Psychological Contracts and Employee Innovative Behaviours: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model

Abstract

According to Bakker and Demerouti’s work demand resource theory, abundant work resources can stimulate an individual’s initiative to the maximum extent and finally achieve ideal work results. However, few scholars have discussed if psychological states could affect work resources. We believe that relationship embeddedness is an important work resource in the context of Chinese human relationship culture. A low degree of embeddedness among employees would affect employees’ recognition of their organizations and reduce their motivation for voluntary innovative behaviours. This study was to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between psychological contracts and employee innovative behaviours as well as the mediating role and moderating role of relational embeddedness and organizational tenure. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Primary data were collected by a structured questionnaire targeting the employees in China. To test the hypotheses, data collected from 402 enterprise employees were used for a regression analysis in AMOS (version 22). We found that there is a significant positive correlation between psychological contract and employee innovation behaviour, while embedding strength and embedding quality mediated the influence of psychological contracts on employee innovative behaviours. Organizational tenure moderated the strength of the relationship between psychological contracts and employee innovative behaviours via embedding strength and embedding quality.

How to stimulate employees’ innovative behavior: Internal social capital, workplace friendship and innovative identity

“…Therefore, the innovative identity attributes of employees in innovation teams will be more pronounced. Existing literature shows that employees with a high sense of identity have higher levels of engagement ( Wang et al, 2020 ; Li H. H. et al, 2021 ), job satisfaction ( Al-Ghazali et al, 2021 ; Krug et al, 2021 ), and innovation ( Tang and Naumann, 2016 ). From a theoretical perspective, employees’ ISC can influence their behavioral decisions by changing how they perceive in the team.…”

“…Existing research has begun to pay attention to the role of social capital in organizational innovation. Some scholars have pointed out that internal social capital (ISC), such as internal cooperation, employees’ common experiences, employees’ interactive identity, etc., has a positive impact on organizational innovation ( Campbell, 2020 ; Zhou et al, 2021 ), and ISC affects EIB through relational psychological contracts, knowledge sharing, and dual learning ( Ng et al, 2010 ; Dong et al, 2017 ; Cohen and Ehrlich, 2019 ; Kiazad et al, 2019 ; Li H. H. et al, 2021 ; Ye et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2022 ). Although the influence of ISC on innovation behavior has been examined, the discussion on the relationship mechanism between the two has yet to be deeply explored, and the influence mechanism between ISC, innovative identity, and innovative behavior needs to be further studied.…”

How Employee’s Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Get Affected by Characteristics of the Psychological Contract

“…Furthermore, there were several factors that contributed in such changes, such as rise in mergers and acquisitions, globalization with its impacts, layoffs and organizational changes and restructuring; all of these factors brought major changes in the relationship between employer and employees (Shafqat & Mushtaq, 2020). Thus, the psychological contract has appeared as a corner stone in the mentioned relationship (Li, Xu, & Zheng, 2021). Alcover, Martinez-Inigo, and Chambel (2012) stated that there were numerous events that happen in organizational environment that cause emotional responses among the employees.…”

Does Spiritual Intelligence Impact Relational Psychological Contract among Teachers?

“…To comprehend teachers' expectations and their value, it is essential to introduce the concept of the relational psychological contract, assimilating the school-teacher relationship which is a longterm employment based on mutual beliefs, perceptions, and informal responsibilities different from formal written contracts of employment (Pajarre 2012). Li et al (2021) claim that spiritual intelligence has a significant impact on innovative work behavior, which is embodied in the generation of ideas and the execution and realization of such ideas. Thus, when spiritually intelligent teachers assimilate the fulfillment of relational psychological contracts by their schools, their readiness to innovate is significantly implanted as a result, which paves the way for schools to consider promoting greenness to achieve distinction in a commodity market.…”