Innovative Behaviors, Employee Creativity, and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: A Moderated Mediation

Abstract

It is challenging for enterprises that lack innovation and creativity to survive successfully in the market. Employee top role performance is not always sufficient to gain a competitive advantage, in which innovative behaviors and creativity can be counted as necessary ingredients to build. This study proposed and tested employee innovative behaviors (IB) and creativity as mediator and moderator, respectively, of the impact of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on sustainable competitive advantage (CA). The resource-based view and job demands resources model provided the theoretical underpinnings for the developed hypotheses that were tested using a sample of 323 customer-contact employees of 4- and 5-star hotels. The results indicated that HPWP indirectly predicted CA via IB. Also, creativity moderated the impact of HPWPs on innovative behaviors positively and on competitive advantage negatively. Employee innovative behaviors can generate substantial returns to service organizations competing with quasi-homogeneous end-products. The relevant theoretical and practical implications are further discussed. The scope of the study calls for caution in the generalizability of the overall findings. The research acknowledges the need to extend the findings by explicitly accounting for national cultural profiles. This study fills the dearth of research in service innovation in the hotel industry by testing the mediating effect of IB on the HPWPs CA nexus and reveals the moderating role that employee creative traits have in these relationships.

Dimensionality and consequences of service innovation: An empirical study of hospitality industry

“…Resource-based view (RBV) theory views a firm as a collection of capabilities and resources that are vital for gaining a competitive advantage in the market full of competition (Hall, 1992;Subramanian et al, 2016;Zhang & Dhaliwal, 2009). Resources include human capital, physical capital, and organizational capital under the command of the company which can be used to implement strategies, besides; capabilities describe the capability of a firm to integrate its resources (Barney, 1991;Elidemir et al, 2020). The resource-based view of the firm (RBV) propagates that the resources are the base on which the success of a firm depends and the way it speeds up the competencies of the firm to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Andersen & Kheam, 1998).…”

Whether an innovation act as a catalytic moderator between corporate social responsibility performance and stated owned and non‐state owned enterprises' performance or not? An evidence from Pakistani listed firms

“…The prime organizational responsibilities are categorized as securing the rights of the employees, customers, investors and also executing the strategies for environmental protection (Barkemeyer, n.d.). Additionally, organizations must provide a consolidated compensation to the employees while preparing them through innovative skills to attain the competitive advantage (Elidemir et al, 2020). In this regards, innovative product will be launched extensively and will augment the competition within the market causing customers' satisfaction and boosting the firms' performance.…”

Future Work Self and Employee Creativity: The Mediating Role of Informal Field-Based Learning for High Innovation Performance

“…On the one hand, researchers believed that employee creativity is ultimately offered up by individuals [13]. Such as personality, emotional intelligence, psychological capital, psychological safety, individuals' knowledge and skills [14][15][16][17]. On the other hand, related research suggests that employee creativity is generated by external factors, such as family motivation, management characteristics, constructive leadership, team goal orientation, high-performance work system and organizational climate [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”