摘要
本文通过引入团队双向学习和领导双向学习概念,力求揭开自主支持和员工创新之间关系机制的理论"黑箱",并探讨团队双向学习,即团队内部学习与团队外部学习交互项的前因与结果。跨层次分析结果表明,团队双向学习在自主支持和个体创新的关系中起到完全中介作用,领导双向学习与自主支持分别正向推动团队双向学习,且二者交互作用也正向影响团队双向学习。
Creativity means the generation of novel and potentially useful ideas. As a prevalent topic in management academia, tons of attempts have been made in exploring the determinants accounting for creativity. Autonomy support provides an employee with a sense of self-determination, volition, and freedom from external rewards, pressures, and punishments for behaving or thinking in a certain way. Although the positively relationship between autonomy support and employee creativity has been confirmed by previous studies, the mechanism linking the two variable remains unclear. The current paper attempts to open the ＂black box＂ between the two key variables. Bi-directional learning in this study refers to the interaction of internal learning and external learning. Internal learning takes place with individuals in the immediate group, while external learning occurs with individuals external to the group. By multiplying the two variables, bi-directional learning emphasizes internal learning and external learning behaviors are non-substitutable and interdependent. We believe that not only team should engage internal and external learning at the same time, but also team leader should conduct internal and external learning at the same time, that is bi-directional learning. Introducing the concept of bi-directional learning of team and leader, the paper aims to further understanding the mechanism from autonomy support and employee creativity, and to explore the antecedents and outcomes of team bi-directional learning. After literature review and reasoning process, based on self-determination theory and componential theory of creativity, the paper put forward the following 5 hypotheses ： Ill ： Team autonomy support positively influences team bi-directional learning; H2： Team bi-directional learning positively influences employee creativity; H3： Team bidirectional learning is a mediator between the relationship of team autonomy support and employee creativity; H4： Leader bi-directional learning positively influences team bi-directional learning; H5 ： Leader bi-directional learning is a moderator between the relationship of team autonomy support and employee creativity. Because employee creativity is an individual level variable, and other variables are in team level, the paper uses HLM method to analyze the data concerning cross-level variables and SPSS to analyze the data concerning team-level variables. Empirical results give mixed support to the above 5 hypotheses. Hierarchical analysis results show that team bi-directional learning plays full mediating role between autonomy support and employee creativity. In addition, the interaction of leader bi-directional learning and autonomy support significantly enhances team bi-directional learning. However, Il4 is not supported by data analysis, because leader bi-directional learning has no significant relationship with team bi-directional learning. The reasons from cultural perspective are discussed in the paper. Finally, the paper discusses the contribution and limitation of this research. We found team bi-directional learning is a significant mediator between the relationship of team autonomy support and employee creativity, thus supporting the theoretical value of the concept of team bi-direction learning we originally developed in this paper. Through the mechanism of bi-directional learning, cross-level positively relationship between team autonomy support and employee creativity was explained, which enrich the literature of learning and creativity. Although leader bi-directional learning does not necessarily lead to team bi-directional learning, its interaction with autonomy support does help in enhancing team bi-directional learning. The finding provides further insights to the learning and leadership literature. We asked different sources to respond the questionnaires, therefore the paper has no common method hias. However, the data was collected at one time point. Future study should try to collect longitudinal data to reduce this cross-sectional limitation of the paper. In addition, the data were collected in high technology companies located in big cities of China, thus the generalization of the finding of our paper is still needed to be further tested.
出处
《经济管理》
CSSCI
北大核心
2013年第1期80-88,共9页
Business and Management Journal ( BMJ )
基金
国家自然科学青年基金项目"中国背景下的共享式领导作用机制研究"(71102108)
教育部人文社科青年基金项目"分布式领导的测量与影响研究"(10YJC630155)
关键词
团队内部学习
团队外部学习
双向学习
自主支持
员工创新
team internal learning
team external learning
bi-directional research
autonomy support
employee creativity
