective
commitment of the employees (Kent andChelladurai, 2001). As mentioned earlier, transformational
leadership favours practices such as communication of the vision, group decision-making, and
mentoring (Bass et Avolio, 1994). These practices help increase the employees’ zone of autonomy
and creativity. Employees feel more supported by the organization and hence trust that the
organization counts on their skills to outperform the competitors Thus, it appears that transformational
leadership engages the employees, which favours their affective commitment towards the
organization (Koreket al. 2010).
Proposition 2: Transformational leadership is positively related to the employee’s affective
commitment.
Through the perspective of psychological contract breaches, Ng et al. (2010) show that the
employees’ affective commitment affects innovation-related behaviours on the part of employees.
The more their affective commitments is decreased due to psychological contract breaches, the less
they contribute ideas and the less they work to implement innovations in the organization. On the
positively related dynamics, Andries and Czarnitzki (2011)indicate that non-managerial employees’
ideas significantly contribute to small firm innovation performance, especially when process
innovation is involved. Based on these results, it appears that the emplyees’ affective commitment of
affects the innovation performance of the small firm.
Proposition 3: In small firms, the employees’ affective commitment is positively related to the
innovation performance of the organization.
As mentioned earlier, some human resource practices represent important mobilizing levers for the
employees. Indeed, Tremblay et al. (2005) report that training practices are positively related to the
organizational commitment of the employees. However, these studies have not compared the impact
of formal and informal training practices on commitment. And although some research link coaching
activities to supportive leadership towards the employees (Agarwalet al. , 2009; Ellingeret al., 2010),
we have not been able to identify studies that establish a clear and significative relationship between
transformational leadership, managerial coaching and employees’ organizational commitment.
Nevertheless, Elmadaget al. (2008) report that informal competence development pratices, such as
managerial coaching, were positively related to employees’ commitment towards service quality. It
would certainly be justified to assessthe influence of managerial coaching on organizational
commitment in the context of transformational leadership.
Proposition 4: In a context of transformational leadership, informal training through managerial
coaching is positively related to the employees’ affective commitment.
On the other hand, Simardet al.(2005) have shown that empowerment practices, like consulting
employees within a decentralized perspective, had a positive influence on organizational commitment.
Fabiet al. (2010) alsofind that increases in employees’ autonomywere positively related to
organizational commitment. More specifically, Malhotraet al. (2007) indicate that employees’
autonomy and participation to decision-making had positive effects on their affective organizational
commitment.Also, more recent studies have shown a positive relationship between psychological
empowerment and organizational commitment, within a transformational leadership context (Avolioet
al. 2004; Ismail et al. 2011). Transformational leadership promotes the use of feedback, bringing a
feeling of support and trust on the part of the employees, and encouraging them to be creative and to
contribute to the success of their organization (Ismail et al. 2011).
Proposition 5: In a context of transformational leadership, psychological empowerment is positively
related to the employees’ affective commitment.
Mobilizing human resource practices, like training and empowerment, appear to have a positive
influence on organizational performance in terms of profitability and social climate in SMEs
(AïtRazouk and Bayad 2011), profitability (Guerrero and Barraud-Didier 2004), and productivity
(Appelbaumet al. 2000). Raquibet al. (2010) concludethat empowerment practices, psychological
empowerment incuded,could contribute to better organizational performance.Despite the growing
interest for the influence of mobilizing human pratices on the organizational performance, no study
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