Threshold conditions for employee innovation: qualitative evidence from hierarchical organizations

Despite significant organizational investment in innovation programs, hierarchical structures and high power-distance cultures systematically constrain employee creative expression in ways that dominant innovation theories have not adequately theorized. Existing frameworks, rooted predominantly in Western, low-hierarchy contexts, treat environmental components as interchangeable and additive - an assumption this study interrogates. Drawing on Amabile's Componential Theory as both an analytical lens and a target for theoretical extension, this investigation employs a dual-source qualitative design combining 204 internally generated employee comments with 29 semi-structured interviews conducted across three large organizations in Saudi Arabia's hospitality and tourism sector. Reflexive thematic analysis was applied to examine how employees perceive, interpret, and navigate the organizational conditions shaping their innovative behavior. Analysis produced five interconnected themes - organizational culture barriers, leadership dynamics and power structures, recognition and reward system deficits, structural and process impediments, and individual and collaborative factors - revealing a landscape in which creative capacity is widely distributed but systematically blocked from reaching implementation. Three theoretical extensions to Componential Theory emerge from these findings. Psychological safety appears to function not merely as one facilitating factor among many, but as a preconditional requirement whose absence substantially constrains the contribution of all other environmental factors in hierarchical, high-power-distance contexts. Leadership influence appears amplified beyond its theorized role through three structural and cultural mechanisms. Environmental components exhibit phase-specific effects that systematically widen the gap between idea generation and implementation. These findings challenge the additive logic embedded in Componential Theory, proposing instead a configurational model in which certain environmental conditions may be more foundational than others, rather than merely interchangeable. Practically, organizations operating within hierarchical structures should reconceptualize psychological safety as a foundational infrastructure investment rather than a cultural enhancement, redesign leadership accountability frameworks to address innovation bottlenecks rather than individual encouragement, and architect dual-track innovation systems that formally separate and protect ideation from authority-dependent implementation processes. These propositions are advanced as theoretically informed interpretations grounded in abductive reasoning and intended to invite future empirical testing.