Fostering employees' innovative behavior: The importance of proactive personality and work-related flow

Acta Psychol (Amst). 2024 Apr 25:246:104278. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104278. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Employees' innovative behaviors (EIB) play a crucial role in driving enterprises' innovation and enabling them to adapt to the complex business environment. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of proactive personality in EIB, whereby a mediating effect of work-related flow is proposed in this relationship. The moderating effect of organizational innovation climate is also examined on the indirect of proactive personality on EIB through work-related flow. With purposive sampling, a questionnaire survey was conducted on front-line employees of two digital cultural and creative industrial parks in Southwest China. A total of 279 valid questionnaires were used for hypothesis verification. The findings indicate that employees' proactive personality has a significant positive effect on EIB. Employees with a proactive personality are more likely to experience work-related flow, which in turn promotes their EIB. However, we did not find evidence of the organizational innovation climate moderating the relationship between proactive personality and EIB.

Keywords: Employees' innovative behavior; Organizational innovation climate; Proactive personality; Work-related flow.