基于印象管理动机视角的工作压力对员工创新行为影响研究

Research on the effect of work stress on employees’innovation behavior from the perspective of impression management motivation

以往对员工创新行为动机的研究多基于组织行为学个体激励视角,从内部动机和外部动机展开。基于社会心理学理论,挖掘了印象管理动机这一核心概念,探究了印象管理动机的前置因素——挑战性/阻断性压力分别通过获得型/防御型印象管理动机对创新行为的影响作用。通过问卷调查的实证研究方法,对613名员工的数据分析结果表明:(1)工作压力通过印象管理动机对创新行为产生影响,具体为:挑战性压力通过获得型印象管理动机对创新行为产生促进作用;阻断性压力通过防御型印象管理动机对创新行为产生阻碍作用。(2)员工具有阴阳思维强化了挑战性压力对获得型印象管理动机的增强效应。研究成果拓展了更具中国情境的员工创新行为产生机制的路径,细化与丰富了创新行为理论体系,也为中国组织在实践中如何激发员工创新提供了更多的理论依据。

In recent years,how to effectively motivate employees’innovation behavior has become a hot issue,in which innovation motivation is an important research perspective.Most of the existing researches are limited to the theories of organizational behavior.Based on the perspective of incentives,they were conducted from the work motivation(both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation).However,as people in the society,employees’behavior in the workplace will not only be inspired by the work motivation,but the social environment in an organization is also an important driving factor.This study attempts to jump out of existing research fields and perspectives,and explores the forming mechanism of employees'innovative behavior from the perspective of impression management motivation,based on the theory of social psychology.Relevant researches show that impression management motivation can affect positive behaviors,such as organizational citizenship behavior,voice behavior,and feedback-seeking behavior,but there are still disagreements in existing findings.Most studies indicate that impression management motivation can facilitate those behaviors above,however,a few studies believe that impression management motivation will inhibit them.At the same time,very few studies probing into the impact of impression management motivation on the most important positive behavior in today’s Chinese organizations,that is innovation behavior.The key to solving above-mentioned problems lies in deconstructing the differences in the type of impression management motivation.Based on different psychological mechanisms,the follow-up researches find that impression management motivation can be further divided into assertive one and defensive one.Differentiating them to start researches is more conducive to accurately revealing the action and the mechanism of the effect on impression management motivation on employees’behavior.Simultaneous Stimulus-Organism-Response(SOR)theory provides a research framework for this study.It proposes that environmental stimulation is mediated by a series of cognitive processes,such as individual perception,comprehension,reasoning etc.,which then lead to corresponding behaviors.In present-day China,work stress exists in almost every organization and is an important environmental factor.Work stress is divided into two categories:Challenge-related Stress and Hindrance-related Stress.In stark contrast with employees in the Western hemisphere,cultural traditions and the current social system promote more Yin-Yang thinking in Chinese employees,which is a long-term,developmental,and dynamic awareness of the environment and events.This psychological characteristic will inevitably affect the formation of impression management motivation.From this perspective,in the context of Chinese organizations,with impression management motivation as the primary focus and work stress as an independent variable,this study divides work stress into Challenge-related Stress and Hindrance-related Stress respectively,and obtains intermediary variables for assertive and defensive impression management motivation,using Yin-Yang thinking as a moderator to explore a new means of formation of individual innovation behavior.In this study,the employees from enterprises and institutions in four cities(Beijing,Tianjin,Shanghai,and Zhengzhou)were selected as research subjects,and 613 valid questionnaires were collected.Based on Non-response Bias test,Common Method Variance test and the reliability and validity test performed on the data,a theoretical hypothesis test was conducted using structural equation model analysis and hierarchical regression analysis.The results show that:(1)Work stress has an effect on innovation behavior through impression management motivation.Specifically,Challenge-related Stress positively affects innovation behavior through assertive impression management motivation;Hindrance-related Stress negatively affects innovation behavior through defensive impression management motivation;(2)Yin-yang thinking on employees strengthens the positive effect of Challenge-related Stress on assertive impression management motivation.Based on the theory of social psychology,this study verifies that impression management motivation has an effect on innovation behavior,integrates previous disagreements about the effect of impression management motivation on employees’positive behaviors in organizations and reveals the“black box”of the formation mechanism of innovation behavior.The results of this study expand more contextualized generation path of innovation behavior mechanism in a China,refine and enrich the theoretical system of employees’innovation behavior,and also provide more theoretical basis for Chinese organizations to stimulate employees’innovation in practice.