CC BY
51
DOI https://doi.org/10.18551/rjoas.2018-06.11
DOES SPIRITUALITY AT WORK HAS AN IMPACT ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PASSION AND INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOR OF EMPLOYEE?
Fajri Detha Alfrian
Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Administrative Science, University of Brawijaya, Indonesia E-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to determine the influence of work passion and spirituality at work on the innovative behavior of the employee. This research uses a quantitative research method which involves ninety-four respondents spread evenly throughout SMEs and Islamic cooperatives in Malang, East Java, Indonesia. The quantitative method was conducted by giving questionnaires to respondents. There are three measuring instruments used in this study, namely, work passion that has a reliability value of 0.735, spirituality at work with a reliability value of 0.937, and employee's innovative behavior by 0.789. The first regression test showed a value of 0.290 or 29%. This means that there is a correlation between the variable of work passion on innovative behavior. On the other hand, the second regression test revealed that the previous result has increased to 0.293 or 29.3%. By looking at these results, it can be concluded that the presence of spirituality at work (moderating variables) is able to strengthen the relationship between work passion and innovative behavior of SMEs and Islamic cooperatives in Malang.
KEY WORDS
Work, behavior, employee, SME, spirituality.
The aspects of human life have been influenced by the globalization of the world. In the field of economy, this creates a highly competitive business environment in Indonesia either in the field of trading, manufacturing, or services. Therefore, with this competitive business condition, companies are encouraged to conduct self-improvement in order to maintain the organization. This makes the company try to be smarter in order to improve its performance to remain relevant in the competition. As a result, the company becomes more incentive to find a way that is more innovative for a maximum company's performance.
The challenge to keep on competing is intensified with the entry of millennial generation in the industrial world today. BPS (2014) mentioned that there are 61.8 million people aged 16-30 years old who have work participation by 60.01% in Indonesia. This means that more than 40% of the total Indonesian workforce is dominated by millennials.
In 2010, the Pew Research Center said that the millennial generation has five distinctive characters such as independent, confident, expressive, passionate, and open to change. In the context of Indonesia, this generation also has high religious character. The results of the survey released by Nielsen Consumer Media View Q3 (2015) indicates that there are 84% of Indonesian millennial generation who agreed with the statement of "faith is an important thing to have". Moreover, it is mentioned that the top five most popular Android apps in the category of Books and Reference are sequentially occupied by MYQuran Al Quran Indonesia, Encyclopedia Hadith 9 Imam, Alquran Bahasa Indonesia, iQURAN, and MyQuran Indonesia.
The millennial employees are very concerned about the value that exists in their work and where they work. By that, if the values that exist in the company are not in accordance with their values, it will be very easy for them to resign from work. This is evidenced by a survey from Jobstreet.com (2015) revealing that 1 of 5 millennial employees chose to resign from work due to an unhappiness. On the other hand, it is also known that 1 of 3 employees resigned from work because they claim that the work is not in accordance with their interests.
A high turnover rate would be very detrimental to the company. Therefore, companies should keep those employees as much as possible especially those who have high performance.
Karakas (2010) in the perspective of human resource management explained that the absence of spirituality in the workplace will lead to job stress, low attendance, and burn out which Pines & Maslach (1993) defined as fatigue syndrome. This fatigue syndrome, both physically and mentally, develops negative self-concept, lack of concentration, as well as negative work behavior. The situation makes the atmosphere in the work to be cold and unpleasant. Moreover, the dedication and commitment of the employees will decrease so that the performance becomes not optimal. This makes employees distant and does not want to be involved with the environment. Conversely, the presence of spirituality in the workplace encourages them to be empowered and increases the commitment to the organization as well as work productivity. Karakas (2010) further described that spirituality in the workplace will be very profitable for the company because of the creation of employee engagement in the midst of a very fierce talent competition in the 21st century (Beechler & Woodward, 2009).
Within the philosophical perspective, it is possible to have a very materialistic tendency if the employees do not feel spirituality in the workplace. This will create a mindset that money is everything (material oriented) and even meaningless feelings in the work. In contrast, a spirituality that can be fulfilled by the company will increase employees' creativity and job satisfaction up to the point where they feel very meaningful. As a matter of fact, this is the main factor which drives employee performance.
In the perspective of personal relationship, the absence of spirituality in the workplace will produce an overly individualistic employee. There will be no social cohesion among employees and the connectivity among employees will also be low. The low social capital among employees will have an impact on the company because it caused a poor flow of information so that there is no sharing of information between them. This resulted in silos that will make the best practices within a division cannot be transferred properly to other divisions. If this continues to happen, the organization will experience a knowledge stagnation even though the knowledge is in the form of tacit knowledge. Otherwise, spirituality in the workplace will increase the cohesiveness among employees so that the social capital grows among them. The growth of social capital is not only important for employee job satisfaction but also for a company that fully understands the employee's role in improving the value of the company as Vinet Nayar (2010) has described in the book "Employee First, Customer Second".
Not only spirituality, in order to maximize the company's performance, an innovation from the employees is needed. Innovation becomes a key word in today's increasingly complex competition. Without innovation, a company will experience a stagnation and will eventually be kicked in the competition. Larsen and Lewis (2007) stated that one of the most important characters of an entrepreneur is the ability to innovate. A company will not last long without innovation. This is due to the changing of customer needs, desires, and demands. Customers will not always consume the same product. They will look for other products from other companies that can satisfy their needs. For that reason, it needs continuous innovation if the company wants to go further and survive.
West and Farr (1990) defined innovation as a deliberate introduction and application, processes, ideas, products, and new procedures for the organization. Innovation can be understood through individual, group, and organizational approaches. In this study, innovation is discussed in an individual approach. West (1997) believed that some of the features of innovative behavior are the tendency to create new ideas, the tolerance of ambiguity, the desire to be effective, the innovative orientation, and achievement.
Innovative behavior is often associated with creativity. Indeed, both of these traits are related but the constraints of innovative behavior and creativity have various differences (De Jong, 2007). Creativity can be said as the beginning of innovation process whenever a problem occurred and then an idea emerges in response to the need for innovation (West, 2002 in De Jong, 2007). Whereas, innovative behavior focused on a more complex process as it addresses up to the application of ideas (Janssen et al., 2004 in Carmeli et al., 2006).
Kleysen and Street (2001) wrote that innovative behavior is formed by five components, namely: (1) Opportunity Exploration, which means to learn or know more about the opportunities to innovate; (2) Generativity, which leads to the emergence of concepts for the purpose of development; (3) Formative Investigation, which means paying attention to perfecting ideas, solutions, opinion, and investigation; (4) Championing, which means the practices of business to realize ideas; (5) Application, which means trying to develop, test, and commercialize such innovative ideas.
The companies which are identified as Firms of Endearment (foes) truly understand that today's employees no longer work just to get a salary. They work to find the true meaning of life (meaningful work). As mentioned in Sisodia et al., (2007) in the book;
"In the Age of Transcendence, people are looking for more than a paycheck from their work; they want "psychic income" as well as monetary income. People want work that engages the whole person, work that fulfills social needs, work that is meaningful — psychologically rewarding. People want to view their work as a calling."
In connection with what Sisodia et al., (2007) has mentioned that employees who produce optimal performance in the company's FoEs are that "People want work that engages the whole person, work that fulfills social needs, work that is meaningful — psychologically rewarding" or "psychic income". This can be interpreted as spirituality in the work or with the concept of work passion by Zigarmi et al., (2009) which have several operational definitions, namely: (1) individual's persistent; (2) emotionally positive; (3) meaning-based; (4) state of well-being stemming from reoccurring cognitive and affective appraisals of various job and organizational situations that results in consistent; and (5) constructive work intentions and behaviors. With that explanation, it can be said that work passion also has a role to improve performance.
Therefore, this research would like to examine deeply the effect of work passion on employee's innovative behavior mediated by spirituality at work. The research will be conducted to the employees of SMEs and Islamic cooperatives in Malang. In everyday life, they have direct contact with customers so as to affect the sales performance of the outlets.
METHODS OF RESEARCH
Research Design. This research was carried out by using the quantitative approach with the consideration that the aim of this study is to test the theory, build facts, and show the relationship between variables studied. Sarwono (2006) proposed that quantitative approach emphasizes the existence of variables as research objects which will be tested with hypotheses through statistical formulas and certain analytical techniques. The primary data source is obtained from questionnaires answered by the respondents while the secondary data is collected from literature books, research journals, and newspaper articles.
There are two hypotheses in this study, which are:
H1: The variable of work passion directly affects employee's innovative behavior;
H2: The variable of spirituality at work strengthens the positive relationship between work passion and innovative behavior.
Research Model. The mind framework in this study is illustrated in the chart below:
Note:
Work Passion (X1) is an Independent Variable Spirituality at Work (X2) is a Moderator Variable Innovative Behavior (Y) is a Dependent Variable
Figure 1 - Research Model
Research Participants. As explained before, the population and sample in this research are all employees of SMEs and Islamic cooperatives in Malang. The researchers used probability sampling technique that provides equal opportunities for each member of the population to be selected as a sample (Sugiyono, 2014). The type of probability sampling chosen is accidental sampling which is the determination technique of the sample is by coincidence. The coincidence in this context means that anyone who happens to meet the researchers can be used or is suitable as a sample (Sugiyono, 2014). Initially, the respondents are 63 people but the valid data that can be used in this study is only 45 people.
Validity and Reliability Test of the Measuring Instrument. The researchers performed the validity and reliability test of the first measuring instrument in advance. As a result, the validity value of the measuring instrument after being tested for the variable of work passion, spirituality at work, and employee's innovative behavior is proven to be valid. Three of these measuring instruments are declared valid because all items can be used due to the significance value that is less than 0.05. This means that all items are valid to use.
The result of reliability test on work passion is conducted by using Cronbach Alpha analysis which has a reliability coefficient by 0.735. Then, spirituality at work has a reliability value by 0.937 while the employee's innovative behavior has a reliability value by 0.789. The power parameter of the different item in the form of total correlation coefficient describes the appropriateness of the item's function with the measuring instrument's function in revealing individual differences (Azwar, 2005). The measuring tool used is reliable because it has a Cronbach Alpha value that is bigger than 0.60.
RESULTS OF STUDY
Participant Overview. The valid data of the respondents which can be tabulated is 45 people consisting of 27 male employees and 18 female employees.
Table 1 - General Overview of Participants by Sex, Work Period, Age, and Spending per Month
Characteristics Category Amount Total Percentage Total
Sex Male 53 94 56% 100%
Female 41 44%
Work Period < 2 years 45 94 49% 100%
2-5 years 34 36%
5-8 years 8 9%
> 8 years 5 6%
Age 18-25 y.old 62 94 66% 100%
26-30 y.old 22 24%
31-35 y.old 5 5%
36-40 y.old 4 4%
> 40 y.old 1 1%
Spending per Month < IDR 3 million 80 94 90% 100%
IDR 3 - 7 million 8 9%
IDR 7 - 11 million 1 1%
IDR 11-15 million 0 0%
> IDR 15 million 0 0%
Based on Table 1, it can be seen that the number of male respondents is as much as 60% and the number of female respondents is as much as 40%. Respondents who are in the age range of 18-25 years old are 8.9% followed by 51.1% in the age range of 26-30 years old, 6.8% in the age range of 31-40 years old, and 2.2% in the age range over 40 years old. Besides that, there are 15% of the respondents who have a work period less than 2 years and 47% in between 2-5 years. Respondents with a working period of 5-8 years are 38% and there are no respondents whose working period is more than eight years. The last descriptive data is the monthly expenditure or spending of the respondents. It is known that there are 20% of them who spent less than IDR 3,000,000,- per month and 80% of them have a monthly expenditure between IDR 3,000,000,- up to IDR 7,000,000,-.
Hypothesis Testing. Based on the results of multiple regression tests, it is seen that the significance value is less than 0.05 which is 0.000. By that, the results of linear regression test accept Ha and reject Ho. It can be said that there is an influence of spirituality at work and work passion on employee performance. From the calculation of significance value, it can be known that the influence of work passion to employee's innovative behavior is mediated by spirituality at work. According to the result of a linear regression test, it is known that work passion has 29% effect on innovative behavior. Whereas, if work passion is moderated by spirituality at work, the influence of innovative behavior will be higher (29.3%). This means that spirituality at work has a positive effect on employee's innovative behavior.
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
The results of the research that are correlated to the first independent variable (work passion) and dependent variables performed by using simple linear regression test show that R = 0.538. This points out that there is a correlation between work passion and employee's innovation behavior. There is a close relationship since the R-value is close to 1. The value of R square (R2) = 0.290 indicates that the contribution of work passion on employee's innovative behaviors is 29% while the other 71% is influenced by other variables that are not included in this model. The relationship between work passion and employee's innovative behavior is caused by the passion of the employee accommodated by the organization that sheltered it. This is in line with what Permarupan et al., (2013) has delivered that passion becomes very important in improving employee performance. Therefore, an organization can give a sense of work meaningfulness that is more than just generating profit.
Work autonomy, flexibility, growth opportunities in employment, collaboration, work recognition, and a sense of connection with colleagues and organizational mission are essential to improve employee performance. In addition, the organization must ensure that the processes and procedures that exist in the organization are fair and consistently applied to all employees.
The first regression test generated a test value by of 0.290 or 29% meaning that there is a correlation between work passion and innovative behavior. On the one hand, the result of the second regression test obtained a test result that rose by 0.293 or 29.3%. By looking at these results, it can be concluded that the existence of spirituality at work (moderating variable) is able to strengthen the relationship of work passion to employee's innovative behavior on SMEs and Islamic cooperatives in Malang.
According to the data analysis, the dimension of spirituality at work that has the most influence on employee's innovative behavior is the dimension of meaningful work. Gupta et al., (2013) described meaningful work as the condition where employees receive the organization's goals, proud of their work, and contribute to the organization. Employee contributions here can be understood as an intrinsic motivation to work on a challenge. As Amabile (1988), Barron & Harrington (1981) argued, intrinsic motivation is a key driver of employee civility. The giving of unstructured tasks can also generate more creativity than the regular and narrow work tasks and scope. In general, employees will respond positively as they are challenged to produce interesting solutions as long as they have a sufficient scope. Sometimes, it is the management's perception that makes employees not able to innovate because they are judged to have less creative potential or ability to innovate even though they have not been given the opportunity to do it.
On the data analysis, it is found that the dimension of spirituality at work is the dimension of organizational values. This indicates that the employee feels that the company or organization has treated the employees fairly. This is similar to the statement of Milliman, Czaplewski, and Ferguson (2003) that the value of spirituality at work at the organizational level is the enforcement and maintenance of personal values and their conformity with organizational values (alignment of values). This can strengthen the relationship between work passion and employee's innovative behavior.
From the results of multiple regression tests, it can be seen that the significance value is less than 0.05 which is 0.000. Based on these results, the results of linear regression test
accept Ha and reject Ho. This can be said that there is an effect of work passion that is moderated by spirituality at work to the employee's innovative behavior. Moreover, the calculation of significance value shows that the effect of work passion will be greater on employee's innovative behavior if it is moderated by spirituality at work on SMEs employees and Islamic cooperatives in Malang.
Based on the analysis that has been discussed, the conclusion of this study is that work passion affects employee's innovative behavior. Besides that, the existence of spirituality at work (moderating variable) will be able to strengthen the relationship between work passion and employee's innovative behavior on SMEs and Islamic cooperatives in Malang.
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