| Innovation improves organizational performance, provides for continuous organizational renewal, and is critical to the long-term success of organizations. Complex organizations, including schools, depend on their primary technology (teachers) and related innovative strategies as they endeavor to respond to a spectrum of stakeholder expectations including those of students, parents, communities, and policy makers. Research suggests that employees who perceive their environments as supportive of innovation are more likely to be committed to creative work processes and involved in innovation on behalf of the organization. Environments supportive of innovation are places that allow people to continually experiment with alternative approaches to tasks and accept the inevitable mistakes that come with change. They are venues where empowered individuals can pursue new initiatives and have trust in their work organizations.;This study was designed to examine the extent to which teachers' interpersonal-level trust in the principal, system-level trust in the school, and sense of empowerment were associated with perceived support for innovation. Additionally, the research assessed reported variation in conflict and collaboration in the school work environment in terms of associations with trust and empowerment. A measure designed to assess teachers' trust, empowerment, and perceptions of support for innovation, conflict, and collaboration in the school was distributed to K-12 teachers in a school district in the SE United States. Five hundred five (62%) teachers responded to the survey. Teachers who indicated higher levels of trust in principals and in their schools, and who reported higher levels of empowerment perceived their schools as more supportive of innovation. Perceived levels of conflict, particularly among teachers and administrators, appeared to diminish perceptions of support for innovation by negatively affecting teachers' perceptions of trust and empowerment. More frequent collaboration may positively influence teachers' perceptions of empowerment, that, in turn, positively affects teachers' perceptions of support for innovation. |
