Relationships among learning organization, resistance to change, job crafting, and innovative work behavior in South Korea: public vs. for-profit sectors

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to reveal the different mechanisms occurring between learning organizations and innovative work behavior across the public and for-profit sectors, focusing on change-related concepts of resistance to change and job crafting. To this end, this study employed a multigroup comparison analysis using 772 cases collected through stratified random sampling from public and for-profit organizations in South Korea. The overall findings supported that a learning organization was an important environment to promote employees’ innovative work behavior, but its influence was indirect via resistance to change and job crafting. Regarding sector differences, resistance to change did not significantly influence job crafting and innovative work behavior in public organizations, whereas the direct influences were significantly negative in for-profit organizations. In addition, the impacts of learning organization on resistance to change and job crafting as well as the impact of job crafting on innovative work behavior were significantly different across the two sectors. After discussing the results, we provide implications for future research and practice.