领地性对员工创新行为的影响机制——以知识隐藏和不信任为连续中介

本文以知识隐藏与同事不信任为连续中介,从个体层面探究了领地性对员工创新行为的消极影响机制。通过对221份员工与员工、员工与直接管理者配对的样本数据进行分析,结果表明:(1)领地性正向影响知识隐藏和同事不信任感,负向影响员工创新行为;(2)知识隐藏中介领地性对同事不信任的影响;(3)同事不信任中介知识隐藏对创新行为的影响;(4)知识隐藏与不信任连续中介领地性与员工创新行为之间的关系。本研究结合自我延伸理论和社会交换理论,揭示了领地性对创新行为的消极作用,研究结论对于管理员工领地性、减少知识隐藏与不信任关系,以及促进创新行为具有重要意义。

The Impact of Territoriality on Employee Innovative Behavior

Employee innovative behavior is a crucial source in improving organization's competitive advantage.Given this,researchers have devoted much attention to examining the motivator of innovative behavior,such as knowledge sharing,organizational climate,leader style and innovative self-efficacy.Thus,in order to promote innovative behavior,organizations have adopted a series of practices.Although these efforts by organizations,innovation does not always occur.The contradiction between theory and reality indicates that there may be inhibitors that influence innovative behavior.Previous research has looked at inhibitors at organizational level,such as unsupported climate and abusive leadership.Although these studies have enriched the understanding of innovation,there are still some shortcomings.First,previous research neglected the inhibitor of innovative behavior.Secondly,scholars only consider inhibitors at the organizational level while overlook them from individual level.For the above shortcomings,we integrate extended self theory and social exchange theory in order to understand how territoriality affects employee innovative behavior and how knowledge hiding and distrust related to each other in the process leading to innovation.We collected time-lagged data form a sample of 221 matched employee-employee and employee-manager pairs in some knowledge-based company.The results indicated that(1)employees with high territoriality engage in more knowledge hiding,(2)territoriality build distrust relationships and do so through knowledge hiding,(3)distrust relationships hinder innovative behavior,and(4)knowledge hiding hinder innovation through distrust relationships.Finally,a comparison of alternative forms of relationship between knowledge hiding and distrust supported the following chain of relationship:territoriality,knowledge hiding,distrust,innovative behavior.That is,an employee with high territoriality engaged in more knowledge hiding and,by so doing,built stronger distrust relationships with colleagues.These distrust relationships,in turn,decreased employee innovation.We make several contributions with this study.First,as the first study to identify and examine the mechanism underlying the negative effect of territoriality on innovative behavior,it suggests that knowledge hiding and distrust are part of a more complex process leading from territoriality to innovative behavior.Second,this study represents the first attempt at integrating extended self theory and social exchange theory to study individual innovative behavior and offers critical implications for theory development.Third,the result show that territoriality has positive influence on knowledge hiding and distrust relationship,as well as has negative influence on employee innovative behavior.This research on territoriality outcome has been further extended.The finding relating to the indirect effect of territoriality on employee innovative behavior has practical implications.First,supervisors should realize that territoriality is inevitable and universal in the organization and an important part in employee's daily work.The organization should clear the ownership boundary and encouraging marking or personalized their possessions.This can increase employees commitment and recognition to their organization.Previous studies show that organization identity can reduce the negative impact of territoriality on knowledge sharing.Second,in light of more and more research calls for exploring the reason why organizations promote employees innovation practices fail.It is also important to introduce research on knowledge hiding.The initial knowledge hider will be retaliated by the knowledge seeker,thus reducing the hider's innovative behavior.Therefore,supervisors should make employees realize the harm of knowledge hiding to themselves,so as to reduce knowledge hiding and promote their innovation.Supervisors can increase interpersonal trust and reduce distrust relationships by emphasizing the shared identity.