Does Goal Orientation Make a Difference for Innovation Implementation? Moderating Roles of Implementation Autonomy and Perceived Ease of Use

This study reconceptualizes innovation implementation as a continuum of behaviors, encompassing active, passive, and avoidant implementation, rather than a binary choice. These behaviors represent varying levels of employee engagement and are influenced by individual goal orientations and perceived contextual conditions. We tested our theoretical hypotheses by analyzing field data from 134 employees and their supervisors in a Chinese manufacturing firm. Our analysis shows that active implementation is strongly associated with learning goal orientation. By contrast, the effects of performance-prove goal orientation were contingent on perceived contextual factors: it was positively related to active implementation when implementation autonomy was high and positively related to passive implementation when perceived ease of use was high. Interestingly, performance-avoid goal orientation exhibited a negative relationship with passive implementation under the condition of high perceived ease of use. Notably, among the three implementation behaviors, only active implementation significantly enhanced innovation effectiveness. Overall, these findings underscore the pivotal roles of individual goal orientations and perceived contextual enablers in shaping innovation implementation behaviors and implementation outcomes.