Study On The Relationship Between TPB-based Following Behavior And Its Derived Creative Work Behavior

Knowledge economy,information technology and artificial intelligence technology have changed the relationship between people in the organization,and the organizational structure has also changed.The organization is more and more flat,the operation is more and more diversified,and the power is more and more decentralized.Followers and leaders jointly stipulate an organization and complete a cause.Therefore,the leadership theory of organization is also evolving.The leadership theory has experienced the evolution from the study of leadership characteristics,leadership skills,leadership style,leadership situation and contingency theory to the study of leader member exchange theory,and then to the study of transformational leadership.The corresponding research on followers mainly focuses on the types of followers,followership and following behavior of followers,and believes that followers are a very important organizational role.However,the overall characteristic of these studies is the leader oriented research.Recently,binary equivalence research has emerged,which believes that leaders and followers are equally important.Therefore,in the research,this thesis study leadership,followership and the relationship between leadership and followership.The other is study the leadership characteristics and study the innovative behavior and organizational citizenship behavior of followers(organization members).Kelley put forward the concept of “actively following behavior” composed of two dimensions: active participation and critical thinking.This critical following behavior is a kind of non-blindly following behavior to leaders and it deepens the concept of following.This thesis recognizes that in this two-dimensional following concept,it expresses a relationship that followers and followed objects(leaders)work together for the organization's goals.Following the leaders is not the purpose in itself.Followers follow leaders in order to improve the ultimate work performance of the leaders and improve the performance of organizations served by followers and leaders.However,there are few studies in this field.Most studies either end in the leadership behavior itself,or end in the following behavior or the followership itself.This thesis holds that since the following behavior in the organization is not the ultimate goal,the study of the following problem should go further and study the relationship between the followers' following behavior and their work behavior in the organization.Therefore,the following questions are raised:(1)what kind of behavior is the effective following behavior of followers in organizations under the modern background? What factors determine the effective following behavior? What are the factors that affect people's effective following behavior?(2)Under the guidance of organizational goals,what kind of creative work behaviors will be derived from this effective following behavior,and what are the types of these creative work behaviors? What is the relationship between the active following behavior of the followers and the work behavior derived from them?(3)What other organizational factors affect the relationship between the active following behavior and the derived work behavior? What is its function?In order to answer the above questions,this thesis establishes a two-stage construction model based on theoretical analysis and certification.The first stage model is a planned behavior(TPB)model about effective following behavior;the second stage model is a causal analysis model that reveals the internal relationship between two independent variables and followers' work behavior(dependent variables),and takes organizational support and inclusive leadership as two moderating variables.The two-stage model is integrated into a whole model by using the core concept of effective following behavior,and the whole model involves 8 concepts and 11 latent variables.The measurement scale of 11 latent variables was designed,409 valid questionnaires were collected nationwide,and the proposed hypotheses were tested by structural equation(AMOS)method and multiple regression method.Its 7main hypotheses and 14 specific hypotheses have passed the test.The main results and innovations of this thesis are as follows:First,It is proposed and demonstrated that the effective following behavior of followers in an organization is a rational and a planned behavior.Based on the theory of planned behavior(TPB),this thesis puts forward the hypotheses of the relationship between following behavior attitude,following behavior subjective norms,following behavior control and following behavior intention,puts forward the hypothesis of the relationship between following behavior intention and the effective following behavior,and uses the collected data to test and confirm the effectiveness of the relevant hypotheses.It is found that the following behavior control plays an important role in effective following behavior.This discovery can explain the involuntary following(including not following)behavior in the organization,and can also explain the existence and formation mechanism of “insiders” and “outsiders” in LMX theory.That is,the “insiders” and “outsiders” in LMX theory are the result of active following,are the result of followers' planned behavior,and are jointly determined by followers' rationality and following behavior control.Second,based on social exchange theory and intrinsic motivation theory,this thesis analyzes the nature and dimensions of work behavior derived from effective following behavior,and then reveals the internal relationship between effective following behavior and its derived work behavior.There are two different dimensions in effective following behavior,that is,active participating following behavior and non-blind following behavior.The work behavior is divided into radical creative work behavior,incremental creative work behavior and non-creative routine work behavior.This thesis puts forward the hypothesis of the relationship between effective following behavior(two dimensions)and derived work behavior(three dimensions),which is tested and verified by the sample data in this thesis.The core is that the effective following behavior of followers can derive their different creative work behavior.Third,the moderating effects of inclusive leadership and organizational support on the relationship between effective following behavior(two dimensions)and derived working behavior(three dimensions)are demonstrated,the corresponding hypotheses are proposed and tested by the sample data in this thesis,and the relevant hypotheses are confirmed.It is found that the moderating effects of the two organizational factors(organizational support and inclusive leadership)are different between the different dimensions of effective following behavior and the different dimensions of derived creative work behavior.That is,organizational support and inclusive leadership have a positive strengthening effect on the relationship between active participating following behavior and creative(radical and incremental)work behavior,and have a negative weakening effect on the relationship between non-blind following behavior and creative(radical and incremental)work behavior.This thesis also has the following deficiencies: the limitations of literature,there are few studies on the relationship between followers' effective following behavior and creative work behavior which can be used for reference;the sample size is not enough,although the survey involves the whole country,the sample size is still a bit small;the scale itself has limitations,because about half of the scales in the research are designed by myself and these scales need to be further revised and improved;the statistical analysis also has the limitation of failing to control the factors such as industry,age,education level and position.Problems to be further studied: the action mechanism of participatory following behavior and non-blind following behavior on followers' creative work behavior needs to be further studied;the work mechanism of followers who finally adopt non-creative routine creative work behavior in the organization needs to be further studied;the cause of organizational support and inclusive leadership negatively moderate the relationship between non-blind following behavior and creative work behavior should be further studied;relevant control variables should be introduced to reveal the industry characteristics,age characteristics,education level characteristics and position characteristics of effective following behavior.