International Journal of Entrepreneurship (Print ISSN: 1099-9264; Online ISSN: 1939-4675)

Research Article: 2021 Vol: 25 Issue: 4S

The Impact of Empowering Leadership on Employees' Innovative Behavior: The Role of Job Remodeling and Job Insecurity

Jingqi Sun, University College Sedaya International

Qiang Li, Shanghai Technical Institute of Electronics & Information

Tenghong Rong, North Borneo University College

Yingji Li, Chongqing Institute of Engineering

Keywords

Empowering Leadership, Innovative Behavior, Job Remodeling, Job Insecurity

Abstract

 In recent years, how to improve employee innovation and strengthen employee innovation behavior has become a hot topic in the field of management. Through a questionnaire survey of employees, we explore the mechanism of empowering leadership on employees' innovation behavior from an empirical perspective. The results show that: empowering leadership can promote decision-making participation, express high performance confidence, and give autonomy, which has a significant positive impact on employees' innovative behavior, while emphasizing work significance and employees' innovative behavior have no significant effect; Among the four dimensions of empowering leadership, promoting decision-making participation and expressing high performance confidence have significant regression effect on employees' innovation behavior; There is a significant positive relationship between job remodeling and employee innovation behavior, and the positive correlation between job remodeling and employee innovation behavior can be verified; In the mediating effect of empowerment leadership and its dimension variables on employees' innovative behavior, the regression coefficient of empowerment leadership on employees' innovative behavior decreased significantly after job remodeling mediating variables. Job remodeling plays a partial mediating role in the process of expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy to employees' innovative behavior; Job remolding plays a complete mediating role in promoting the relationship between decision-making participation and employee innovation behavior, Job insecurity has a significant moderating effect on emphasizing work significance, promoting decision-making participation, expressing high performance confidence, giving autonomy and employees' innovative behavior.

Introduction

The connotation of authorized leadership is generally concentrated in two interpretations (ahearne, 2005). The first can be understood as a series of management practices of decision-making rights in an organization, including chivalrous rights, independent working groups, establishment of management teams, and rich work (Leach, 2003). Because the understanding of authorization comes from the organizational context, not the inner feelings of employees, this authorization is understood as context authorization. The second can be understood as focusing on the psychological experience of employees with regard to authorization (spritzer, 1995). After years of research and development, the authorization of this psychological experience has gradually become the concept of psychological authorization. Conger & Kanungo (1998) believed that authorization can stimulate the self-efficacy of employees, eliminate the sense of power of subordinates, and promote performance improvement.

With the in-depth study of empowerment, researchers are gradually concerned about leadership empowerment. Konczak, Stanley & Trust (2002) took the lead in introducing the concept of authorization into leadership behavior and combining it. At the same time, fully considering the two different interpretations of authorization, they proposed the concept of authorized leadership behavior, and believed that while empowering employees, leaders should also ensure that their power can be implemented. Subsequent researchers have also carried out more in-depth research on its connotation from different perspectives of authorization.

Marcel & Van Assen (2020) believed that in the context of empowerment, researchers pay attention to the behavior of leaders, emphasizing that the focus of empowerment is the process of leadership decentralization. In this context, the definition of empowering leadership is that the behavior and process of empowering subordinates by leaders is to empower and motivate employees to make more efforts and contributions and improve performance. Arnold, et al., (2000) believe that the first aspect of empowering leadership is to delegate power, and include various methods not to improve employees' perception of empowerment. Typical empowering leadership behaviors include decentralization, emphasizing responsibility, encouraging independent decision-making, sharing information, developing skills and encouraging innovation.

Srivastava, bartol & Locke (2006). From the perspective of psychological empowerment, it focuses on the perception and behavioral response of subordinates to leadership empowerment. From this perspective, the purpose of empowering leadership is to empower subordinates to improve their self-efficacy, enhance their sense of work significance and intrinsic motivation, so as to eliminate employees' sense of powerlessness. Ahearne (2005) will start from psychological empowerment and think that empowering leadership behavior includes emphasizing work significance, transferring performance confidence, promoting participation in decision-making, providing autonomy to weaken bureaucratic constraints. This division method is consistent with the concept of psychological empowerment in terms of work significance, self-efficacy, work influence and autonomy.

In recent studies, scholars believe that it is not comprehensive from the perspective of situation and psychological empowerment. In the specific management process, only the full combination of situation empowerment and psychological empowerment can help researchers better understand the essence of empowering leadership. At the same time, with the deepening of research, authorization from the two perspectives also began to merge. Researchers do not only emphasize the leader's decentralization behavior, nor investigate the subordinates' perception of power, but also conduct research from an integrated perspective. Therefore, Srivastava, bartol & Locke, et al., (2006) redefined empowering leadership, and believed that empowering leadership mainly has two meanings. The first is to delegate the leader's rights, emphasize how to assign work responsibilities to employees, enhance employees' sense of organizational mission, and promote employees to get more sense of rights. The second is that leaders enhance employees' psychological ability through authorization, promote employees' spontaneous participation in work, and improve employees' work efficiency and intrinsic work motivation.

This study discusses the relevant dimensions of the influence of authorized leadership on employees' innovation ability from four important aspects: emphasizing the work significance, promoting decision-making participation, expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy. Among them, Tang & Yang (2020) results of show that the authorized leadership can be explained from two aspects: management mode and resource allocation, and has a rich description of each aspect. In the process of questionnaire survey, it is found that giving autonomy is also an important dimension of the influence of authorized leadership on employees' innovation ability. Through these four dimensions, authorized leadership has an impact on the innovation ability of employees inside and outside the circle. Meanwhile, Bakker, TIMS & Dirks (2012) found that work remolding, as a kind of active behavior, originates from certain self stimulation, pays attention to the understanding and understanding of the working environment, and whether the employees' work interests, values and their work skills are consistent. This study holds that work remodeling can be introduced as a mediator variable to carry out the research; Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin (1993) can be seen from the theory of creativity, which shows that there is interaction between human creativity and situation, and the relationship between external variables and creativity often depends on individual differences. Therefore, this study introduces the sense of insecurity of employees as a regulatory variable to explore the mechanism of authorized leadership in employee innovation behavior.

Put Forward Research Hypotheses

Empowering Leadership and Employees' Innovative Behavior

The innovation behavior of employees is the behavior that employees produce new ideas and put them into practice. For employees, employees will face many difficulties in the process of innovation. The support and help of the superior leadership plays an important role in the innovation behavior of employees. If the leaders fully trust, support and help the employees, give them full autonomy and express their confidence in achieving high performance, they will bring strong working force and promote the innovation behavior of employees.

Nishii & Mayer (2009) believe that in the process of empowerment, leaders provide employees with more responsibilities, independent decision-making power for work and resource allocation, and effective support for employees to complete tasks. Yukl & Lepsinger (2004) believe that empowering leadership is also closely related to the concept of responsibility sharing and organizational behavior, that is, leadership empowerment can show leaders' confidence in employees, and can effectively improve the ability of employees. Zhang and Bartol (2010) believe that some practices of empowering leadership can promote the improvement of employee creativity. For example, let employees understand the importance of work, let employees participate in decision-making, express their confidence in completing the work with high quality to employees, and reduce authoritarian leadership. Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta & Kramer (2004) found that when employees participate in leadership decision-making and feel that they have gained a certain degree of autonomy, they can produce more innovative results. It can be considered that when empowering subordinates, empowering leaders also send an important autonomous signal to subordinates, that is, full trust and recognition. Daan van Knippenberg, et al., (2021) found that once subordinates receive these signals from their superiors, employees will have a strong sense of trust and responsibility, and are willing to pay more efforts for the organization to repay their superiors, so as to achieve mutual benefit in the exchange process of trust and reward. The innovative behavior of employees is conducive to the development of the organization, and it is a kind of positive feedback for employees to return to the organization. Specifically, empowering leadership influences employees' innovative behavior by emphasizing the significance of work, promoting decision-making participation, expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy. Therefore, the study believes that empowering leadership has a positive impact on employees' innovation behavior.

Based on the above analysis, this study puts forward the following assumptions:

H1: Empowering leadership has a significant positive impact on employee innovation behavior.

H1a: Emphasis on job meaning has a significant positive impact on employees' innovative behavior.

H1b: Promoting decision-making participation has a significant positive impact on employees' innovation behavior.

H1c: The expression of high performance confidence has a significant positive impact on employees' innovation behavior.

H1d: Giving autonomy has a significant positive impact on employees' innovation behavior.

Empowering Leadership and Work Remodeling

Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) Job remodeling is a series of changing behaviors that employees self-stimulate for their own interests, motivations and passions consistent with their work. It can be considered that job remodeling is the process of employees' Job Recognition and role through their own reconstruction of work, Its essence is that employees redesign their work, so as to obtain the meaning of the work, improve their investment and satisfaction in the work, and get the feeling of happiness. Grant & Ashford (2008) believes that work engagement is a subjective change in work design, with typical initiative. However, for managers, if managers pay attention to their own management strategies and methods, and are recognized and accepted by employees, then for employees, it will also make employees remodel their work. Wrzesniewski (2001) believes that there are three ways to achieve job remodeling. The first is to change the amount, scope and type of work tasks, such as how many tasks employees can choose to engage in. The second is to change the quantity or quality of the relationship with others in the work. For example, employees can give priority to choose specific relationship partners and develop specific relationship to reshape their work; third, we can change our cognition of work. Berg & Dutton (2008) based on the three methods, we can know that job remodeling is to design specific work and adjust specific aspects of the task. And these three ways are precisely based on the three aspects of motivation of employees' work remodeling. That is to say, for leaders, in order to promote employees to remodel their work better, they can influence employees' motivation in three aspects of remolding their work through authorization. So as to adjust the amount of work tasks, change the type and scope, give employees trust and support, promote employees to choose their own relationship with others, and promote employees' work reshaping by emphasizing the significance of work, allowing employees to actively participate in decision-making, giving autonomy, expressing confidence and other ways.

Slemp & Vella Brodrick (2014) holds that, from the perspective of self-determination theory, human beings are born with three psychological needs: sense of belonging, autonomy and authority perception, and work remodeling can promote the formation of individual self-desire and show others positive images. Jeon & Yom (2014) believe that psychological empowerment is of great significance for employees to carry out their work. Employees' psychological perception of empowerment is of great significance to their work. Being empowered means they can redefine the tasks, relationships, perceptions they treat. CHO, Song & Park (2015) believe that the work autonomy of employees is mainly that employees have the right to decide their own work behaviors. Employees with full autonomy will set their own work goals in order to complete their work. In order to achieve their work goals, they will show a very good sense of self-discipline and responsibility. Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) believe that in the theory of employees' work remodeling, in order to achieve their work remodeling, employees will strive to find opportunities to achieve their work remodeling, That is to actively obtain the right of self-determination. Leana (2009) believes that discretion will have a positive impact on job remodeling. At the same time, Petrou (2012) believes that when employees are faced with arduous tasks, they are more likely to have job remodeling behavior if they are provided with more autonomy.

Based on the above conclusions, we can infer that through sharing power with subordinates, empowering leadership provides employees with autonomy and a relaxed and flexible working atmosphere, conveys their confidence in high performance, emphasizes the significance and value of work, and allows employees to participate in decision-making, thus motivating employees to remodel their work more actively, so as to improve the matching degree between individuals and working environment, Enhance the adaptability of the work to better complete the task.

H2: empowering leadership has a positive impact on job remodeling

H2a: emphasizing the meaning of work will have a positive impact on job remodeling

H2b: promoting decision-making participation will have a positive impact on job remodeling

H2c: expressing high performance confidence has a positive impact on job remodeling

H2d: giving autonomy has a positive impact on job remodeling

Work Remodeling and Innovation Behavior

When Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) proposed job remodeling, they believed that job remodeling can be divided into task remodeling, relationship remodeling and cognitive remodeling.

Task reshaping refers to that employees increase or reduce the number of tasks, broaden or narrow the scope of work, so as to change their performance at work. The employees who remodel their tasks will actively think about how to make their work more effective, how to enhance their adaptability, and how to improve the existing work methods and contents, so as to produce some innovative behaviors.
Relationship remodeling refers to employees' changing the scope of communication circle or the quality of communication. When employees reshape their relationship, they will expand and improve their communication circle, enhance communication and interaction with leaders, colleagues and customers, obtain more work support, form more positive work attitude, and make behaviors conducive to organizational performance, such as innovative behavior.

Cognitive remodeling refers to that employees change their understanding and views of the task, relationship or the whole work itself, and perceive different meanings in the work, so as to make the work produce different value. When employees reshape their cognition, treat their work with a more positive attitude, and realize the value and significance of their work, they will stimulate their work enthusiasm, strengthen their work engagement, and promote their innovative behavior.

Job remodeling can bring positive results to the organization (Berg & Dutton, 2008), mainly because researchers believe that employees in a happy and healthy state can bring positive effects to the organization, so they firmly believe that job remodeling will promote the positive development of the organization most of the time. Bakker, TIMS & Derks (2012) found that job remodeling, as an active behavior, comes from certain self motivation, focusing on employees' understanding and understanding of the working environment, and whether employees' work interests, values and work skills are consistent. Grant & Ashford (2008) believes that employees who produce job remodeling are more willing to take the initiative to improve the current working environment, identify the opportunity for improvement, and take positive actions until meaningful changes occur. Chih?Ching Teng, et al., (2020) show that employees who are proactive in job remodeling will show more positive job change behaviors. Hur, Rhee & Ahn (2016) found that job remodeling has a positive impact on the innovation behavior of employees in the organization.

H3: Job remodeling has a positive impact on innovation behavior.

The Mediating Role of Job Remodeling

Jeon &Yom (2014) studied the reliability and validity of the social scale based on the job remodeling scale developed by slemp & Vella Brodick in 2013. They investigated the impact of job remodeling on job satisfaction and organizational loyalty. The study found that job remodeling showed a positive relationship. Therefore, it can be known that empowering leadership can guide employees' work remodeling behavior by promoting employees' psychological empowerment perception and recognition, so as to promote employees' innovative behavior.

Combined with the discussion of hypothesis 1, 2 and 3, empowering leadership emphasizes the significance and value of work, promotes participatory decision-making, expresses confidence in high performance and gives employees autonomy to make theirsubordinates feel the support and trust from their superiors and create a relaxed and free working atmosphere for their subordinates, To stimulate their subordinates to actively remodel their work, so as to enhance their sense of work significance and enthusiasm, and then promote their subordinates to produce innovative behavior. For the outsider subordinates, through the different treatment of the outsider in the inner circle, stimulate the desire of the outsider subordinates, so as to stimulate the work enthusiasm of the outsider subordinates, actively participate in the work remodeling, adjust the behavior, so as to produce the employee innovation behavior. Therefore, the following research hypotheses are proposed.

H4: the relationship between empowerment leadership and employee innovation behavior

H4a: job remodeling mediators emphasize the relationship between job meaning and employees' innovative behavior

H4b: the relationship between job remodeling intermediary promoting decision-making participation and innovation behavior to employees

H4c: the relationship between job remodeling mediators' expressing high performance confidence and employees' innovative behavior

H4d: the relationship between the autonomy given by job remodeling intermediary and employees' innovative behavior

The Moderating Effect of Job Insecurity on Empowering Leadership and Employees' Innovative Behavior

The sense of insecurity reflects the threat degree perceived by employees from work, including promotion, salary increase, willingness to work, job transformation, forced to accept labor time and early retirement. The perceived job threat is an emotion that they need to face and cannot do. Most scholars of Petersson, hellgren, sverke & Isaksson (2002) generally agree that the insecurity of work exists as a negative factor in the workplace. Lee, Bobko, Ashford & Chen (2006) believes that the insecurity of work will lead to the decrease of employees' organizational commitment, job satisfaction, performance and organizational support, which will lead to increased workplace pressure and cause complaints and resignation behaviors of employees. Ford (1996) when employees feel threatened by work and can't help, they will automatically open their self-protection mode, reduce challenges and risky behaviors, and devote their energy to non-creative activities. Thus, it reduces their innovation behavior in the work. Van dyne & Jean Cummings (2002) found that there was a significant negative correlation between psychological stress and creativity of employees. Higgins & Qualls (1992) believes that anxiety has a negative impact on creativity at any stage of the creative problem-solving process. Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin (1993) can be seen from the theory of creativity, which shows that there is interaction between human creativity and situation, and the relationship between external variables and creativity often depends on individual differences. Based on the social cognitive theory, the research thinks that the insecurity of work can inhibit the positive influence of authorized leadership on employees' innovation behavior from at least three aspects, thus weakening the positive influence of authorization power on the innovation performance of employees.

First, although authorized leadership will have a positive impact on employees' innovation ability, in an unsafe work environment, such as lack of work initiative, lack of job development opportunities, low promotion space and low salary, it will cause employees to have the feeling of underachieving their talents. Therefore, they will experience more workplace pressure and produce anxiety behaviors. Second, Yuan & Woodman (2010) believe that innovation is a risky attempt, so the expected result of innovation action is an important psychological measurement behind individual innovation. In his innovation behavior, Farr and Ford (1990) believed that the ability to obtain expected benefits is a antecedent variable of employees' innovation behavior. When employees feel the higher sense of job insecurity, even if leaders give them full trust and authorization, due to the lack of job security, promotion, salary increase and career reward, employees will gradually lose their motivation to learn, and therefore cannot obtain more experience needed for innovation. Third, although authorized leadership can guide employees to have positive innovative behavior, employees' innovative behavior also needs stable job security, which needs to be identified through salary increase, promotion and other forms. Under the higher sense of job insecurity, employees' development prospects cannot be guaranteed, and their innovation behavior will be hindered.

Based on the above analysis, it is considered that the positive impact of authorized leadership on employees' innovative behavior will be weaker under the condition of higher job insecurity, which reduces the possibility of employees' innovation, while the impact of authorized leadership on employees' creativity will be stronger under the condition of low job insecurity. Therefore, the following research hypotheses are proposed.

H5: Job insecurity negatively moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and employee innovation behavior

H5a: Top management support negatively moderates the relationship between job meaning and employee innovation behavior

H5b: The negative regulation of top management support promotes the relationship between decision participation and employee innovation behavior

H5c: Top management support negatively moderates the relationship between high performance confidence and employee innovation behavior

H5d: The relationship between top management support, negative regulation, autonomy and employee innovation behavior

Data Analysis and Hypothesis Testing

Hypothesis Testing

Test of the Relationship between Empowering Leadership and Innovation Behavior

In the first stage, the main effect model 1 and model 2 take authorized leadership as the independent variable and employee innovation behavior as the dependent variable. The regression results are shown in table 2-1. Authorized leadership has a significant positive impact on employee innovation behavior, and the regression standardization coefficient is 0.571 (P<0.001). Among them, sub hypothesis test model 7, model 8, model 9 and model 10 showed that promoting decision-making participation, expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy had a significant positive impact on employees' innovation behavior. The regression standardized coefficients were 0.209 (P<0.01), 0.307 (P<0.001), 0.128 (P<0.05), and the regression equation F values were 34.332 (P<0.001) and 0.128 (P<0.05), respectively 233 (P<0.001); However, the regression coefficient is 0.023 (P>0.05). Thus, it is assumed that H1b, H1c and h1d pass the test, while H1a fails the test. That is, in the real environment, promoting decision participation, expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy have a significant positive impact on employees' innovative behavior, among which promoting decision participation, expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy have a positive correlation with employees' innovative behavior; Emphasis on work significance has no significant effect on employees' innovative behavior.

Table 1
Main Hypothesis Regression Results Of Each Stage
Variable Main effect Mediation Regulatory role
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Education 0.087 0.0676 1.699 0.002 0.004 0.057
Working years 0.102* 0.118 3.021*** 0.013 0.038 0.128*
Empowering leadership   0.572*** 14.755***   0.245*** 0.522*
Work remodeling       0.731*** 0.591***  
Job insecurity           0.105*
Empowering leadership * Job insecurity           0.016*
R2 0.013 0.338 0.338 0.535 0.577 0.663
Adjust R2 0.01 0.335 0.335 0.532 0.571 0.437
F 3.221* 59.596*** 75.776*** 169.767*** 150.651*** 46.692***
Table 2
Main Hypothesis Regression Results Of Each Stage
Variable Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10 Model 11 Model 12 Model 13 Model 14 Model4 Model 15 Model 16 Model 17 Model 18 Model 19
S1 0.417*** 0.11* 0.038 0.023* 0.431*** 2.133** 1.847 1.737   0.128*** 0.02 0.022 0.035* 0.064*
S2   0.427*** 0.262*** 0.209**   6.546*** 3.655*** 3.106**     0.198*** 0.135** 0.092 0.179*
S3     0.351*** 0.307***     6.233*** 5.462***       0.166*** 0.129* 0.303*
S4       0.128*       0.612         0.108* 0.108*
Work remodeling                 0.730*** 0.675*** 0.628*** 0.586*** 0.583***  
Job insecurity                           0.048*
Interaction item 1                           0.16*
Interaction item 2                           0.228*
Interaction item 3                           0.43*
Interaction item 4                           0.23*
Education 0.097** 0.062 0.051 0.053 0.135* 0.105* 0.095* 0.095* 0.003 0.008 -0.003 -0.004 -0.002 0.047
Working years 0.124** 0.111* 0.097* 0.104* 0.143* 0.131* 0.11* 0.121* 0.014 0.029 0.029 0.028 0.034 0.112
R2 0.187 0.282 0.352 0.358 0.211 0.278 0.337 0.337 0.534 0.548 0.566 0.59 0.584 0.739
Adjust R2 0.182 0.275 0.345 0.351 0.203 0.272 0.331 0.328 0.531 0.543 0.561 0.574 0.577 0.547
F 34.332*** 43.610*** 48.233*** 41.223*** 39.274*** 42.952*** 45.06*** 37.567*** 169.768*** 133.838*** 115.03*** 101.36*** 88.229*** 22.610***

The Mediating Effect of Job Remodeling on Innovation Behavior

In the second stage, model 3, model 4 and model 5 were used to test the main hypothesis. The results showed that the authorized leadership had a significant positive effect on job remodeling, with the standardized regression coefficient of 14.755 (P<0.001), while the regression coefficient of emphasizing work significance and giving autonomy on job remodeling was 1.737 (P>0.05), 0.612(p>0.05). Based on the standard requirements of significance level at home and abroad, this paper thinks that emphasizing the meaning of work and giving autonomy have no significant effect on the regression result of work remodeling, that is, the relationship between the two has not passed the test, and the regression equation f value is 75.776 (P<0.001), hypothesis 2 test is passed. Among the four dimensions of empowering leadership, promoting decision-making participation and expressing high performance confidence have significant regression effect on employees' innovative behavior. The regression coefficients of promoting decision-making participation and expressing high performance confidence are 2.106 (P<0.01) and 5.462 (P<0.001) respectively, and the regression equation f value is 37.567 (P<0.001). Therefore, it is assumed that H2B and H2C can be passed, that is, promoting decision-making participation and expressing high performance confidence have a significant positive effect on employees' innovation behavior.

Model 4 tests the relationship between job remodeling and employee innovation behavior. The results show that there is a significant positive relationship between job remodeling and employee innovation behavior (regression coefficient) β=731, P<0.001), F value of regression equation was 169.767 (P<0.001), which explained 52.1% of variance change of dependent variable. The positive correlation between job remodeling and employee innovation behavior was verified, and hypothesis 3 passed.

Model 5, model 15, model 16 and Model 17 respectively test the mediating effect of job remodeling in empowering leadership and each dimension variable on employee innovation behavior. Model 5 shows that the regression coefficient of empowering leadership on employees' innovation behavior after adding the mediating variable of job remodeling( β= 571, P<0.001) (β= 245, P<0.001), the mediating effect was significant, Hypothesis 4 test passed.

Among them, emphasizing the meaning of work, expressing high performance confidence, giving autonomy to join the intermediary variables of job remodeling, the regression coefficient of employee innovation behavior is significant β 035 (P<0.05), 0.129 (P<0.001) and 0.108 (P<0.05), respectively. Compared with the direct regression results, the coefficients of 0.023 (P<0.05), 0.307 (P<0.001) and 0.128 (P<0.05) were significantly decreased, but the F value of the regression equation was 88.229 (P<0.001), and the variance of the explanatory dependent variable was 57.7%, which was significantly higher than 35.1% of the direct regression results, It shows that job remodeling plays a partial mediating role in the process of expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy to employees' innovative behavior. After considering the mediating effect, the regression coefficient is higher β= 092 (P>0.05), the regression coefficient was significantly smaller, and the original level of 0.001 was significantly changed to not significant, but the degree of overall regression explanation was significantly improved, which proved that job remodeling played a complete mediating role in promoting the relationship between decision-making participation and employee innovation behavior. Therefore, it is assumed that h4a, h4c and h4d all pass the test. That is to say, job remodeling does mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and employee innovation behavior, but the mediating effect is different in different dimensions of empowering leadership. The moderating role of job insecurity in the relationship between empowering leadership and innovative behavior.

The Moderating Role of Job Insecurity in the Relationship between Empowering Leadership and Employee Innovation Behavior

Usually, the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables will be affected by other variables, which is the regulatory variable. The relationship between independent variables and dependent variables will be significantly enhanced or weakened with different levels of regulatory variables. This study will test the moderating effect of job insecurity on the relationship between empowering leadership and innovation behavior, and put the interaction items of tolerance of mistakes, communication and care, promotion and reward, and resource propensity into the regression equation. If the regression coefficient of the interaction items is significant, then the moderating effect of the degree of executive support is significant.

Model 6 and model 19 are hypothesis tests on the moderating effect of job insecurity. The results of model 6 showed that the coefficient of interaction item β=0.016 (P<0.001) and the adjusted R2 value of regression equation (0.437) were significantly larger than that of direct regression (0.335) after adding the interaction item of job insecurity, which indicated that job insecurity had a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between job insecurity and innovation behavior. Hypothesis 5 test passed. Among them, the results of model 19 showed that the regression coefficients of mistake leniency and interaction were 0.064 (P<0.05) and 0.16 (P<0.05), respectively; the regression coefficients of communication care and interaction were 0.179 (P<0.05) and 0.228 (P<0.05); the regression coefficients of promotion reward and interaction were 0.303 (P<0.05), respectively, 43 (P<0.05); the regression coefficients of resource propensity and its interaction were 0.108 (P<0.05) and 0.23 (P<0.05). At the same time, the variance of dependent variable explained by regression equation changed by 54.7%, which was significantly higher than that explained by direct regression by 35.1%, indicating that job insecurity plays a significant role in the relationship between mistake leniency, communication care, promotion reward, resource propensity and innovation behavior.

The above discussion on the regression results proves that job insecurity has a significant moderating effect on emphasizing work significance, promoting decision-making participation, expressing high performance confidence, giving autonomy and employees' innovative behavior, but the specific direction of the moderating effect needs to be further clarified. In order to further understand the effect of job insecurity, the steps suggested by Aiken & West (1991) are shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Emphasis On The Relationship Between Job Meaning And Employees' Innovative Behavior

When job insecurity is low, the relationship between emphasis on job meaning and employees' innovative behavior is significant( β=0.427p<0.01); When job insecurity is high, the relationship between emphasis on job meaning and employees' innovative behavior is not very significant( β=0.161p<0.10).

It can be clearly seen from Figure 1 that when the sense of job insecurity is low, the positive effect of emphasizing job meaning on employees' innovative behavior is strong; when job insecurity is high, the positive effect of emphasizing job meaning on employees' innovative behavior is weak. Thus, it is assumed that H5a passes.

Figure 2: The Relationship Between Promoting Decision Participation And Employee Innovation Behavior

When job insecurity is low, promoting decision-making participation has a significant effect on employees' innovative behavior( β=0.439 p<0.01); When job insecurity is high, the relationship between decision-making participation and employee innovation behavior is not significant( β=0.211 p<0.10).

It can be clearly seen from figure 2 that when job insecurity is low, promoting decision-making participation has a strong positive effect on employees' innovative behavior; When job insecurity is high, the positive effect of decision-making participation on employees’ innovation behavior is weak. Thus, it is assumed that H5b passes through.

Figure 3: Relationship Between Expressing High Performance Confidence And Employees' Innovative Behavior

When job insecurity is low, the expression of high performance confidence is significantly related to employees' innovative behavior( β=0.337 p<0.01); When job insecurity is high, the relationship between expressing high performance confidence and employees' innovative behavior is not very significant( β=0.156 p<0.10).

It can be clearly seen from figure 2-3 that when job insecurity is low, expressing high performance confidence has a strong positive effect on employees' innovative behavior; When job insecurity is high, the positive effect of expressing high performance confidence on employees' innovative behavior is weak. Thus, it is assumed that h5c passes through.

Figure 4: The Relationship Between Giving Autonomy And Employees' Innovative Behavior

When job insecurity is low, giving autonomy has a significant effect on employees' innovative behavior( β=0.591?p<0.01); When job insecurity is high, the relationship between giving autonomy and employees' innovative behavior is not very significant(β=0.275 p<0.10).

It can be clearly seen from figure 2-4 that when job insecurity is low, the positive effect of expressing high performance confidence on employees' innovative behavior is strong; when job insecurity is high, the positive effect of expressing high performance confidence on employees' innovative behavior is weak. Thus, it is assumed that H5d passes.

Discussion on Research Results

On the basis of previous studies on the influence of empowering leadership on job remodeling and the formation of employees' innovative behavior, this paper empirically proves the specific influence mechanism of empowering leadership on employees' innovative behavior and the different effects of different dimensions of empowering leadership on employees' innovative behavior, and explores the mediating role of job remodeling in this process, The moderating effect of job insecurity. Therefore, this paper puts forward five main hypotheses and 16 sub hypotheses. On the basis of questionnaire survey, this study analyzed the sample data by SPSS 23.0, and finally passed 12 hypotheses. The results show that there is a significant positive correlation between empowering leadership and employees' innovative behavior.

(1) The relationship between empowering leadership and employee innovation behavior

Hypothesis 1 shows that empowering leadership, which promotes decision-making participation, expresses high performance confidence and gives autonomy, has a significant positive impact on employees' innovative behavior, while the research results of emphasizing work significance and employees' innovative behavior are not significant.

On the relationship between decision-making participation and employees' innovative behavior, we found that when employees and leaders fully communicate, they can produce more innovative results. This is consistent with the conclusion of this study. As for the relationship between the expression of high performance confidence and employees' innovative behavior, once subordinates receive these signals from their superiors, employees will have a strong sense of trust and responsibility, and are willing to pay more efforts for the organization to repay their superiors, so as to achieve mutual benefit in the exchange process of trust and reward. This is consistent with the results of this study. As for the relationship between giving autonomy and employees' innovative behavior, when empowering leaders give autonomy to their subordinates, they also send an important signal of autonomy, that is, full trust and recognition. At the same time, leaders can encourage employees to explore diversified innovation methods in this way, which is consistent with the results of this study.

(2) The mediating role of job remodeling

Hypothesis 2 shows that among the four dimensions of empowering leadership, promoting decision-making participation and expressing high performance confidence have significant regression effects on employees' innovation behavior. The results show that emphasis on work meaning and autonomy has no significant effect on the regression of work remodeling, that is, the relationship between them has not passed the test. This may be related to the environment of employees (Ghitulescu, 2007; Petrou, 2012), job level (Berg, Grant & Johnson, 2010) and task characteristics (Berg, Dutton & Wrzesniewski, 2008; Tims & Baker, 2010).

Through the linear regression results of model 14, it is found that promoting decision-making participation and expressing high performance confidence have different effects on job remodeling, and the correlation coefficient of expressing high performance confidence on job remodeling is the largest, Leaders' confidence in high performance can promote employees' work remodeling behavior more than leaders' participation in decision-making.

Model 5, model 15, model 16 and Model 17 respectively test the mediating effect of job remodeling in empowering leadership and each dimension variable on employee innovation behavior. The relationship between empowering leadership and employee innovation behavior is mediated by job remodeling.

It shows that job remodeling plays a partial mediating role in the process of expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy to employees' innovative behavior, that is, expressing high performance confidence and giving autonomy may directly affect employees' innovative behavior; Job remolding plays a complete mediating role in promoting the relationship between decision-making participation and employee innovation behavior. That is to say, promoting decision-making participation mainly affects employees' innovation behavior by influencing job remodeling. Whether authorized leadership can ultimately form employees' innovative behavior depends on the key role of job remodeling. To help employees improve their innovation ability and behavior through job remodeling is also the core of employees' innovation behavior.

(3) The moderating effect of job insecurity

Hypothesis 5 shows that job insecurity has a significant moderating effect on emphasizing job meaning, promoting decision-making participation, expressing high performance confidence, giving autonomy and employee innovation behavior. Model 19 shows that high level of job insecurity can inhibit the relationship between empowering leadership and employee innovation behavior.
Job insecurity, as a source of stress, has a great negative impact on individuals and organizations. Strazdins, et al., (2004) found that when employees are in the state of job insecurity, they will have certain depression, anxiety and other problems. Ford (1996) when employees feel that their work is threatened and they can't do anything, they will automatically start the self-protection mode, reduce the challenge and risk-taking behavior, and put their energy into non creative activities.

So as to reduce their own innovative behavior in the work of employees. Higgins& Qualls (1992) believe that anxiety will have a negative impact on creativity at any stage of the creative problem solving process. Although authorized leadership can guide employees to have positive employee innovation behavior, the employee innovation behavior also needs stable job security, which needs to be identified through salary increase, promotion and other forms. Under the high sense of job insecurity, employees' development prospects cannot be guaranteed, and their innovative behavior will be hindered. The conclusions of the above scholars are consistent with the results of this study

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