Fostering Innovation in Startup: The Effect of Psychological Climate on Employees' Innovative Work Behavior

Abstract

This study aims to determine the effect of psychological climate on innovative behavior among startup employees. The study uses a quantitative approach with an influence study design, in which psychological climate acts as the independent variable and innovative behavior as the dependent variable. The sample consists of 117 active employees of startup companies in Indonesia with a minimum of six months of service, selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through an online questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale, then tested for validity and reliability before being analyzed using simple linear regression. The results show that psychological climate has a positive and significant effect on innovative behavior, as indicated by a t-value of 5.960 with a significance of 0.000 and a positive regression coefficient of 0.392. These findings indicate that a positive perception of psychological climate encourages employees to be more active in generating new ideas and implementing innovations in their work. The R² coefficient of determination value of 0.236 shows that psychological climate explains 23.6% of the variation in innovative behavior, while the rest is influenced by other factors. Overall, this study confirms that psychological climate is one of the important factors in increasing innovative behavior among startup employees, even though innovation is still influenced by various other external factors.