The Effect of Psychological Bonds toward One’s Workgroup and Organization on Innovative Behavior:

Abstract

Using the concept of affective commitment and two types of group cohesion, i.e., social cohesion and task cohesion, this research attempts to study the impact of psychological bonds toward one’s workgroup and organization on innovative behavior through voice behavior. The study also considered promotive and prohibitive voice behavior together in the model to determine their relative impact on innovative behavior. Thus, using the structural equation modeling, the effects of three antecedents-affective commitment, social cohesion, and task cohesion-on innovative behavior through both promotive and prohibitive voice were examined in an integrated model. A total of 350 online survey responses from Chinese employees were used for analyses. First, only affective commitment and social cohesion positively affected innovative behavior through employee voice behavior; task cohesion did not have significant effects on either voice or innovative behavior. Second, both promotive voice and prohibitive voice were found to have a positive effect on innovative behavior. However, the indirect effect of voice behavior on innovative behavior was significant only for promotive voice but not for prohibitive voice. Implications were discussed.