共享授权型领导对员工创新行为的影响:内部人身份感知的中介作用

The effect of shared empowering leadership on employee's innovative behavior:The mediating role of perceived insider status

员工是企业的核心,企业创新归根结底就是员工创新,促进员工的创新行为,提高企业的绩效是企业迅速发展的重中之重,而企业中高质量领导方式是推动员工创新行为的关键因素之一。共享授权型领导可以通过权力分享使员工产生更多的创新行为,以内部人身份感知作为中介变量,以员工的性别、婚姻状况和年龄段作为控制变量,研究共享授权型领导和员工创新行为之间的关系。以我国企业的员工作为研究样本,收集318份有效调查问卷,利用统计分析软件,对样本数据进行了描述性统计分析、正态分布检验、内部一致性分析、验证性因子分析和结构方程模型分析。实证研究结果表明,共享授权型领导对员工创新行为存在正向影响,内部人身份感知在这两个变量之间起到了部分中介作用,员工的性别、婚姻状况和年龄段会对共享授权型领导、内部人身份感知和员工创新行为产生不同的影响。从重视非正式领导风格、提升内部人身份感知和重视员工个体差异性三个方面提出相应的管理建议。

Employees are the core resources of an enterprise.The enterprise’s innovation depends on employees’innovative behavior.Therefore,how to effectively promote an employee’s innovative behavior is the most important issue to managers.Effective leadership style is the critical factor for inspiring creative ideas of employees.Scholars found that leadership is a process of separation of powers.In the process of power sharing,an employee's collective and individual ability can be improved,and work efficiency can be also increased.Shared empowering leadership,which claims every employee can be a leader,has a positive impact on an employee’s job performance.Scholars pay more attention to shared empowering leadership gradually.This paper examines the relationship between shared empowering leadership and innovative behavior of employees.To further explicate the mechanism that shared empowering leadership influences an employee’s innovative behavior,we introduced perceived insider status as a mediating variable.In addition,we take employee’s gender,marital status,and age as control variables.Data were collected from employees who had an immediate supervisor in Chinese companies.A total of 318 valid questionnaires were reserved through sifting.The analysis techniques include descriptive statistics,internal consistency analysis,confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling analysis.The empirical research shows many results.First,shared empowering leadership has a significant positive effect on an employee’s innovative behavior.The leadership style can not only inspire employees sparking innovative ideas,but also encourage them to put innovative ideas into practice.Second,the mediating test shows that perceived insider status acts as an incomplete mediating factor between shared empowering leadership and an employee’s innovative behavior.Shared empowering leadership is able to enhance an employee’s perceived insider status through self-management and mutually empowering.Employees,who are equipped with high quality of perceived insider status,have the sense of in-group member.These employees perform their own duties and strive to create new ways for collective interests.Third,we also examine the effect of demographic variables on perceived insider status and an employee’s innovative behavior.The empirical results show that gender,martial status and age have different impacts on perceived insider status and an employee’s innovative behavior.Our findings contribute to the practice of management in several ways.First,vertical leadership is the main leadership style in China.With the improvement of cultural exchange between China and western countries,Chinese leaders have more access to western management thoughts.According to our empirical results,Chinese companies should pay more attention to informal leadership,especially shared empowering leadership,in order to improve an enterprise’s performance.Second,perceived insider status reflects an employee’s cognition of insiders in an organization.Through self leadership,self management,and self decision making,shared empowering leadership allows employees to feel the value of their own in the work,and set up social emotional bonds.When facing difficulties,employees will feel confident to explore and inspire more innovative ideas.Third,gender,marital status,and age may have impact on different levels of perceived insider status and an employee’s innovative behavior.Leaders should adopt diversity management according to followers’demographic characteristics.