From Idea Generation To Its Implementation:A Multilevel Research From The Leader Perspective

Chinese enterprises are in a critical period of innovation escalation.How to make full use of employees’ creative potential and wisdom is crucial to the reform and upgrading of organizational innovation.Previous studies have explored the transformation from the idea generation to its implementation from an employee-centred perspective,nonetheless,we know little to date about which leader values affect the conversion of idea into its implementation.Drawing on expectancy theory perspective,this study examined the effect of two different components of creative idea,namely,novelty and usefulness,on its implementation,and the boundary conditions of leaders’ values of zhongyong thinking and uncertainty avoidance.Our study consists of three sections:In the first section,this study reviewed the literature on idea novelty,idea usefulness,zhongyong thinking,uncertainty avoidance and idea implementation.Firstly,I summarized the studies associated with idea generation and idea implementation,including the relationship between idea generation and idea implementation,the theoretical mechanism underlying the conversion of idea into its implementation and the boundary conditions of leader factors,and so on.Secondly,by integrating previous literatures,I summarized the reasons for the inconsistency conclusions regarding the relationship between idea generation and idea implementation.Thirdly,based on expectancy theory,I deduced the relationship between idea novelty and usefulness and idea implementation,and the moderating effect of leaders’ zhongyong thinking and leaders’ uncertainty avoidance.In the second section,I describe the data collection process.I obtained the matched data from 365 employees and 90 leaders in 15 different companies.The results of hierarchical linear model analysis demonstrated:(1)Novelty of an idea was negatively related to idea implementation;whereas usefulness of an idea was positively related to idea implementation.(2)Leaders’ zhongyong thinking strengthened the negative relationship between novelty and idea implementation,and the positive relationship between usefulness and idea implementation.(3)Leaders’ uncertainty avoidance augmented the negative relationship between novelty and idea implementation;the moderating effect of leaders’ uncertainty avoidance on the relationship between usefulness and idea implementation was not significant.In the third section,I summarized the theoretical contributions,practical indications and limitations of this study,and pointed out potential valuable research directions in the future.