The Effect Of Growth-need Strength On Employees' Job Performance: The Perspective Of Status Competition

As the degree of dynamics and uncertainty growing, managers come to realize that employees' proactivity in the work is a key factor in the success of enterprises. Growth-need Strength indicates employees' proactivity in the work, and it is closely related to job characteristics. Therefore, it is important and necessary to explore the influence mechanism of growth-need strength in both theoretical and practical field. Based on the perspective of cooperation, Western scholars have done a lot of research around the mechanism between growth-need strength and the outcome variables. However, the researchers have observed that the cooperation perspective can not fully explain the essence of the growth-need strength intensity process. Especially in Chinese cultural background, where hierarchy and high power distance are dominant, the influence of status competition on the growth-need strength cannot be ignored. Consequently, based on the status competition perspective, this article view status threat as the core variable to explain how superior's mental state and behavior choice affects the relationship between growth-need strength and employees' job performance, and further explore the mediation mechanism of these factors.We test our model on a sample of 219 superiors and 876 subordinates. The results show that :(1) Growth-need strength has a significant positive effect on job performance, and perceived contribution partially mediate the relationship between growth-need strength and employee job performance. However, the mediation of LMX, perceived loyalty and affect, professional respect can not be supported;(2) Superiors' growth-need strength positively moderate the positive relation of employees' growth-need strength and job performance, such that the higher superiors' growth-need strength is, the stronger the positive relation of employee growth-need strength and job performance will be;(3) LMX plays an mediation role between the interaction of superiors' growth-need strength and employees' growth-need strength and job performance;(4) Loyalty partially transmit the effect of superiors' growth-need strength on the relationship between employees' growth-need strength and job performance, but LMX or perceived contribution ?professional respect?affect have no effect. In particular, perceived status threat mediates the moderating effects of superior growth-need strength on employee growth-need strength and perceived loyalty, mediates the moderating effects of superior growth-need strength on employee growth-need strength and job performance, but does not mediates the moderating effects of superior growth-need strength on employee growth-need strength and perceived contribution, affect, professional respect, LMX.