A moderated mediation model of idiosyncratic deals and innovative performance of R&D employees: roles of vitality
ISSN: 1750-614X
Article publication date: 22 February 2021
Issue publication date: 16 September 2021
Abstract
Purpose
As personalized work arrangements, idiosyncratic deals can activate employees’ energy and thus affect their innovative performance. The purpose of this study was to examine whether employee vitality mediates the relationships between two different types of idiosyncratic deals and the innovative performance of employees and whether the mediating effects are moderated by employees’ age.
Design/methodology/approach
Matched data were collected from 620 employees and their direct supervisors who work in two large Chinese technology R&D organizations.
Findings
Results indicate that two different types of i-deals (task and work responsibilities i-deals and flexibility i-deals) are positively related to the innovative performance of employees and that vitality mediates those relationships. Further, chronological age enhances the positive relationship between task and work responsibilities i-deals and vitality, and it enhances the indirect effect that task and work responsibilities i-deals relate to the innovative performance of employees through vitality. However, the results of this study indicate that the moderating effect of chronological age on flexibility i-deals and vitality, as well as the moderated mediation effects of vitality on the relationship between flexibility i-deals and the innovative performance of employees, did not meet the standard for significance.
Originality/value
Based on the cognitive evaluation theory, this study explores more deeply the mechanism by which task and work responsibilities i-deals and flexibility i-deals activate employees’ energy and thus influence their innovative performance. In addition, this study comprehensively considers the moderating effect of chronological age, an important demographic variable, on the mechanism of idiosyncratic deals.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 72072075).
Citation
Huang, Y. and Chen, X. (2021), "A moderated mediation model of idiosyncratic deals and innovative performance of R&D employees: roles of vitality", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 785-800. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-09-2020-0417
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited