The Impact of Research and Development and Professional New Hiring on Organizational Innovation

Abstract

Organizational innovation is highly dependent on the inflow of relevant information and proper integration of this information in the operational processes for a process, product and service innovation. Employee engagement and social connectedness of employees have been cited as key methodologies of integrating new information from research and development and professional new hiring. The study investigated the impact of research and development and professional new hiring on organizational innovation jointly mediated by employee engagement and social connectedness. A structural equation model was adopted for the study. The estimator adopted in testing the hypothetical model and the hypothesis was a maximum likelihood. A comparative analysis of the single mediating and the joint mediating of employee engagement and social connectedness was conducted. The results indicated that professional new hiring and research and development activities have a statistically significant indirect effect on organizational innovation through a joint mediation of social connectedness and employee engagement. The threshold for the model fitness was satisfied. The study, based on the findings on both the decomposed and final model, concludes that employee engagement and social connectedness jointly influence the relationship between the research and development and professional new hiring on organizational innovation better than the single mediation.