员工创新行为内在作用机制研究——基于政治技能的视角

Employee's Innovative Behavior:From A Political Skill Perspective

本文基于Amabile的创造力三因素模型,从社会认知理论出发,通过对179名员工及其直接上级的匹配数据进行实证分析,考察了员工政治技能、领导政治技能、员工创新自我效能感与员工创新行为之间的关系。研究发现:(1)员工政治技能、领导政治技能对员工创新行为有积极影响;(2)员工创新自我效能感在员工政治技能与员工创新行为之间起完全中介作用;(3)员工创新自我效能感在领导政治技能与员工创新行为之间起部分中介作用。本研究从政治技能这一崭新的视角出发,整合个体、情境两方面因素,揭示了影响员工创新行为的内在作用机制,丰富了影响创新自我效能感的前置因素,巩固了创新自我效能感这一概念在社会认知理论中的独特价值。

Prior research has indicated employee＇s innovative behavior was positively impacted by various factors including both personal and contextual Characteristics, but hasn＇t paid attention to a very important skill which may have a significant effect on individual＇s innovative behavior - political skill. Political skill is a relatively new concept but has already been proved having positive relations with individual＇s career success. So far, the relation and the influencing process between political skill and individual＇s innovative behavior have yet to be examined. To fill the gap in this research area, this study aims to address the following research questions ： （ 1 ） How employees＇ political skill increase their innovative behavior？ （2） How leaders＇ political skill increase their subordinates＇ innovative behavior？ and （3） what＇s the mediating mechanisms linking employees＇ political skill,leaders＇ political skill and employees＇ innovative behavior？ Based on Social Cognitive Theory, this study explores the mediating role of creative self-efficacy. Answering above questions will help us understand the mechanism of how political skill influences individual＇s innovative behavior and better guide management practice. The sample includes 179 leader-employee dyads from a Chinese stated owned company. To reduce common method bias ,we collected the data from both employees and their direct supervisors. We asked employees to measure their own political skill and creative self-efficacy, and invited their line managers to measure their own political skill and their employees＇ innovative behavior. Among the major measurements, the 18 -item political skill was adopted from Ferris et al. ＇s （2005） study ; creative self-efficacy was measured via a 3 - item scale developed by Tierney and Farmer （2002） ;innovative behavior was measured by a 6- item scale developed by Scott and Bruce （1994） ~ Cronbach＇s alpha values for these 4 measures ranged from ceptable measurement reliability. 0. 81 to 0. 87 which are higher than 0. 70 ,indicating ac- Structural Equation Modeling （SEM） was employed to analyze the research data. Results show that （1） employee＇s political skill has a significant positive influence on their own innovative behavior;and （2） leader＇s political skill also has a significant positive influence on their subordinate＇s innovative behavior. If we introduce employee＇s creative self-efficacy into the research model to predict employee＇s innovative behavior, we found that （3） Employee＇s creative self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between leader＇s political skill and em- ployee＇ s innovative behavior but （4） fully mediated the relationship between employee＇ s political skill and em- ployee＇ s innovative behavior. In conclusion, from political skill perspective, the paper unified personal and contextu- al factors, revealed the mechanism of how political skill influencing individual＇ s innovative behavior. Implications of these findings in this paper are both valuable for creativity theory and research, as well as for management practice. First of all, based on Amabile＇s Three Componants of Creativity, the paper presents a positive relationship between employee＇s political skill, leader＇s political skill and employee＇s innovative behavior which en- riched the antecedent factors of individual＇s innovative behavior;Secondly, based on Gist and Mitchell＇s Three-Di- mensional Model of Self-Efficacy, from Social Cognitive Theory, this paper also found that creative self-efficacy plays a mediating role both between employee＇s political skill and employee＇s innovative behavior, and between leader＇s political skill and their subordinate＇s innovative behavior. These findings extended the antecedent factors of innova- tive self-efficacy, and also reinforced the unique value of innovative self-efficacy in Social Cognitive Theory. From management practice perspective, the study has implication that organizations should enhance both employees and leaders＇ political skill in order to increase more employees＇ innovative behavior. Also, confidence is a very important psychological factor when individuals carry out their innovative behavior. Management should also value this psychological process.