Facilitator or barrier? The double-edged effects of leader perfectionism on employee innovation behavior

ABSTRACT

Although there have been studies in the past that have highlighted the important role of leader traits in motivating employee innovation behavior, leader perfectionism has been scarcely investigated in this context. This study attempts to explore whether leader perfectionism directed toward employees can facilitate or hinder employee innovation behavior. Based on the transactional model of stress, we propose and test a moderated mediation model using data from a multi-wave, multi-source survey of 334 leader-employee questionnaires. The results show that, for employees with high self-efficacy, leader perfectionism has a positive effect on their challenge stress, which in turn promotes employee innovation behavior; Meanwhile, for employees with low self-efficacy, leader perfectionism has a positive effect on their hindrance stress, thereby discouraging employee innovation behavior. This study has significant theoretical and practical implications as it highlights the underlying relationship between leader perfectionism and employee innovation behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenge stress
• hindrance stress
• innovation behavior
• leader perfectionism
• self-efficacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The materials and data reported here are available for access at https://www.scidb.cn/en/anonymous/Zm11UWJ1.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://www.scidb.cn/en/anonymous/Zm11UWJ1

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the The Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Youth Project [19YJC630165].

Notes on contributors

Xin Jiang

Xin Jiang is a master degree candidate at the School of Economics and Management at Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China.

Huaqiang Wang

Huaqiang Wang is a professor at the School of Economics and Management at Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China.

Min Li

Min Li is a deputy chief doctor at the Obstetrics, Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Hubei Provinc, Wuhan, China.