Science Research Management ›› 2020, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (5): 164-171.

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A study of the relationship between high quality relations and learning from failure mechanism among employees in start-up enterprises

Gu Jiajun1,2, Wu Junyi2   

  1. 1. Hangzhou College of Commerce, Zheijiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 311508, Zhejiang, China; 
    2. School of Business Administration, Zheijiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, Zhejiang, China
  • Received:2019-07-27 Revised:2020-01-22 Online:2020-05-20 Published:2020-05-21

Abstract: The quality of entrepreneurship in China has improved over the past decade and the ability of Chinese start-ups to create jobs has also improved. As a growing group, employees of new enterprises are more likely to face various uncertainties in their work than employees of mature enterprises, so their growth is more and more worthy of attention. Although the quality of entrepreneurial activity in China is improving, entrepreneurship remains highly uncertain. Start-up companies are more sensitive and vulnerable to failures in the business process. However , some scholars have found that failure is not always a bad thing. Failure is the path to success. In the process of learning relevant failure experiences, organizations can optimize various operational processes and improve work patterns, thus reducing the possibility of secondary failure and avoiding the expenditure of related costs. Learning from failures is an important but difficult task for most employees. Therefore, it is worth thinking about how to create a good learning environment for failures.
Based on the theory of social cognition and the theory of relationship coordination, this study explores the influence of high-quality relationships among employees in new enterprises on learning from failures. Through the review of relevant literature, this study believes that high-quality interpersonal relationship, as a form of interpersonal coordination in work, can motivate employees to think and avoid deviation from expectations in work. In addition, such a high-quality relationship can improve the quality of communication among employees, increase the sense of trust and belonging, and contribute to a positive psychological state. This positive psychological state makes employees more likely to show positive expectations and supportive behaviors in the face of failure. Work autonomy, as a situational variable in which individuals perceive their degree of control over work activities, can regulate the relationship between individual traits and individual behaviors. Therefore, this study suggests that the positive relationship between psychological capital and learning from failures may also be affected by work autonomy.
In order to verify the hypothesis, this study took employees of new enterprises within eight years of establishment in Zhejiang province as the research objects, collected online questionnaires and distributed offline questionnaires, and finally obtained 212 valid questionnaires. Through SPSS24.0 and AMOS24.0 empirical analysis of the data. The results of data analysis show that the relationship of high quality among employees has a significant positive effect on psychological capital and learning from failures. Employee psychological capital has a significant positive influence on learning from failures and plays a part of mediating role between high-quality relationship and learning from failures. Employee work autonomy plays a negative regulating role in the positive relationship between psychological capital and learning from failures.
〖JP2〗This study obtained the following enlightenment. On the one hand, encourage employees of new enterprises to build high-quality relationships. In terms of environment, a new enterprise can set up a more open office environment, so that employees can have more communication opportunities, and promote colleagues to understand each other′s work objectives, so that they can understand each other′s work. In terms of work, we need to break down the communication barrier of the department, let more employees with the possibility to participate put forward suggestions and ideas, and open the shackles of thinking. It is no longer what I want to do, but what is the overall goal of the organization. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, focus on whether other colleagues or leaders will bring in new ideas and whether leveraging the strengths of different departments to work together will lead to better results. After work, relevant discussion classes can be set up to share new knowledge learned and solutions to problems, to achieve intelligent management of knowledge and good stress response to problems, and to strengthen the awareness of intellectual property rights and formulate corresponding incentive mechanism, so as to enhance the interpersonal relationship among employees while increasing the knowledge stickiness. In terms of corporate culture, managers start from the top down to create a truth-seeking and pragmatic style that is independent of authority and rank, and integrate mutual respect into corporate culture. On the other hand, in order to promote employees′ learning from failures behavior, new enterprises need to reduce their work autonomy. A good startup will seize the crisis to reshape organizational habits, grasp the small failure of employees, so that the company can adjust the status to avoid big failure. The leader should pay more attention to the development direction of the enterprise, establish and improve the right habits and systems and positive corporate culture of the new enterprise in the face of failure or failure prevention. Institutions are the glue that allows people to turn conscious actions into unconscious habits. Introduce some common language, create a cultural identity, and reduce anxiety caused by misunderstandings. For high-status employees, we can also create a feedback culture. By reminding other employees, we can show that we are willing to accept feedback, and actively seeking feedback can reduce the pressure of givers and recipients. Carefully design small habits suitable for employees, so that the whole organization has plasticity and vitality, flexible and even in advance to deal with external challenges; make failure a non-terminal behavior; let employees get used to closed-loop thinking and learning from failures, and understand that this is a process and an opportunity for optimization. From thinking to behavior, from system to culture, when autonomy is appropriately reduced, employees are also accustomed to learning failure, so as to enhance their confidence in the next failure and form a positive cycle.
The main deficiencies of this study are as follows. Firstly, cross-sectional data were used. In the future, we can consider collecting longitudinal data to track and explore the cause-and-effect relationship among high-quality employees, psychological capital and learning from failures in new enterprises. Secondly, study from the relationship between the coordination theory to study the effect of relationship between quality of failure. But in reality, there are many factors that affect the learning from failures of employees in new enterprises, in the future can enrich other antecedent research. It is also possible to explore the situation in which work autonomy has the most significant negative adjustment on the positive effect of employee psychological capital and learning from failures.

Key words: employee in start-up enterprises, high quality relations, psychological capital, learning from failures, work autonomy