居危思变?工作不安全感对创新行为的差异化影响?

企业往往在员工管理和组织创新上处于“两难困境”——难以提供稳定工作但又不得不依赖员工实现组织创新, 这就使得研究员工工作不安全感对创新行为的影响至关重要。企业员工遭遇不同环境威胁带来的工作不安全感时, 创新行为存在差异。本文在威胁焦点下深化工作不安全感概念, 并基于“以变量为中心”和“以人为中心”的研究思路, 探讨其对创新行为的差异化影响过程。首先, 结合环境威胁来源与主观感知, 把工作不安全感分为岗位焦点工作不安全感和人员焦点工作不安全感两个维度, 并将编制测量量表。其次, 期望运用纵向研究设计, 通过分析多时点的员工-主管配对数据, 基于情境调节焦点和工作激情的链式中介作用, 来揭示岗位焦点工作不安全感对创新行为的负向影响, 以及人员焦点工作不安全感对创新行为的倒U型影响。最后, 将采取“以人为中心”的研究思路, 运用潜在剖面分析方法探讨工作不安全感潜在类型及其对创新行为的影响。研究结果将有助于推进工作不安全感的概念和效用研究, 也为企业如何有效促进创新提供对策建议。

Thinking of change in times of danger: The differential impact of job insecurity on innovative behavior

Enterprises are experiencing a “dilemma” in employee management and organizational innovation- it is difficult for enterprises to provide stable jobs, though they have to rely on employees to realize organizational innovation. Thus, it is very essential to study the impact of employees' job insecurity on innovative behavior. When employees encounter job insecurity caused by different environmental threats, they show different level of innovative behavior. Previous studies mainly focus on subjective perception in defining the concept of job insecurity, and only pay attention to mechanism of the holistic construction on innovative behavior from the perspective of intrinsic motivation. This study defines and deepens the concept of job insecurity underpinned by the focus of threats, and explores its differential impact on innovative behavior based on the “variable-centered” approach and the “person-centered” approach. Firstly, this study regards job insecurity as subjective perceptions related to environmental threats and divides it into two dimensions, job-focus insecurity and person-focus insecurity. A measurement scale is also developed. Secondly, with the adoption of longitudinal method and the analysis of the subordinate-supervisor dyad data, it is expected to reveal the chain mediating role of situational regulatory focus and work passion in the impact of job insecurity on innovative behavior. Job-focus insecurity has a negative impact on innovative behavior while person-focus insecurity has an inverted U-shaped impact on innovative behavior. Finally, the “person-centered” approach will be adopted to explore the potential types of job insecurity and its impact on innovative behavior by using latent profile analysis. The main contributions of this study at theoretical level are as follow: 1) considering the sources of environmental threats, the definition of the concept of job insecurity, the deconstruction of the dimensions based on threat focus and the development of the measurement scale will promote the conceptual research and measurement development of job insecurity. 2) based on the regulatory focus theory and the dual model of passion, this study adopt the "variable-centered" approach to comprehensively reveal the differential impact of various dimensions of job insecurity on innovative behavior from the process of motivation and emotional response, which will enrich and improve the research of mechanisms. 3) in response to the call of debus et al. (2020), this study adopts the "person-centered" approach and pays attention to the variability between individuals to investigate whether it is possible to identify different job insecurity profiles and whether innovative behavior differs between job insecurity profiles. Thus, how different dimensions are combined within profiles of employees can be uncovered, which can make up for the shortcomings of the previous “variable-centered” approach, and provide a new direction to the in-depth study of job insecurity. In addition, at practical level, the results of this study can equip managers to have a more comprehensive understanding of the threatening nature of job insecurity, and help them have a better view of the differential impact of job-focus insecurity and person-focus insecurity on innovative behavior. What is more, this study can also provide guidance and suggestions for enterprises on effective employee management and innovative behavior promotion in an unstable environment.