领导对下属非正式社交网络阻碍领导双元创新的权变机制:基于SIP理论的分析

The contingency mechanism of the leaders′informal social network with subordinates hindering leaders′ambidextrous innovation:An analysis based on SIP theory

与目前鼓励领导向下属非正式社交的研究不同,本文聚焦于领导向下属非正式社交阻碍领导双元创新的权变机制问题。基于SIP理论,构建了领导与下属非正式社交的社会信息环境影响领导双元创新的理论模型。本文对来自42家企业80个部门的174名领导和他们所有的727名下属的样本进行实证研究,结果表明领导非正式社交行为会通过增加领导的所有下属间聚类程度进而阻碍领导的双元创新;当部门年龄异质性高时,领导向下属交友程度增加下属间聚类程度的作用会被削弱;但是,任期异质性在领导向下属咨询增加下属间聚类程度关系中的调节作用不显著。本文的研究发现有助于深入认识领导向下属非正式社交阻碍领导双元创新的中介机制和边界条件,并有效指导企业培育领导双元创新。

Most studies believed that leaders′informal social networks could promote leaders′innovation activities.Considering subordinates are the most direct communication objects of leaders,leaders′internal informal social network with subordinates(LISNS)is often more important to leaders′innovation than external informal social networks with other members outside the organization.However,recent studies have pointed out that LISNS may hinder leaders′innovation due to its high cost,high energy requirement,and homogeneity.For instance,Google has tried to establish a university-like relationship between leaders and subordinates within the company.However,it caused the relationship between superiors and subordinates to lose control instead of inspiring innovation.Ma Yun and Ren Zhengfei also emphasized that it would be difficult to innovate if leaders put all their expectations on subordinates like friends.Therefore,both theorists and practitioners require us to rethink why treating our subordinates as good mentors or helpful friends would hinder leadership innovation.And what adjustments can be made to reduce this hindering effect?This study aims at exploring the contingency mechanism of leaders′informal social network impeding their innovation to open the“black box”behind this negative impact,and then proposes feasible strategies to regulate its internal mechanism and promote sustainable innovation of leaders.Leaders′innovation activities are high-risk behaviors that need to be supported by the environment with a high degree of trust.However,when leaders are in a highly clustered atmosphere of subordinates,it will cause subordinates to resist different opinions and change,which is not conducive to the leaders′innovation activities.In this regard,this study believes that the trust among subordinates may be the mechanism that LISNS hinder leaders′innovation activities.In addition,the departments with greater heterogeneity can provide abundant technical and cognitive information,and change the communication frequency and collaboration way between members,thus affecting the cohesion and trust between department members.Therefore,this study suggests that departmental heterogeneity may be a contingency condition to adjust the hindrance mechanism between the LISNS and leaders′innovation.Social information processing theory(SIP)classifies the individual′s processing of the received social environment information into three aspects:attribution,judgment,and learning.It can explain how individuals form their own behaviors by understanding and processing information from their social environment,which provides a comprehensive theoretical perspective that LISNS hinders leaders′innovation.Therefore,based on SIP theory,this study deeply discusses the contingency mechanism role of trust between subordinates and departmental heterogeneity in of leaders′informal social network hindering ambidextrous innovation ability of leaders,by regarding the variable of leaders′consulting and making friends with subordinates as a representation of leaders′informal social interactions and using the variable of leaders′ambidextrous innovation to measure leaders′innovation.This study takes 174 leaders and all 727 of their subordinates from 80 innovation departments as samples.Research variables are mainly obtained through questionnaires,including network variables(power network,consulting network,and trust network),behavioral variables(leaders′ambidextrous innovation),and team demographic characteristics variables(departmental heterogeneity of team tenure and team age).Then,SPSS 20.0 and Mplus 7.0 were used for correlation analysis,reliability and validity test,and hypothesis verification.The main conclusions are as follows.The leader′s consulting and making friends with subordinates can promote mutual trust among all subordinates,but the clustering degree of subordinates will reduce leaders′ambidextrous innovation.Therefore,the clustering degree of all subordinates has a mediating effect on the relationship between LISNS and leaders′ambidextrous innovation.When departmental heterogeneity of age is high,the role of the leader in increasing the level of friendship with subordinates will be weakened.However,departmental heterogeneity of tenure has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between leader′s consulting and the trust among members.According to the data in this study,42.5%of the employees′tenure was seven years or more,and the standard deviation was 0.152.It also indicates that the tenure of unit members is generally high,and the sample tenure heterogeneity is not large.Therefore,it may be a reason that the moderating effect of tenure heterogeneity has not been verified.This study has important theoretical significance.Firstly,it answers the internal mechanism that LISNS hinders leaders′ambidextrous innovation.And it refines the boundary conditions of the above mechanism by distinguishing the two kinds of leaders′informal social behavior with subordinates about making friends and consulting.Thus,this study opens the black box for the negative impact of LISNS.Secondly,it constructs the theoretical framework of interaction between leaders and subordinates that affect leaders′ambidexterity innovation based on SIP theory,which enriches and expands the perspective of follow-up research in terms of the level and content.Finally,the definition and measurement of the leaders′informal social network provide a theoretical basis and analysis tool for the follow-up related research.In addition,this study also brings a lot of inspiration to the field of practice.Specifically,leaders should appropriately control the frequency of consultation and the degree of close friendship with subordinates to reduce the useless social relations with subordinates and give full play to their positive role,which enhances leaders′ambidextrous innovation to the greatest extent.Moreover,Leaders should avoid resisting change and refusing learning caused by the high trust level of departments.Besides,enterprises should select members of different ages or terms to regulate the composition of departments according to the departments′needs to restrain departmental centralization and weaken the negative impact of LISNS on leaders′ambidextrous innovation.