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The purpose of this research is to better understand the human aspects of open innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by exploring how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation influence enjoyment in helping others, knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding and consequently firms' open innovation.

We collected data with a survey among CEOs in 140 SMEs and performed confirmatory factor analysis applying structural equation modeling in IBM SPSS AMOS (v. 26).

Results reveal that intrinsic motivation is positively associated with helping behavior and knowledge sharing and negatively associated with knowledge hiding. We also confirm the positive relationship between extrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing. Moreover, we find that knowledge sharing increases and knowledge hiding decreases the firm-level open innovation. Especially in high-tech industry, knowledge sharing is a vital determinant of open innovation.

Responding to the calls for a deeper understanding of the individual-level factors that determine organization-level open innovation, in this research we focus on the human aspect of open innovation in SMEs. Open innovation is a widely recognized and implemented concept among large corporations and facilitates better understanding of new technological and market developments both within and outside of organizations. However, understanding of the microfoundations of open innovation in smaller firms is still limited, but this steam of research is growing rapidly.

This paper aims to study followers' proactive personality (PP) as a personal resource in moderating the hindering impact of exploitative leadership (EL) on followers' job strain (JS).

Self-report data on EL, JS and PP were obtained from 113 working students in the USA, and a cross-sectional design was used. The data was analyzed using SPSS 27 through hierarchal multiple regression and the PROCESS macro.

The findings support the buffering role of PP on the hindering impact of EL on JS, such that followers with higher PP tend to buffer the positive relationship between EL and followers' JS.

This study recommends practitioners to hire proactive individuals and/or enable existing employees to engage in proactivity in the presence of exploitative leaders to better cope with their self-serving behaviors.

Using the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study is the first to use PP as a personal resource that protects against and mitigates the negative impact of EL.