A Study Of The Influence Mechanism Of Organizational Innovation Values On Employees’ Innovative Behavior

Innovation is the source and driving force of social and economic development.The practice of global economic development shows that the national competitiveness has changed from agricultural economy and industrial economy to knowledge economy,and independent innovation and knowledge resources development have become the key power to economic growth and competitiveness improvement.On a macro level,China has created a good external environment for innovation-driven economic development and economic restructuring.As the most important subject of social and economic innovation,how to implement the macro innovation-driven development strategy and promote the initiative innovation behavior of enterprises at the micro level is the key to social innovation.Employees being the main stakeholders of enterprise innovation,how to stimulate employees’ innovative behavior has been a theoretical concern for further study and a focus in business management.At present,on the one hand,in order to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises and gain a long-term competitive advantage,many enterprises in China have spared no effort to improve their organizational innovation values,but the actual effect is not obvious,and their effort is often in vain.On the other hand,many enterprises have been working on more effective measures to enhance their employees’ innovative behavior,such as carrying out human resources innovation activities,encouraging different types of leadership,stimulating employees’ innovative enthusiasm,creating a positive organizational atmosphere,etc.,but such external incentives also fail to a large extent.Enterprise managers are in urgent need of more effective strategies to improve employees’ innovative behavior,and so they gradually turn their attention to employees’ intrinsic motivation factors such as personality,cognition,thought and value system.Intrinsic motivation,which is inherent and invisible,is the most important factor to inspire employees’ enthusiasm and innovation.Also,it often resides in one’s personal values.Unfortunately,scholars often ignore such factors as values in their research on the influence of employees’ innovative behavior,and many existing literatures pay little attention to the influence mechanism and process of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovative behavior,especially the research on the internal action mechanism between them.This paper holds that the organizational environment felt by individuals in the same environment is not consistent,and personal values have a significant impact on individual behavior motivation,but the organizational values system closely related to individuals and organizations has a more important impact on one’s individual role-playing,among which organizational innovation values play a pivotal role.In view of this,it is of theoretical significance and practical value to study how to improve employees’ innovative behavior from the perspective of organizational values.Exploring the influence mechanism of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovative behavior,finding out the "bridge" between them,and doing a good job of theoretical research on the mechanism of "transforming values into behaviors" not only provides a new research perspective and direction in the field of innovative behavior,but also shed some new ideas for how to effectively stimulate employees’ innovative behavior in enterprises,and also provides corresponding theoretical basis for the value construction of various organizations,which has great and urgent practical significance.In view of the above problems,with self-determination theory and social cognition theory as its theoretical bases,the theme of this paper is the influence mechanism of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovative behavior.Through literature study,exploratory case study and empirical study of four enterprises,this paper comprehensively analyzes the cross-level influence of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovation behavior,by following the theoretical framework of "innovation values—self-determination factors—innovation behavior".In effect,this paper not only analyzes the mediating role of work autonomy,interpersonal trust and creative self-efficacy,but also discusses the process and contingency factors influencing employees’ innovative behavior by innovative values.In this study,510 employees of 46 enterprises in some provinces of China were investigated by questionnaires,and the cross-level regression analysis of the sample data was carried out by SPSS and MPLUS.This study findings not only enriched the theoretical research in the field of values and innovative behavior,but also provided some management reference for enterprise policy makers.By following the scientific and reasonable research paradigm and process,this dissertation comes up with the following findings: First,organizational innovation values have a significantly positive impact on employees’ innovative behavior.Specifically,organizational innovation values have important influence on their employees’ motivation in terms of ideas,thoughts and values,thus affecting their employees’ innovative behaviors.This may offer a positive guiding function for managers to implement innovative values within the organization.Second,work autonomy,interpersonal trust and creative self-efficacy play an intermediary role in the relationship between organizational innovation values and employees’ innovative behaviors.Specifically,organizational innovation values,as an important social factor,will affect employees’ work autonomy.As a matter of fact,when employees’ autonomy needs are met,their internal work motivation and their innovative behavior are both strengthened.Interpersonal trust plays an intermediary role between organizational innovation values and employees’ innovative behaviors.In a team with organizational innovation values,team members are more willing to accept others with an open mind,actively discuss their work with others,and seek ways to improve their work efficiency.They are more likely to share their experiences,knowledge and information with others.This kind of interpersonal trust can encourage team members to share their views,feedback and seek help from each other,thus stimulating the employees’ creative agency.Because organizational innovation values will make employees fully realize that they are playing a very important part in spreading organizational values,their innovative self-efficacy will be continuously enhanced to the extent that they are more willing to strive for more self-innovation behaviors.This model outlines a more comprehensive psychological picture regarding the influence of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovative behavior,which is beneficial for enterprise managers to carry out targeted practice.Third,organizational innovation atmosphere has a positive mediating effect on the relationship between organizational innovation values and work autonomy and interpersonal trust.The better the organizational innovation atmosphere,the greater the positive effect of organizational innovation values on work autonomy.The better the organizational innovation atmosphere,the greater the positive effect of organizational innovation values on interpersonal trust.However,organizational innovation atmosphere has no moderating effect on the relationship between organizational innovation values and innovation self-efficacy.Organizational innovation atmosphere also mediates the influence of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovative behavior through work autonomy and interpersonal trust.Therefore,in view of the above research findings,this paper puts forward the following three suggestions on how to enhance employees’ innovative behavior: First,it is essential that organizations have a package of scientific and reasonable innovation values.In enterprise management,it is critical to develop a well-accepted core culture of organizational innovation values,which may encourage employees to speak up their minds and inspire them to innovate.Second,organizations should strive to enhance their employees’ work autonomy and self-confidence so as to improve the overall level of interpersonal trust.At the same time,it is necessary for an organization to encourage its employees to speak out their own minds and make their own decisions,to encourage their innovative behaviors and make their creative ideas heard or acknowledged.In this way,not only the employees’ work autonomy,trust among colleagues and self-confidence in work can be linked,and employees’ innovative behavior can be promoted by improving their psychological perception.Third,it is very necessary to create an atmosphere of organizational innovation.It is essential that organizations take a series of measures that are conducive to cultivating organizational innovation atmosphere so as to avoid putting the organizational values on the slogan.This study not only constructs a theoretical model of " value-driven behavior" from a new perspective,but also enriches the research on the antecedent variables of employees’ innovative behavior,and provides empirical evidence for the mechanism of the influence of organizational innovative values on employees’ innovative behavior,and some helpful guidance for enterprise managers to enhance employees’ innovative behavior.By summarizing the literature on social cognition theory,self-determination theory and self-efficacy theory and their relationship,this study creatively puts forward the concept of organizational innovation values in Chinese context,formulating the framework of "value-driven behavior".This framework was then verified through a systematic analysis of the survey data,whereby the relationship model of the influence of organizational innovation values on employees’ innovative behavior is observed.This study provides a new research starting point for the theoretical development of organizational values affecting employee behavior,and a new perspective for the research of employee innovation behavior,for it takes organizational innovation values as an antecedent factor of employee innovation behavior.