Innovative Work Environment, Internal Locus of Control and Intrinsic Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Bangladeshi Employees

Pecuniary reward and perquisites can satisfy employees extrinsically; however, employees become intrinsically satisfied if they are offered challenge and autonomy in their jobs. Thus, jobs can be tailored to increase workers’ intrinsic job satisfaction. Moreover, if employees of an organization are given an innovative work environment, then it can satisfy them intrinsically as well. A workplace is innovative if it allows employees to take new initiatives, to change the existing systems, and to do jobs in a new way that is more efficient than the existing one. However, these phenomena are related to employees with a high internal locus of control, a personality trait desirable to employers in many jobs. Given these theoretical backdrops, this paper studies the influence of innovative work environments on intrinsic job satisfaction of employees in Bangladeshi organizations. Data were collected from 304 employees working in Bangladeshi organizations to investigate these. The contribution of this paper is that the finding of this study can give deep insight and thus help them framing organizational policy and recruitment policy.

can cause IJS? (2) whether the influence of ILC on IJS is increased in an innovative environment? In this paper, the researcher studies the direct effect of ILC on IJS, the mediation effect of innovative work environment on the relationship between ILC and IJS, and the interaction effect of the innovative work environment and ILC on IJS.

Literature Review and Proposed Model 2.1 ILC and IJS
A psychological construct, locus of control, was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954 as an important aspect of personality. It refers to one's belief on what causes good or bad results in his/her life. If one believes that a good result of his/her action depends on his/her ability, then that person is high on ILC. According to the perception mechanism (Spector et al., 2000) traits act as a filter that shapes one's perception of the world. Hence, people with some traits negatively see the world, and others see it positively. People with high ILC see outcomes as the results of their actions, and if they get successful, they become intrinsically satisfied as they think that this success is the manifestation of their ability. Past research has consistently found that people with high ILC are more satisfied at work. Judge and Bono (2001) observe that ILC is related to job satisfaction. Ng et al. (2006) in their meta-analytic study finds that locus of control significantly influences employees' job satisfaction. The researchers are not aware of any notable study that investigated the relationship between ILC and IJS except one notable exception of Tareq and Watanabe (2010). It seems reasonable to assume that people with high ILC are more intrinsically satisfied is probably because they believe that the results from their actions in the organization are caused by themselves. When people with high in ILC are successful in their work then they think that success as the manifestation of their ability and feel happier than people with low ILC. Thus, we formulate the following hypothesis concerning the relationship between ILC and IJS.

ILC and Innovative Work Environment
Some people with specific personality traits tend to expose themselves to intrinsically satisfying works, while others would choose extrinsically satisfying one. Spector (1982) noted that people with a high internal locus of control attempt to align their tasks consistent with themselves. People with high ILC like jobs where they can use their abilities independently. In their study, Ng et al. (2006) finds that ILC is significantly related to autonomy at work, job feedback, and job challenge among others. Judge et al.'s (2000) finds that there is a significant positive relationship between core self-evaluation, a construct comprised of ILC, self-esteem, self-efficacy and low neuroticism, and job characteristics i.e autonomy, skill variety, task significance, feedback and job challenge and so on. According to Schneider's (1987) Attraction-Selection-Attrition theory ('ASA' hereinafter), people are attracted to or try ot selcte organizations that fit their trait. Organizations also try to recruit individuals whose traits matches with the organizations. After the recruitment when employees finds that their traits did not match the organization culture, they eventually leave the organization. According to the ASA theory, it is reasonable to assume that people with high in ILC tend to choose creative work environments that are characterized by changes and initiatives to do new things. Holland's (1985) personality-job fit theory examined the match between different types of personality traits and job types. For example, people with high self-confidence, ambition, energy, and dominance fit an enterprising type of job. In the same way, in a creative work environment individual needs to be prepared for changes and must take initiative for changes. People with high ILC can match this type of environment. Therefore, we have: H2 : ILC and creative work environment will be positively related. Mckinnon et al. (2003) and Zhou et al. (2005) studied the influence of innovation culture and innovative environment on job satisfaction. These studies found a positive significant influence of innovation culture and innovation environment on job satisfaction. More recently, the results of the study of Berson, Oreg, and Dvir (2008) indicated the influence of the organization's innovative culture on job satisfaction. In an innovative work environment, employees can use their creativity that in turn increases their intrinsic satisfaction. Past studies show that 'opportunity for personal control' is positively related to IJS (see, Peyne et al, 1999;Holman, 2002;Spector, 1986;Probst, 2005 ). If employees have more opportunities for personal control, then they have more autonomy and independence to make their own decision. In an innovative work environment, the employees are given the freedom and are encouraged to do the work using their method. These two constructs are similar. Hence, as 'opportunity for personal control' affects intrinsic job positively, it can be assumed that an innovative work environment will also affect intrinsic satisfaction positively. Therefore, we have: H 3 : Creative environment will affect IJS positively.

Innovative Work Environment X ILC Interactive Effect on IJS
According to the person-environment (P-E) fit theory, those people with higher levels of P-E fit are happier than their counterparts. In an innovative work environment, individuals need to be prepared for changes and must take initiatives to bring forth those changes. People with high ILC match this type of environment well. Therefore, IJS in an innovative work environment will be enhanced for people who are high on ILC. H 4a : The positive effect of a creative work environment on IJS will be enhanced for people with high ILC. H 4b : The positive effect of ILC on IJS will also, be enhanced as the level of creative work environment increases.

IJS i = Summation of the indicators of IJS(see Appendix 1) IWEi= Summation of the indicators of an innovative work environment (see Appendix 1)
ILOCi= Summation of the indicators of ILC (see Appendix 1) ILOC*CWE = Interaction term of ILC and creative work environment. ε i, = error term of the model

Control Variables
Sex. Past studies have found that women are intrinsically more satisfied in their jobs than men (see, Clark, 1996Clark, , 1997. Thus, we included sex as a control variable in our study. Age. Past studies have identified a positive linear relationship between age and IJS (see, Rhodes, 1983). Therefore, age was used as a control variable in our study.
Full-time/part-time job. Past research has found mixed result about the relationship between IJS and full-time/ part-time job. Some research shows that there is no significant difference of IJS between full-time and part-time employees (see, Thorsteinson, 2003). Other research shows that part-time employees are intrinsically more satisfied than full-time employees are (see, Clark 1996; Barling & Gallagher, 1996). Though it could not show us any definite result about the relationship between IJS and type of employment, past research suggests that we include full-time/ part-time as a control.
Tenure. If a person remains in the same organization, he/she may develop loyalty for the organization he/she works for which can influence IJS. Hence, tenure was controlled in our model.

Measurement of the Variables
Creative Work Environment For measuring the creative work environment, the innovation dimension of Moos's (1994) Work Environment Scale was used. We used nine items (see, Appendix 1), each presented with five response alternatives from 1 (Strongly disagree), 2 (Disagree), 3 (Neutral), 4 (Agree), and 5 (Strongly agree). IJS For measuring IJS we used eleven items (see, Appendix 1) of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. We presented the items with five alternatives for each -1 (Very Dissatisfied), 2 (Dissatisfied), 3 (Neither dissatisfied nor satisfied), 4 (Satisfied), and 5 (Very satisfied).
Control Variables The respondents were asked to indicate their tenure in years and months. We then converted those into a single unit of months. The workload was recorded by asking how many hours the respondents work in a typical week. Age was measured in years.
We used the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method for estimating the parameters the direct and interaction models. For estimating the parameters of the mediation model Three-Stage Least Square method was used in the study. Table-2 reports the estimates of the coefficients for the direct models. Hypothesis 1 concerned the direct effect of ILC on IJS. As shown in Table 2, the path coefficient was 0.33 in Model 1a and 1b, .35 in Model 1c and all are statistically significant (p<.001). Hypothesis 2 and 3 proposed the meditational relationship between ILC, creative environment, and IJS. As expected the path from ILC to the creative environment was .05 and significant (p<..05) and that from creative work environment to intrinsic locus of control was 3.03 and significant (p<.000). However, the path from ILC to IJS after controlling for creative work environment became smaller i.e 0.12 (p <.000) than that of the direct models. Therefore, there is a partial mediation in of innovative work environment in the relationship between ILC and IJS.  Note: *p< .05,**p< .01,***p<..001 Hypothesis 4a and 4b proposed the interaction effect of ILC and the innovative work environment on IJS. As expected a positive significant effect for the path from the interaction term to IJS, it was significant (0.06, p = .02; see, Table 4). However, the effect of ILC to IJS became insignificant in the interaction model (-1.14, P=.09).

DISCUSSION
Since Rotter (1954) developed a psychological construct, locus of control, it has been studied widely as an important human personality trait and its relationship with job satisfaction. But little attention has been paid to the identification of direct, indict, and interaction effect of ILC on IJS. Moreover, the creative work environment has been studied widely but its direct and interactional effects on IJS have not been examined yet.
The present study proposed three models that showed ILC and creative environment as direct, indirect, interaction antecedents of IJS. We hypothesized that ILC can influence IJS positively. After controlling for sex, full-time/ part-time job status, tenure, and workload, the data suggested that the levels of subjects' IJS were predictable from the level of ILC. We also hypothesized that the relationship between ILC and IJS would be mediated by a creative work environment. The data showed that there was a partial mediation effect of the creative work environment on the relationship between ILC and IJS. Moreover, we also hypothesized that the ILC and creative work environment would have an interactional effect on IJS after controlling for the main effects and other control variables. Our data showed a significant influence on the interaction term on IJS.
The implication of the study is that management should consider the importance of a creative work environment and ILC for increasing intrinsic satisfaction. Management can create an organization with intrinsically satisfied employees by recruiting individuals who are high in ILC. Moreover, management can create a creative work environment in the organization that will attract people who are high on ILC and thus can keep the level of the IJS of the employees high.
The results presented in this study are a nice starting point for future research, but it is important to discuss the study's limitations. One limitation of the study is that the reported ILC, creative work environment, and IJS were subjective measures by the employees. Self-reported measures of constructs may cause bias in the measurement. Third-party evaluation (immediate boos, peer) of these constructs would probably give more accurate results.
Another limitation of the study is that the data were collected just at one point in time, assuming that the constructs were stable over time. But this assumption is weak. Though past studies have shown that personality traits and job satisfaction are stable over time, the correlation between two points of time is not one (i.e. r t1,t2 ≠1). Moreover, an organization's work environment is dynamic and changes over time. Future studies should collect data at multiple points in time to examine the long-term stability of the effects of intrinsic locus of control and creative environment on IJS. Item No.  Items  IWE1 Doing things in a different way is valued. IWE2

Innovative Work Environment Scale
New and different ideas are always being tried out. IWE3 The place would be one of the first to try out a new idea. IWE4 Variety and change are not particularly important.

IWE5
The same methods have been used for quite a long time.

IWE6
New approaches to things are rarely tried. IWE7 Things tend to stay just about the same. IWE8 There is a fresh, novel atmosphere about the place. IWE9 Things always seem to be changing.