Objective Postgraduates are the reserve force of national innovation-driven development, and enhancing postgraduates’ proactive innovation behavior has become the focus of higher education reform. This study focuses on the influence of mentors’ innovation support on postgraduates’ proactive innovation behavior and analyzes the internal conduction mechanism of innovation efficacy and creative process engagement. Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted on 1200 postgraduates by a random sampling method, and data were collected using the mentors’ innovation support scale, proactive innovation behavior scale, innovation efficacy scale, and creative process engagement scale. Amos 24.0 and SPSS 26.0 statistical software were used to carry out correlation analysis and the chained mediation effect tests sequentially. Results There is a significant correlation between mentors’ innovation support, innovation efficacy, creative process engagement, and postgraduates’ proactive innovation behavior. There are significant mediation effects and chain mediation effects between mentors’ innovation support and postgraduates’ proactive innovation behavior, in which the mediation effect of innovation efficacy is stronger than the mediation effect of creative process engagement and the chain mediation effect between the two. Conclusion There is a relationship between mentors’ innovation support and postgraduates’ proactive innovation behavior, and this relationship is partially realized through the mediating effect of innovation efficacy and creative process engagement.
Wei et al. (Wed,) studied this question.