Job Stressors, Organizational Innovation Climate, and Employees’ Innovative Behavior

Abstract This study attempted to examine the influence of job stressors and organizational innovation climate on employees' innovative behavior. Data were obtained from 282 employees in 4 cities of China. Results indicated that the nature of stressors matters in predicting employees' idea generation. Specifically, stressors that employees tend to appraise as challenges were positively related to idea generation, whereas stressors that employees tend to appraise as hindrances were negatively related to idea generation. In addition, hindrance stressors moderated the relationship between organizational innovation climate and innovative behavior. The beneficial effect of organizational innovation climate on innovative behavior became weaker for idea implementation and totally disappeared for idea generation when confronting with high hindrance stressors. Implications of this study are also discussed. Acknowledgments This research was funded by the key projects of Philosophy and Social Science Grant of Department of Education, China (11JZD040), by Humanities and Social Science Planning Grant of Department of Education, China (12YJA190024), by Science and Technology Planning Projects of Shandong Province, China (2012GGB01189), and by Key Subject Funds of Shandong Province, China (2011-2015). We are grateful to all the participants who contributed to this project.