With the "emotional storm" in the field of Organizational Behavior research and the research boom of Positive Organizational Behavior, the research on positive emotion in organizational context is increasing dramatically. The relationship between positive emotion and employee creative behavior has become one of the important research directions of organizational creative research. Positive emotion can broaden the individual′s cognitive scope and enable individuals to clearly understand the broader physical and social environment. This broad range of attention enables individual to maintain an open mind about new ideas and activities, which is more creative. Both experimental studies and field studies show that positive emotion is an important source of individual creativity.

R&D personnel are the main force of technological innovation. How to use the power of positive emotion to stimulate R&D personnel′s creative behavior? To answer this question, theoretical research is needed to analyze the influence mechanism of positive emotion on R&D personnel′s creative behavior. Although previous studies have verified the positive effect of positive emotion on individual creativity, they often regard positive emotion as the antecedent variable of employees′ creative behavior, or as a mediating variable between organizational context factors (such as organizational creative support) and employee creativity. However, the mechanism of positive emotion affecting employee creative behavior has not yet been clarified. The "black box" among them needs to be further developed. In addition, the research conclusions on the relationship between emotion and individual behavior are cross-cultural inconsistencies, which in particular require the study of Chinese organizational context to test or corroborate relevant research conclusions in the context of Western culture.

Therefore, from the perspective of social cognitive theory, this study analyzed the influence mechanism of positive emotion on R&D personnel′s creative behavior and brought creative efficacy and work involvement into the analytical framework of the relationship between positive emotion and employee creative behavior. Finally, this study constructed a theoretical model of "positive emotion → Creative Efficiency → Job Involvement → R&D Personnel′s Creative Behavior", and put forward a series of research hypotheses, including: Hypothesis 1: Positive emotion has a significant positive impact on R&D personnel′s creative behavior. Hypothesis 2: Creative efficacy plays a mediating role between R&D personnel′s positive emotion and creative behavior. Hypothesis 3: Job involvement partially mediates between R&D personnel′s positive emotion and creative behavior. Hypothesis 4: Job involvement plays a mediating role between R&D personnel′s creative efficacy and creative behavior.

Based on theoretical analysis, this study used questionnaire survey to test the hypotheses above. In Nanjing, a questionnaire survey was conducted among R&D personnel of high-tech enterprises, and 248 valid questionnaires were finally collected. Then, Harman′s single factor test is used to test the homologous variance. The results show that the homologous variance of this study is not serious, and the data fitting test of the theoretical model can be carried out. The reliability and validity analysis of the questionnaire shows that the measurement tools of each variable have good reliability and validity. Relevant analysis results show that positive emotion, creative efficacy, job involvement and employee creative behavior are significantly positively correlated. On the basis of correlation analysis, this study used structural equation modeling to test the theoretical hypothesis model. The results show that the theoretical model and the data are well matched. The main findings are as follows: 

1)Positive emotion has a significant direct impact on R&D personnel′s creative behavior (0.092). Therefore, in management practice, to stimulate the positive emotion of R&D personnel′s creative behavior, mangers should create a relaxing and free working atmosphere, provide adequate psychological and material resources support, give timely positive feedback (encouragement and reward) on their excellent work performance, and build a sound family welfare. In addition, mangers can strengthen R&D personnel′s emotional management ability by training, so that R&D personnel can maintain a positive emotional state and recover from negative affect quickly, thereby form a stable positive mood to stimulate R&D personnel′s continuous innovative behavior performance. 

2)Positive emotion indirectly affects R&D personnel′s creative behavior through the partial mediation of creative self-efficacy. This path has the strongest explanatory power (0.406). It shows that creative self-efficacy is the key mediator of positive emotion influencing R&D personnel′s creative behavior. That is, the more positive emotion experiences R&D personnel have, the more confidence they have in carrying out creative activities, and the stronger their belief in striving to achieve creative results. Thereby in the process of R&D activities, the more creative ideas they have, the more inclined they are to try to creative and actively promote their creative ideas. To this end, in the practice of innovation management, managers should pay attention to the stimulating effect of positive emotion on R&D personnel′s creative efficacy while cultivating their positive emotion, so as to enhance the positive effect of positive emotion on R&D personnel′s creative behavior. 

3)Positive emotion influences R&D personnel′s creative behavior through the mediating role of job involvement, and the explanatory power of this path is relatively weak (0.114). This shows that under the positive emotional state, the R&D personnel can fully devote themselves to the R&D process, and thus are more willing to make efforts to mobilize various psychological and material resources, and actively try to solve problems and accomplish tasks more creatively. Therefore, in the practice of innovative management, managers should make full use of the positive emotion to enhance employees′ job involvement and stimulate them to devote themselves to creative activities with full energy and no distractions.

4)The hypothesis model of "positive emotion → Creative Efficiency → Job Involvement → R&D Personnel′s Creative Behavior" proposed in this study has been validated, but its explanatory power is relatively weak (0.058). This path provides theoretical support for understanding the process mechanism of positive emotion on R&D personnel′s creative behavior. In the practice of innovation management, managers should pay attention to the key factors of positive emotion in the process mechanism of R&D personnel′s creative behavior. Through training and other ways, they can enhance R&D personnel′s emotional management ability, cultivate their positive emotion, enhance their confidence in carrying out creative activities, and promote their job involvement, so as to stimulate their creative behavior in R&D activities.

 

 R&D personnel, positive emotion, creative behavior, creative self-efficacy, job involvement