Abstract
Previous scholars have recognized the critical role of supervisors in stimulating employee innovative behavior, although it is still unclear whether and how supervisor developmental feedback impacts employee innovative behavior. To resolve this issue, the present study develops and verifies a moderated mediation model to explore the positive influence of supervisor developmental feedback on employee innovative behavior via creative self-efficacy, as well as the moderating role of a supervisor’s organizational embodiment in this process. Analyses of the multi-time data from 375 employees indicate that supervisor developmental feedback is positively associated with employee innovative behavior via his/her creative self-efficacy. Moreover, a supervisor’s organizational embodiment moderates the influence of supervisor developmental feedback on employee creative self-efficacy and the mediating role of creative self-efficacy. From these analyses, the present study not only further develops several views of pervious research in the field of supervisor feedback and employee innovation, but also provides a potential managerial way to promote employee innovative behavior from the perspective of supervisor feedback.
Highlights
As the competition environment becomes more uncertain, firms that want to survive and develop should rely more on innovative activities (Stroeva et al, 2015; Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017; Zhang et al, 2018)
We suggest that the positive influence of supervisor developmental feedback on employee creative self-efficacy will be strengthened by supervisor’s organizational embodiment
Using multi-time data from a sample of 375 Chinese employees, we found that the influence of supervisor developmental feedback on employee innovative behavior was significant, and mediated by employee creative self-efficacy
Summary
As the competition environment becomes more uncertain, firms that want to survive and develop should rely more on innovative activities (Stroeva et al, 2015; Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017; Zhang et al, 2018). Organizational innovation is becoming increasingly important to gain competitive advantages and realize the sustainable development of firms (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010; Ramirez et al, 2018). As a key factor in improving organizational innovation competence, employee innovation behavior is usually beneficial and has always been regarded as a significant source of competitive advantage for the organization (Shin et al, 2017). How to effectively promote employee innovation behavior becomes important at the present stage. Such research usually presents the characteristics of fragmentation and functionalization and tends to focus on the active output of supervisors, paying insufficient attention to the interaction between supervisors and employees (Xu et al, 2018)
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