“员工创新悖论困境”破解——双元领导对员工创新的双通道作用机理

Breaking through the Dilemma of Employees'Innovation Paradox:The Dual-channel Mechanism of Ambidextrous Leadership's Effect on Employees'Innovation

基于社会交换理论和社会认知理论,以16家高新企业中的362名员工及其直属领导为调查对象,构建并验证双元领导对员工创新的双通道作用机理。员工在创新过程中面临突破性创新和渐进性创新难以同时进行的悖论困境,而双元领导通过授权行为和命令行为的双通道作用,以宽严并济、松紧得当的方式推动员工创新。研究表明:双元领导正向影响员工突破性创新和渐进性创新;个性化交易在双元领导与员工突破性创新之间发挥中介作用;领导信任在双元领导与员工渐进性创新之间发挥中介作用;认知灵活性不仅在双元领导与个性化交易之间发挥调节作用,还调节个性化交易在双元领导与员工突破性创新之间的中介作用;互动公平不仅在双元领导与领导信任之间发挥调节作用,还调节领导信任在双元领导与员工渐进性创新之间的中介作用。

Employees are the micro-subjects of corporate innovation,and employee innovation is critical to an organization's business performance,competitive advantage and long-term development.Radical innovation and incremental innovation have been identified as the two performance types of employees'innovation,both of which essentially belong to dual innovation behavior at the organizational micro level.Employees tend to be confronted with cognitive and behavioral dilemmas in choosing between radical and incremental innovation,and the realization of one type of behavior reduces the efficiency of the other,which is referred to in this study as the"dilemma of employees'innovation paradox".How to harmonize and balance the relationship between the two innovations is a management problem worth studying This study focuses on a unique form of leadership behavior,namely ambidextrous leadership.Ambidextrous leadership and employees'paradoxical innovation are both the concentration of paradoxical elements in the same person,and both have certain similarities in dimensionality and content.Therefore,this study believes that the emergence of ambidextrous leadership provides a research opportunity to break through the dilemma of employees'innovation paradox,and ambidextrous leadership can effectively promote the generation of employees'paradoxical innovation.According to social exchange theory and social cognitive theory,the empowerment behavior of ambidextrous leadership emphasizes empowerment and exchange,which has an important impact on employees'radical innovation.Therefore,this study chooses idiosyncratic deals as a mediating variable and introduces cognitive flexibility as a moderating variable to reveal the paths and boundaries of ambidextrous leadership on employees'radical innovation.In addition,the command behavior of ambidextrous leadership emphasizes supervision and control,for they have important impacts on employees'incremental innovation.Therefore,this study chooses trust in supervisor as a mediating variable and introduces interactive justice as a moderating variable to reveal the paths and boundaries of ambidextrous leadership on employees'incremental innovation.The survey sample consists of leaders and employees of 16 high-tech enterprises.Leaders and employees in high-tech enterprises have a stronger awareness of innovation,which is more suitable as a research sample.Through three stages of questionnaire collection,a total of 362 valid questionnaires are retrieved for this research.This study adopts multiple linear regression and Bootstrap analysis to test the hypotheses.The results show that ambidextrous leadership positively influences employees'radical and incremental innovation;idiosyncratic deals plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employees'radical innovation;trust in supervisor plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employees'incremental innovation;cognitive flexibility not only moderates the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and idiosyncratic deals,but also further moderates the mediating effect of idiosyncratic deals;interactive justice not only moderates the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and trust in supervisor,but also further moderates the mediating effect of trust in supervisor.This study confirms that ambidextrous leadership can promote the formation of employees'paradoxical innovation,redefining the inherent cognition that ambidextrous leadership can only promote employees'single innovation.It also provides a new theoretical perspective for exploring the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employees'innovation,which effectively makes up for the shortcomings of previous studies.In addition,this study also introduced two mediating variables,idiosyncratic deals and trust in supervisor,to expand the path mechanism of the effects of ambidextrous leadership.Finally,this study highlights the moderating roles of cognitive flexibility and interactional justice,which enriches the boundary conditions of the effects of ambidextrous leadership.In summary,a theoretical framework explaining the impact of leadership on employees'innovation should take into account different types of employees'innovation and leadership styles,as well as the innovation contexts faced by organizations.In practice,in order to free employees from the dilemma of employee innovation paradox,in the fiercely competitive market environment,leaders must recognize the complexity and variability of organizational management and employee innovation,actively establish a dual leadership style to better serve employee innovation.