The Use of Autonomous Teams for Individual Vitality and Team Innovation: A 2-1-2 Multilevel Mediation Model in the Public Context

Abstract In the public context, it is crucial to know how a motivating work environment can inspire employees to engage in collective problem solving. This study examines whether working in autonomous primary healthcare teams offers such a motivating work environment that enhances individual vitality and team innovations. A 2-1-2 multilevel mediation analysis was conducted on multi-sourced survey data from 767 employees and 59 supervisors in 78 primary healthcare teams. The results show that greater team autonomy makes individual employees feel more vital, which, in turn, leads to more innovations being developed by the team. These findings thereby emphasize the importance of the relatively underexposed “psychological perspective” in the public administration literature.