Examining the Priority Variables on the R&D Engineer's Innovativeness: An Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) Approach

To reach the country's aspirations to be a high-income and knowledge-based nation, the Malaysia Government had promulgated the New Economic Model (NEM) in the year 2010. Every industry and company are striving hard to build up the innovative capability to achieve this aspiration. The main idea is to ensure the sustainability of all businesses in this competitive market. The innovative capability of human capital in the organizations serve as an essential element for competitive advantage. In this study, the focus is on the innovative capability of Research and Development (R&D) engineers in pharmaceutical companies because R&D engineers are the catalysts of innovation and are responsible for the creation of new ideas and innovations for pharmaceutical firms. Based on the individual innovativeness theory, five key factors (Individual competency or skills, rewards, collaboration, IT support and trust) were examined to determine their effect on pharmaceutical R&D engineers' innovativeness. Data were collected using survey questionnaire from 129 R&D engineers. Data analysis involving Structural Equation Modeling SmartPLS version 3.0 software revealed that individual competency or skills and IT support were significant factors influencing innovativeness. On the contrary, reward, collaboration, and trust did not show any significant relationship with innovativeness. Further to that, the authors conducted an Importance-Performance matrix analysis to determine priority variables to focus on for the practitioners.