Abstract
The study reported in this paper analyzed the influence of leader psychological capital (PsyCap) on employees’ innovative behavior and the roles of psychological safety and growth need strength (GNS) in this process within the context of positive psychology theory and conservation of resources theory. Three stages of questionnaire surveys were administered to 81 enterprise leaders and their 342 direct subordinates in South China to test our theoretical model. The results showed that leader PsyCap had significant and positive effects on employee innovative behavior, psychological safety had a partially mediating effect, and GNS positively moderated the relationship between psychological safety and innovative behavior. The results revealed the mechanism of PsyCap and external boundary conditions of the influence of leader PsyCap on employee innovative behavior. The study expands the research results of leader PsyCap theory and also provides guidance on how enterprises manage employees’ innovative behavior.
Highlights
Innovative behavior is effective for an organization to adapt to environmental changes and maintain its competitiveness (Devloo et al, 2014; Parahoo et al, 2017)
On the basis of positive psychology and conservation of resources theory, this study explored the effect of leader psychological capital (PsyCap) on employee innovative behavior, the mediating effect of psychological safety, and the moderating effect of growth need strength (GNS)
In a high-GNS scenario, the indirect effect of leader PsyCap on innovative behavior through psychological safety was 0.376, whereas the effect was 0.091 in a low-GNS scenario, resulting in a difference of 0.285 between the two values
Summary
Innovative behavior is effective for an organization to adapt to environmental changes and maintain its competitiveness (Devloo et al, 2014; Parahoo et al, 2017). Positive psychology posits that leader psychological capital (PsyCap) is a positive psychological resource. In addition to an active attitude toward their work and high working performance, leaders with a high PsyCap level are enthusiastic at work and set an example for their followers (Walumbwa et al, 2010). Knowledge on the level of leader psychological capital affected employees’ innovative behavior remains ambiguous (Li et al, 2020)
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