An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) On Employee Innovation Behavior

In the rapidly changing and competitive globalized economy,continuous and uninterrupted innovative behavior of employees is the basis for organizational innovation.Among the many factors that influence employees’ innovative behavior in organizations,effective human resource management practices,as an organizational contextual factor that links individual employees with the organization,can significantly enhance employees’creativity and promote their innovative behavior.Although previous studies have fully confirmed the relationship between organizational HRM practices and employee performance behaviors,its influence on employee innovative behaviors has not been fully recognized.Existing studies focus more on organizational culture,leadership style and organizational innovation atmosphere when exploring the relationship between organizational situational factors and employee innovation behavior.More research is needed on the relationship between HR practices and employee innovation behavior.In the Chinese context,Employee Assistance Programs(EAP)is a systematic HR management program to help employees solve social,psychological,economic,and health problems,and is an important organizational contextual factor that influences employees’ innovative behavior.When employees obtain psychological,economic and social satisfaction from the implementation of EAP,they will try their best to achieve the innovative requirements of the organization in return.In view of this,this study constructs a model in which Employee Assistance Programs(EAP),emotional exhaustion,and perceived organizational support effect employees’innovative behavior based on summarizing related theories and research results,using emotional event theory and resource conservation theory,using emotional exhaustion as a mediating variable,and introducing organizational support feeling as a moderating variable,in order to investigate the relationship and mechanism of action between EAP and employees’ innovative behavior.This study examined the effects of organizationimplemented EAP(evaluated by employees’ perceptions)on employees’ innovative behavior through a questionnaire survey of 327 corporate employees in Hainan and Guangdong and other South China companies,and tested the mediating role of emotional depletion and the moderating role of sense of organizational support.The results showed that organizational implementation of EAP was significantly and positively related to employees’ innovative behavior;emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between EAP and employees’innovative behavior;organizational support perception positively moderated the relationship between EAP and employees’ innovative behavior;organizational support perception moderated the mediating role of EAP influencing employees’ innovative behavior through emotional exhaustion,i.e.,when the level of organizational support perception was low,emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between EAP and employees’ innovative behavior.The mediating role between EAP and employees’ innovative behavior was stronger when the level of organizational support was low.