Abstract:

The increase in technological, social and economic changes might endanger the current market positions of enterprises. In this sense, globalization and increasing competition force enterprises to be innovative. Supervisors, who are representatives of social order, can turn the crisis into an opportunity against environmental changes. At this point, with an effective Swot Analysis, business supervisors review the strengths and weaknesses of the business and environmental opportunity-threats. They ensure that the entire system, from enterprise structure to employee behaviour, provides an adaptive response to change and innovation. Individual innovation is linked to how far employees adapt themselves to innovation. Innovative individuals are positioned as “early adopters” in the adaptation process to innovation. An innovative individual uses new information to improve himself/herself constantly. Because of their high critical and analytical thinking skills, these individuals use new knowledge in a beneficial way by blending it with the old one. The point highlighted in various researches is that new knowledge will provide a competitive advantage to enterprises. At this point, "turning new ideas into commercial benefits” can increase employees’ motivation. Does the constant pursuit of new and different things in the business effect employees’ job satisfaction? This question raises awareness among the employees in the enterprise and also constitutes the problem of the research. Although it varies according to the field of activity of the enterprise, job satisfaction, which is the positive difference between the expectations and results of the employee in the technology sector, can also be measured by the ability to obtain and use new information. It is an undeniable fact that employers working in the field of technology and telecommunication, where altruism and perception of social innovation can be high, offer different perspectives with effective projects for the solution of social and institutional problems. Accordingly, this research aims to investigate the effect of individual innovation on job satisfaction. For this purpose, a survey was conducted with 101 emloyees working as middle and top level supervisors in the businesses which operating the field of technology in Istanbul and around. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analysed by correlation and regression analyse methods. According to the results of the research, “opinion leadership and taking risks, one of the sub-dimensions of individual innovation, increase supervisors’ job satisfaction; resistace to change, which is another dimension of individual innovation, reduces supervisors’ job satisfaction.    

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