研发项目群人员创新效能感对创新行为的影响

如何提升研发项目群人员创新行为成为理论界和产业界关注的焦点。本文以研发项目群人员为研究对象，探索了研发项目群人员创新效能感、协调性胜任力和创新行为之间的相互关系，以及不同知识能力下创新效能感对创新行为影响的差异。通过问卷调查，采用多元回归方法进行实证研究，结果表明：研发项目群人员创新效能感对创新行为具有正向影响，并能够在协调性胜任力影响创新行为的过程中起到正向调节作用；知识能力对创新效能感作用的发挥具有重要影响：研发项目群人员学历水平和工作年限越高，创新效能感对创新行为的正向影响越大，创新效能感的调节作用也越强。本文深化了创新效能感和创新行为的理论研究，并对研发项目群人员创新行为提升具有现实指导意义。

Impact of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior of R&D programme employees

As business competition continues to intensify, firms increasingly need to conduct R&D activities to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Under this circumstance, firms’ R&D projects are increasing, the R&D content is more and more complex, and the timeliness of R&D projects is getting stronger. The R&D programme has gradually become the main form for firms to implement R&D activities. R&D programme employees are the main implementers of R&D activities, and their innovative behavior will be affected by creative self-efficacy. However, firms fail to form a clear understanding of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior, which decreases the work quality and efficiency of R&D programme employees and further affects the achievement of the overall objectives of R&D programme. Therefore, it is of great significance in theory and practice to clarify how the innovative behavior of R&D programme employee is influenced by creative self-efficacy. The existing research mainly discusses the influencing factors of R&D employees’ innovative behavior from three perspectives, including organizational context, work characteristics and individual characteristics. From the perspective of organizational context, the existing research explores the impact of organizational climate for innovation, perceived organizational support and organizational culture on innovative behavior. From the perspective of work characteristics, the existing research explores the impact of work requirement, job stress, and work complexity on innovative behavior. From the perspective of individual characteristics, the existing research focuses on the relationship between personal traits and innovative behavior, such as competence, self-esteem and innovation willingness. However, the existing research still pays less attention to the R&D programme employees, especially how creative self-efficacy affects innovative behavior. Therefore, the question of “What is the impact mechanism of creative self-efficacy on the innovative behavior of R&D programme employees?” has not been fully resolved. In order to answer the research question, this paper explores the relationships among creative self-efficacy, coordinating competence and innovative behavior of R&Dprogramme employees, and the effects of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior of R&D programme employees with different knowledge capabilities. This paper proposes four hypotheses. The creative self-efficacy of R&D programme employees has a positive impact on innovative behavior. The creative self-efficacy of R&D programme employees moderates the relationship between coordinating competence and innovative behavior. There are significant differences in the impact of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior among R&D programme employees with different knowledge capabilities. There are significant differences in the moderating effect of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior among R&D programme employees with different knowledge capabilities. The hypothesized relationships were tested by analyzing survey data using multiple regression analysis, and the results show that creative self-efficacy not only exerts a positive impact on innovative behavior, but also moderates the relationship between coordinating competence and innovative behavior. The effects of creative self-efficacy are different for R&D programme employees with different knowledge capabilities: the higher the education level and the job title, the stronger the effect of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior, and the stronger the moderating effect of creative self-efficacy. The conclusions of this paper can be summarized as follows: firstly, the creative self-efficacy can not only have a direct positive impact on innovative behavior, but also indirectly affect innovative behavior by promoting the transformation of coordinating competence into innovative behavior. This is consistent with the basic logic of self-recognition. Creative self-efficacy, as a perception of whether an individual can complete a behavior in a specific situation, can not only encourage the R&D programme employees to actively participate in R&D, but also influences the behavior selection, energy input and persistence to promote the transformation of coordinating competence into innovative behavior. This conclusion further deepens the understanding of “personal cognitive factors” in social cognition theory, and suggests that researchers can focus on and explore the favorable conditions for the transformation of the competence of R&D programme employees into innovative behavior. Secondly, knowledge capability has an important impact on the role of creative self-efficacy. The higher the education level and the job title of R&D programme employees, the greater the positive impact of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior, and the stronger the moderating effect of creative self-efficacy on the relationship between coordinating competence and innovative behavior. This conclusion further demonstrates the importance of corporate training and job title incentives. Knowledge capability is an important factor affecting the cognition of R&D programme employees. The higher the knowledge capability of R&D programme employees, the stronger the perception of the organization’s psychological contract, and therefore the more willing to participate in R&D work. This conclusion further clarifies the contextual effects of the role of creative self-efficacy, and suggests that researchers should consider individual factors in the analysis of creative self-efficacy. This paper also has practical implications for firms to stimulate the innovative behavior of R&Dprogramme employees. First, considering the important role of creative self-efficacy, firms should focus on developing and improving the creative self-efficacy of R&D programme employees. The practices include optimizing recruitment and selection methods, implementing goal-oriented performance management and training. Second, there are differences in the effects of creative self-efficacy on the innovative behavior of R&D programme employees with different knowledge capabilities. Therefore, firms should implement contingency management. For R&D programme employees with low knowledge capabilities, managers should give more help and support during their work, and encourage them to actively learn and improve their knowledge through positive feedback and verbal persuasion. For R&D programme employees with high knowledge capabilities, managers can set a higher level of work goals for them, so that their creative self-efficacy can be transformed into innovative behavior to the maximum extent. This paper contributes to the literature of creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior, and provides significant practical guidance for the promotion of the innovative behavior of R&Dprogramme employees. This paper also has some limitations. First, the survey data of this paper mainly comes from the manufacturing firms, so whether the research conclusions of this paper are applicable to other industries still need to be tested. Second, this paper does not test the interaction between the education level and the job title. Further research can test the interaction to offer more explanations about the effect of creative self-efficacy.