Is the crisis over? Fostering innovative work behaviour in response to the constant pressure of resource-deficiency for Street level Bureaucrats: the impact of psychosocial safety climate, teamwork, and work engagement

There is conflicting evidence first, about the extent to which organizational factors such as Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) and teamwork are antecedents of Street Level Bureaucrats’ (SLBs’) Innovative Work Behavior (IWB); and second, the extent to which their work engagement or burnout mediates the relationship. To address this gap in the literature, this study uses two theoretical lenses – Street Level Bureaucrat (SLB) and Conservation of Resources (COR) theories to examine whether employee engagement and burnout mediate the impact of organizational factors (Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) and teamwork) on Innovative Work Behavior (IWBs), using two theoretical lenses – Street Level Bureaucrat (SLB) and Conservation of Resources (CORs). The methods comprised a sample of 259 healthcare SLBs (doctors, nurses, allied health) collected at two time points, analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show that the variance of PSC and teamwork explained a third of engagement, and engagement-burnout mediated the impact of PSC and teamwork on IWB, explaining over half of their IWBs. This means that both work engagement and burnout are pathways for SLBs using IWBs. This study contributes new information about the two pathways that SLBs use to initiate IWBs. The findings confirm that together, both theories provide a lens for explaining SLBs’ IWBs. First, as per Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, SLBs use IWBs when they have sufficient organizational and personal resources to enhance their engagement to use IWBs. Second, as per SLB theory, some SLBs use IWBs as a coping tool to reconcile their professional/personal values and beliefs with their finite level of psychological capacities (especially energy). Building on Lipsky (1980) and Tummers et al. (2015) research that detailed that SLBs use discretion as a coping mechanism, this study explains how it manifests in terms of IWBs. However, this pathway is not sustainable long term.