A relational approach to the effects of self-regulatory foci on employee innovative performance

This study takes a relational approach to examine the effects of self-regulatory foci (promotion focus and prevention focus) on employees’ innovative performance. Specifically, recognizing the importance of employee-employee interaction and employee-organization relationship in generating innovative performance, we posit that promotion focus positively, and prevention orientation negatively, predicts innovative performance through knowledge sharing. Drawing on the trait activation theory, we further propose that the indirect relationship between promotion/prevention focus and innovative performance through knowledge sharing is shaped by the employees’ relationship with the organization they work in. Specifically, we argue for the moderating effects of organizational identification on the relationship between promotion focus and knowledge sharing, and job insecurity on the relationship between prevention focus and knowledge sharing. Based on a survey conducted among 441 employees in 70 work units in China, our findings showed that promotion focus had an indirect relationship with innovative performance through knowledge sharing, and the relationship between promotion focus and knowledge sharing became stronger when the employees’ organizational identification was high.