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| Employee Status-striving Motivation, Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Innovation Performance：A Study from the Perspective of Embeddedness Paradox |
| Cheng Dejun,Wang Xiaoyu |
| (School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China) |
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Abstract In the dynamic and changing environment, top management's knowledge and attention limitations make it difficult for organizations to observe accurately and respond to the changes in technology, products, customers, etc. Middle and lower-level employees often assume the role of the trigger and initiator of spontaneous innovation within the organization. The new institutional theory from a sociological perspective argues that organizations can constrain employee creativity through recruitment, training and socialization. Thus, the paradox of embeddedness of individual innovation in sociology argues that when individuals are embedded in organizations and social networks of relationships, they have access to the resources and social support needed for change but often lack the vision, information and motivation to implement change; while when individuals are de-embedded in the organization's internal network, they have the information and motivation to change, but lack the resources and ability to implement change. However, the new institutional theory from an economic perspective asserts that employees are characterized by limited rationality and opportunism. They will take full advantage of internal promotion and development according to the incentives provided by the organization to create benefits for the organization while gaining personal value.#br#Innovative firms often face higher levels of status conflict. Previous research on status conflict has generally concluded that status conflict has a deterrent effect on organizational learning. However, recent studies have found that status and power hierarchies can effectively motivate innovation and coordinate innovation activities within an organization by placing high competence at higher levels. Therefore, this paper argues that the embeddedness paradox of innovative firms can be effectively resolved by introducing status competition mechanisms. Compared with dominant status-striving motivation, prestige status-striving motivation often promotes individual knowledge-sharing behavior and enhances employees' innovation performance. Therefore, this paper focuses on the prestige status-striving motivation perspective and explores its effects' boundaries. Through an empirical survey of 227 employees in a large media company, the data analysis results show that firstly, individual prestige status-striving motivation positively affects innovation performance, in which knowledge sharing plays a mediating effect. Second, in informal relationship networks, members in non-core positions tend to have higher motivation to adopt prestige status-striving motivation to obtain more support and phenotype newer knowledge-sharing behaviors. Finally, members of high formal status who are in marginal positions in informal networks are more likely to adopt prestige status-striving motivation in status conflict and show more knowledge-sharing behaviors.#br#This study enriches the antecedents of employee innovation performance and responds to the controversy of the employee embeddedness paradox in current research. Then it explores the differences in employees' motivation for the status competition from the perspective of the position and degree of individuals' embeddedness in different organizational networks. By distinguishing the effects of individuals' formal and informal status on employees, competition motivation and knowledge-sharing behavior, it enriches the current research on organizational politics theory and organizational embeddedness paradox to a certain extent. By exploring the interaction mechanisms of individual formal and informal status, the study further deepens the matching mechanisms of formal and informal status in organizations and their effects. It is found that low informal and high formal status have a significant positive moderating effect on individuals' prestige-based status competition and knowledge sharing, validating the compensatory match between formal and informal organizational systems. #br#There are certain reference implications for enterprises. First, managers should face up to employees' needs for status, and regard employee status competition correctly and dialectically, and actively guide employees to adopt prestige status-striving motivation. Second, companies should focus on the organization's informal network, its differences and the formal network. On the one hand, managers can fully use informal status as an effective predictive tool to help them better achieve innovation, such as giving support to individuals at a disadvantage in the relational network and providing more performance opportunities or empowerment. On the other hand, individuals of low informal status who lack the ability and resources to implement change can often facilitate matters, if they are complemented by formal status. Therefore, organizations can utilize the inconsistency between formal and informal networks to promote individual innovation by periodically adjusting the formal structure.#br#
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Received: 12 May 2022
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