Science Research Management ›› 2020, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (12): 246-256.

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The relationship among psychological ownership, knowledge sharing and innovative behavior of team members: The multilevel moderating effect of coworker trust

 Dai Wanliang1, Su Lin2, Yang Jiaoping3   

  1.  1. College of Management, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, Liaoning, China;
    2. College of Engineering, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121000, Liaoning, China;
    3. School of Economics and Management, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266042, Shandong, China
  • Received:2018-05-08 Revised:2018-11-22 Online:2020-12-20 Published:2020-12-16
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Abstract:

The knowledge stock of a single individual is difficult to deal with the challenge of innovation to interdisciplinary heterogeneous knowledge integration independently, therefore, team innovation has become the basic form of organization innovation activities. Facing the changes of the environment and the challenges of the competition, how to motivate team members′ innovative behavior is a key issue that must be solved in enterprise innovation activities. What kind of psychological state makes team members break through the limitation of "It′s none of my business" and internalize innovation as an extra-role behavior into in-role behavior? Could this psychological state support team members to innovate all the time? What is the function and mechanism of Chinese traditional enterprise culture which emphasizes "taking factory as home"? Previous studies have not reached a clear conclusion. Base on self-consistency theory and social cognitive theory, a cross level moderated mediation theoretical model is constructed to test the mechanism and boundary conditions of psychological ownership on team members′ innovative behavior. On the basis of theoretical model, the mediating role of knowledge sharing and the moderating role of coworker trust are analyzed. 
In this study, the project team in high-tech enterprises is taken as the research object. Seven regions including Liaoning Province, Hebei Province, Tianjin City, Shanghai City, Guangdong Province, Hubei Province and Hunan Province are selected as the data collection areas, and the questionnaire respondents are the project team members. The research data collection is divided into two periods, and the collection mode is the combination of field collection and network collection. The research model is a cross level nested model. Therefore, this study adopts the analysis method of cross level first stage moderated mediating role model to test the research hypothesis.
Adopting Mplus7.4 statistical software, the model with the data of 392 team members from 51 high-tech enterprise project teams is tested. The research results are as follows. Firstly, psychological ownership positively affects team members′ innovative behavior. Secondly, psychological ownership has a positive impact on team members′ knowledge sharing, and knowledge sharing has a positive impact on team members′ innovative behavior, and then knowledge sharing plays a mediating role in the relationship between psychological ownership and team members′ innovative behavior. Thirdly, coworker trust at team level plays a positively moderating effect on the first stage of the mediation path. That is to say, when the level of coworker trust is high, the influence of psychological ownership on team members′ innovative behavior through knowledge sharing is stronger; when the trust level is low, the influence of psychological ownership on team members′ innovative behavior through knowledge sharing is weak.
Theoretically, this study expands the theoretical vision and boundary conditions of innovation behavior research, and will helps to understand the influencing factors and mechanism of team members′ innovative behavior. In a practical sense, this study provides a reference for motivating team members′ innovative behavior by creating a sense of "home", such as enhancing employees′ sense of belonging and ownership by sufficiently empowering. In particularly, this study also provides theoretical support for enterprises to actively practice the Chinese excellent traditional culture for enhancing the core competitiveness through innovation.

 

Key words: psychological ownership, innovative behavior, knowledge sharing, coworker trust, family culture

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