社会与工程心理学研究室知识库

创新对于组织赢得可持续性竞争优势的重要性日益凸显。现有的关于社会网络和员工创新的研究主要集中于社会网络的关系特征(如关系强度)和结构特征 (如社会网络中所处的位置)如何帮助或阻碍员工拥有更好的社会网络资源。这些研究的基本假设是，员工如果具有社会网络的关系或结构方面的优势，将能藉此获取更多的社会资源，从而更快地识别创新机会和更好地进行创新。然而，鲜有研究对该假设进行检验，探讨社会资源本身如何影响员工的创新行为和产出。鉴于此，本研究基于社会资源理论，实证检验社会网络所嵌入的社会资源如何直接影响员工的创新行为，及员工是如何通过创新行为将他们的社会资源转化为实质性的创新产出，并进一步探讨主管的创新支持在其中如何发挥调节效应。本研究借助混合研究设计，首先通过量化研究检验核心变量，即社会资源、创新行为、创新产出和主管的创新支持之间的关系，再借助质化研究，对本研究模型中从理论到量化研究结果的逻辑推导提供实例支撑。

量化研究在一家全球性高科技企业的亚洲研发中心开展。通过对154位研发人员进行问卷调查，测量员工开展创新所能掌握的社会资源、员工的创新行为，以及直接主管对创新的支持;利用从企业获取的关于员工创新结果的档案数据，衡量员工的客观创新产出(如专利申请或发明披露的数量)。分析结果发现，社会资源显著正向预测员工的创新行为，且借助创新行为的间接效应，进一步提升员工的创新产出(即专利和发明披露的数量)。主管创新支持显著调节社会资源对创新行为的影响，当主管的创新支持强时，社会资源对员工创新行为的正向影响效应更强。主管创新支持还调节社会资源借助创新行为影响创新产出的间接效应，当主管创新支持强时，该间接效应更大。

在随后的质性研究中，我访谈了该研发中心的72位研发人员。通过访谈，明确了研发实践中所需要的社会资源，以及研发人员是依据研发目标而非社会网络关系或结构视角寻求相关社会资源。本研究中关于社会资源如何影响员工创新行为的理论推导均在研发实践中得到体现，即社会资源加速信息流动，从而推动想法产生;具有丰富社会资源的员工在想法推广时更有可能影响关键决策人;社会资源丰富的员工能够获得强化身份和认可，从而确保更多资源用于想法实施。质化研究为主管是通过哪些方式支持创新可以放大社会资源对创新行为的影响效应，以及员工的创新行为如何产出更多的创新成果同样提供了实例支撑，进一步支持了量化研究的主要发现。

本研究从社会资源视角，直接揭示了员工所掌握的社会资源促进员工创新的作用机制及其边界条件，对社会网络和员工创新的研究有重要理论贡献，同时对个人发展和提升组织的创新管理具有重要的实践意义。

Employee innovation is becoming increasingly important when organizations strive for sustainable competitive advantages. Extant research on social networks and employee innovation has mainly focused on how relational (e.g., tie strength) and structural (e.g., location in social network) features of social networks help or hinder employees to have better social network resources. The underlying assumption of these research is that employees occupying advantageous relation or structure in social networks will be able to access more social resources to identify innovation opportunities quicker and make better innovation. However, few studies have examined this hypothesis to explore how social resources per se influence employee innovative behavior and outcomes. Drawing on social resources theory, the present study empirically examines how social resources directly affect employee innovative behavior, and how employees transfer their social resources into substantial innovative outputs through their innovative behavior. We further explore in which how supervisor support for innovation moderates the effects. With the help of hybrid study design, the study first measured the relationship between core variables, namely, social resources, innovative behavior, innovative outputs, and supervisor support for innovation by quantitative research, and then found real cases to support logical derivations from theory to quantitative research results in this research model via qualitative interviews.

The quantitative study was conducted in the Asia Research and Development (R&D) center of a large high-tech organization. 154 employees were invited to complete a questionnaire survey. The social resources that employees could utilize during innovation, their innovative behavior, and their direct supervisor support for innovation were measured. With company's archival data, their objective innovative output (the number of patents or invention disclosures) was measured. We found that social resources for innovation significantly and positively predict employee innovative behavior, and further improve innovative output (the number of patents and invention disclosures) via indirect effect of innovative behavior. Supervisor support for innovation significantly moderates the impact of social resources on innovative behavior. When supervisor support for innovation is strong, social resources' impact on employee innovative behavior is strengthened. Supervisor support for innovation also moderates the indirect effect of social resources on innovative output through innovative behavior. When supervisor support for innovation is strong, the indirect effect is stronger.

In the subsequent qualitative study, a total of 72 researchers from this R&D center were interviewed. Through the interviews, we identified what social resources were needed in innovation practice, and researchers sought relevant social resources based on innovative objectives rather than social network relational or structural perspectives. In this study, the theoretical derivation of how social resources affect employee innovative behavior was reflected in innovation practice, that is, social resources accelerate the flow of information to promote idea generation; employees with rich social resources are more likely to influence key decision makers when promoting ideas; employees with rich social resources can obtain identity and recognition to ensure that more resources are used for idea implementation. Qualitative research provided examples of the ways that supervisor support for innovation amplifies the influence of social resources on innovative behavior, and how employee innovative behavior produces more innovative results, which makes the main findings of quantitative research more solid.

From the perspective of social resources, this study directly reveals the mechanism and boundary conditions of how employees' social resources promote employee innovation, and has made important theoretical contributions to the research of employee innovation and social networks. Practically, it has practical significance for individual development and organization's innovation management.