An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Coworkers' Innovation Expectation On Corporate Employees' Innovative Behavior

Innovation is the most valuable activity in current society. Employees'innovative behavior refers to the process in which novel and valuable ideas are created and the set of behaviors applying these ideas into practice. Innovative behaviors play an essential role in the process of corporate innovation. Extant literature investigated the antecedents of innovative behaviors from multiple angles, e.g., from the perspective of external contextual factors such as organizational climate, working environment, corporate culture, and from the perspective of individual psychological factors such as leadership empowerment, self-efficacy, and role identity, and from the perspective of individual behavior and personality such as personal traits, engagement of creative activities. Based on the related literature of 'expectation-innovation', this research explores individual's innovative behaviors from the perspective of colleagues' innovation expectation which is helpful to unravel the process of generating innovative behaviors and has significant implications for firms inspire employees' innovative behaviors.This article firstly summarizes related theories and the previous research findings about coworkers'innovation expectation (CIE) and employee innovation behavior (EIB), which provides a foundation for further investigation of the relationship between CIE and EIB. Secondly, this research explores the mechanism of how CIE affect EIB and develops a conceptual model and several hypotheses. Based on prior studies, this research compiles the survey questionnaire and improved its quality through pretest. Finally, this research examines the reliability and validity of the survey data and testified hypotheses developed in the conceptual model using various data analysis methods, including ANOVA, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.Results of empirical analysis indicate that demographic variables have varied effects on coworkers' innovation expectation, creative self-efficacy, creative process engagement and employee innovation behavior; coworkers' innovation expectation has a positive effect on creative self-efficacy, creative process engagement and employee innovation behavior; creative self-efficacy and creative process engagement have positive effects on employee innovation behavior; creative self-efficacy has a positive effect on creative process engagement. Moreover, creative self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between CIE and EIB; creative process engagement partially mediates the relationship between CIE and EIB; creative self-efficacy and creative process engagement simultaneously act as mediators which transfer the effect of coworkers' innovation expectation on employee innovation behavior. Based upon these findings, several suggestions are proposed as follows. Firstly, firms are recommended to help employees establish a innovative image to gain coworkers' innovation expectation. Secondly, firms are suggested to cultivate harmonious organizational relations to create innovative working climate. Thirdly, firms can spur employees' creative self-efficacy through establishing confident corporate culture. Finally, firms can reinforce employees' creative process engagement via upporting innovative activities.