How Supportive Leadership Promotes Employee Innovation under Uncertainty: Evidence from Chinese E-Commerce Industry

Abstract

Innovative behavior (IB) is an important issue in academic and other sectors. The increasing uncertainty caused by COVID-19 has resulted in rising job insecurity for employees in the e-commerce industry. This has jeopardized career sustainability (CS). Numerous studies have explored the influence of supportive leadership (SL) on IB, but so far there is still a dearth of research investigating the role of CS. In addition, CS must be considered because the perceived sustainability of a career has an impact on individual innovation. Therefore, based on job demands-resources (JDR) theory, we analyzed the effects of SL on IB as well as the roles of CS in IB. The mediating role of employee’s perceived occupational sustainability was explored. This study investigates the associations between supportive leadership style (job resource) and employee innovative behavior (job demand). In total, 308 valid samples were collected from China. Structural equation modeling examines the construct validity and path relationships. The results show that in China’s e-commerce industry, under the uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, only when employees perceive CS can SL promote the transformation of job resources into workplace IB. That is, CS completely mediates SL and IB. This provides new information for the management of employee behavior in the current special period. The result revealed that SL improves IB through CS. Theoretically, this study fills the gap and establishes a theoretical framework for SL and IB. Practically, we offer guidance for enterprises and managers in that they should provide their employees with work resources which are good for employee CS so as to promote employees’ IB.

Intellectual capital and employee innovative behavior in cross-border e-commerce enterprises: the moderating role of career sustainability

“…flexible, renewable, integrative and resourceful) to characterize the dynamic nature of CS in a highly uncertain context. Given this measure better reflects self-expressed need for self-actualization derived from sustaining careers in adapting to external changes, it can capture the ever-changing interactions between the dynamic properties of careers and the people embedded therein within a specific context more explicitly (Wang et al ., 2022; Li et al ., 2022). Thus, we also adopt Chin et al.…”

“…However, increasing use of ICTs and artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with the pandemic, has imposed a variety of challenges and novel risks on the sustainability of careers (Wang et al. , 2022; Li et al.…”

“…Previous research examines the positive effects of employees' perception of career sustainability on IWB in the post-pandemic world (Wang et al. , 2022; Li et al.…”

“…Some research reports a direct and positive relationship (e.g. Ling, 2013; Sardo and Serrasqueiro, 2017; Narzary and Palo, 2023), while other studies report an indirect or even negative association (Örnek and Ayas, 2015; Wang et al. , 2022).…”

Supervisory styles and graduate student innovation performance: The mediating role of psychological capital and the moderating role of harmonious academic passion

“…Among these factors, leadership and positive psychological states have proven to be the most influential ( Kim and Beehr, 2022 ). Positive leadership behaviors such as supportive leadership, empowering leadership, and inclusive leadership, are positively related to employees’ innovative work behaviors and task-related performance ( Gupta and Singh, 2014 ; Fang et al, 2019 ; Wang et al, 2022b ).…”