Well-being and business model innovation: The cross-level moderating effect of organizational trust

Abstract

Abstract: Although current studies have made a lot of progress in the conceptual research, scope and novelty of business model innovation and its impact on organizational performance, there are relatively few studies on the subjects of business model innovation, especially quantitative researches relevant to business model innovation subjects.
This study intends to develop a model on the relationship among well-being, organizational trust and business model innovation, and empirically tests the model by collecting data through questionnaires. Considering the process perspective, business model innovation includes two stages, namely business model creativity and business model application, which belongs to the individual level as the same as innovator′s well-being, while the organizational trust of this study belongs to the group level. The three constructs may have nested relationships, so this study is conducted using a hierarchical linear model (HLM) that is suitable for cross-level analysis.
In this study, items regarding well-being are adapted from Yan Kaisheng (2011) questionnaire of subjective well-being, which consisted of 5 items. The questionnaire of business model innovation references the work by Kleysen & Street (2001), Scott & Bruce (1994) and Wang Bingcheng (2016), which designs 14 items. Organizational trust adopts the questionnaire of Xu Daoran and designs 14 items. All items are measured by the five-point Likert scale. This study collects data from the business model innovation team of enterprises. 60 sets of questionnaires were initially issued to teams, with 10 for each team. Questionnaires are sent in January 2018 and retrieved in March 2018. Finally, 457 valid questionnaires are obtained from 50 business model innovation teams.
As is tested, the rwg value of superior trust and colleagues trust have reached the standard. On the whole, the superior trust dimension and the colleagues trust dimension of 50 teams have within-group agreement, which meet the requirement for aggregation. ICC (1) and ICC (2) of superior trust and colleagues trust also meet the criteria given by James (1982), indicating that there is obvious between-group variation between superior trust and colleagues trust, that is, the level of superior trust and colleagues trust in different innovation teams are significantly different, and showing the rationality of cross-level analysis. Then, SPSS 18 is adopted for reliability test and AMOS 18 is used for validity test. With both reliability and validity meet the standard requirements, HLM 6.04 is used for cross-level analysis of the model. On this basis, according to the recommendations of Raudenbush & Bryk (2002) and Wang Yucong (2011), in the HLM analysis, we conducts test followed by the steps from simple to complex and low to high, and examined the empty model of business model creativity and business model application (testing whether the collected data has within-group consistency), the random coefficient regression model (testing direct effect of well-being), the intercepts as outcomes model (testing the direct effect of organizational trust), and the slopes as outcomes model (testing the moderating effect of organizational trust).
The study finds that: (1) Well-being has a significant positive impact on business model creativity and business model application. Well-being is the satisfaction of team members with life, work and psychology, stating a positive emotional and psychological experience. According to Fredrickson′s (2001) broaden-and-build theory, the positive emotional experience can expand the innovator′s instantaneous thinking, which can usually promote the creation of business model creativity. In addition, the dynamic spillover-cross model of well-being points out that well-being will spill over into the innovation team, which will enhance the well-being of each innovator in the team and indirectly affect their work behavior and innovation performance. The results of this study also illustrate the rationality of this model and expanded its application in the field of business model innovation.
(2) Colleague trust and superior trust have not exerted a significant impact on business model creativity and business model application. This is consistent with that of Yi Jiabin, Xie Dongmei and Gao Jinwei (2015), stating that organizational trust does not directly affect business model innovation. Su Tao et al (2018) pointed out that trust is more about improving the relationship between team members, rather than promoting their creative thinking and innovative ideas, and does not significantly improve their ability to complete the task. Some scholars have found that excessive trust levels can even reduce the supervision of innovation team members, leading team members to seek consistency of ideas and reducing members′ flexibility and creativity. Future research can explore whether organizational trust can influence business model innovation through other mediators.
(3) Superior trust can have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between well-being and business model application, and with a higher superior trust, well-being has a stronger influence on business model application. However, superior trust does not have a significant moderating role in the relationship between well-being and business model creativity. According to the leader-member exchange theory (LMX), superior trust will form an internal incentive mechanism, prompting the subordinates to actively complete the commission and arrangement of the superior, which leads the team members to be more engaged in the work and more willingly to insert more resources and efforts. Therefore, with a higher superior trust, innovators with well-being will invest more resources and efforts to promote the application of business model creativity. In contrast, the creation of business model creativity requires more divergent thinking and the instant inspiration, rather than diligence itself. This may possibly explain why superior trust does not have a significant moderating effect in the relationship between well-being and business model creativity.
(4) Colleague trust plays a significant moderating role on the well-being-business model creativity and well-being-business model application relationship. And with a higher trust among colleagues, well-being has a stronger role in promoting business model creativity and business model application. According to the social exchange theory, trust can facilitate knowledge sharing among the members of innovation team, enabling innovators with well-being to better develop their creative thinking and innovative ability. At the same time, creative implementers are more likely to obtain assistance and support in an atmosphere of colleagues trust, thus overcoming the difficulties encountered in the implementation of business model creativity and accelerating the realization of business model innovation.

Key words: well-being, business model innovation, organizational trust, cross-level study

Wang Bingcheng, Feng Yueyang, Zhang Shiqiang. Well-being and business model innovation: The cross-level moderating effect of organizational trust[J]. Science Research Management, 2021, 42(7): 137-146.

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