Leader–Employee Congruence in Humor and Innovative Behavior: The Moderating Role of Dynamic Tenure

Abstract

Drawing upon the literature on complementary fit theory, the purpose of this study is to examine how the dynamic tenure moderates the relationship between leader–employee congruence/incongruence in humor and employee innovative behavior. Data were collected from 108 leader–employee dyads from information technology companies in China. Polynomial regression combined with the response surface methodology was used to test the hypotheses. Four conclusions were drawn. First, employee innovative behavior was maximized when leaders and employees were incongruent in humor. Second, in the case of incongruence, employees had higher innovative behavior when employees were more humorous than their leaders. Third, in the case of congruence, employees had higher innovative behavior when a leader’s and an employee’s humor matched at high levels. Fourth, dynamic tenure moderated the leader–employee congruence/incongruence effect of humor on employee innovative behavior. This study enhanced theoretical developments by considering the importance of leaders’ congruence with employees in humor for the first time. Additionally, the research results provided better practical guidance for effectively promoting employee innovative behavior.

How to recover from difficult condition? The relationship between leader-employee congruence in creativity goal and innovative performance

“…, 2021; Roopak et al. , 2018; Yuan, 2021). Therefore, exploring the influencing factors of innovative performance from the perspective of creativity goal matching between leaders and employees has both theoretical contribution and practical importance.…”

“…Although these studies provide rich literature knowledge for improving individual innovative performance (Anderson et al, 2014), one limitation is that it ignores to explore the influencing factors of innovative performance from the perspective of the interaction between leaders and employees. The interaction between leaders and employees is a common phenomenon in organizational context, but few studies directly explore its impact on innovation (Liu et al, 2021;Roopak et al, 2018;Yuan, 2021). Therefore, exploring the influencing factors of innovative performance from the perspective of creativity goal matching between leaders and employees has both theoretical contribution and practical importance.…”

“…On the one hand, employees will have stronger intrinsic motivation to work hard to achieve organizational goals (Dweck and Leggett, 1988) and complete organizational tasks (Yu, 2016). On the other hand, leaders will also take the initiative to help employees effectively achieve goals and provide more resource support for employees to achieve innovative goals (Tjosvold, 1989;Yuan, 2021), which is more conducive for employees to carry out innovative activities and promote the improvement of innovative performance. Therefore, we put forward the following hypothesis:…”

“…On the other hand, the process of employees striving to achieve high goal is in line with the leaders' positive role expectations for employees. At this time, leaders are willing to give more support and trust to employees (Oparaocha, 2016;Yuan, 2021). Employees who get the support and trust of leaders will further stimulate their internal creativity and actively make efforts for innovative work (Ng and Lucianetti, 2016;Roopak et al, 2018).…”

Perceived Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility and Employees’ Innovative Behavior: A Stimulus–Organism–Response Perspective

“…Therefore, it is worth exploring how to effectively promote the innovative behavior of employees at the present stage. The innovative behavior of employees is defined as a series of positive behavioral responses that employees recognize, generate new ideas for products, services, and implement new ideas ( Scott and Bruce, 1994 ; Kwon and Kim, 2020 ; Yuan, 2021 ). Many studies on the effects of organizational-level factors on the innovative behavior of employees are mainly from the economic perspective, including work process-related lead userness (e.g., Wu C.-H. et al, 2020 ), public service motivation (e.g., Miao et al, 2018 ), high-performance work practices (e.g., Farrukh et al, 2021 ), and perceived innovation job requirement (e.g., Shin et al, 2017 ), but a strong theoretical understanding from the non-economic perspective remains lacking.…”