Potential of Passive Employees: How Servant Leadership Can Stimulate Innovation among Control-Oriented Employees

Ziyang Qiang (), Jigan Wang, Kaiyuan He () and Lin Xu
Additional contact information
Ziyang Qiang: Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Jigan Wang: Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Kaiyuan He: Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China
Lin Xu: School of Management, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210003, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Depending on the organizational context, a control orientation on the part of an employee may either inhibit or promote their innovative job performance. To explore the question of which external conditions are conducive to control-oriented employees’ innovative potential, this study examined the effects of servant leadership on control-oriented employees’ motivation internalization processes and innovative job performance from a self-determination theory perspective. This study was conducted in Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Anhui provinces, which are relatively developed high-tech industries in China. An analysis of paired data from 298 employees and their leaders in nine technology-intensive companies revealed that servant leadership plays a positive moderating role between control orientation and employees’ autonomous motivation. Moreover, the interaction between control orientation and servant leadership can affect innovative job performance through the mediation of identified regulation, but not through that of integrated regulation. These findings are beneficial in promoting healthy development and innovative job performance of control-oriented employees, and are instructive for sustainable human resource management. Organizations should recognize the creative potential of control-oriented employees, promote servant leadership, leverage its management strengths, and focus on enhancing employees’ sense of identification with their jobs.

Keywords: control orientation; servant leadership; identified regulation; integrated regulation; innovative job performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/144/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/1/144/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2022:i:1:p:144-:d:1011172

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().