As Chinese IT service companies face intense rivalry and customization demand, innovation is considered to be imperative for business success. In particular, employees' innovative behavior is an important asset. This study endeavors to extend research on innovative behavior by investigating employees' espoused individualism/collectivism and power distance cultural values in Chinese IT service industry. Specifically, a theoretical model is proposed to characterize antecedents of innovative behavior and investigate moderating effect of employees' espoused national cultural values on the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovative behavior. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in IT service firms with different ownerships in Beijing and Xi'an, with 484 questionnaires in total. SPSS and Smart PLS were used for data analysis. Results indicate that: Knowledge sharing affects innovative behavior significantly and positively; besides, this knowledge sharing-innovative behavior relationship increases with the increase of employees' espoused collectivistic cultural values, and decreases with the increase of espoused power distance cultural values. Implications for practice are: managers should recognize the importance of employees' espoused national culture, and design better recruitment strategies and training program for companies. For espoused collectivistic cultural values, managers should recruit employees high on collectivism, and implement mechanisms to cultivate and increase employees' espoused collectivistic cultural values. For espoused power distance cultural values, managers should adopt suitable strategies according to specific situations, e.g., if this organization emphasis on hierarchy or the leaders are characterized by high power distance, manager can ignore the negative moderating effect; conversely, managers should enhance mutual communication and trust between the managers and employees, and increase employees' enthusiasm and initiative in companies characterized by low power distance.
LIU Li-li, DU Rong, AI Shi-zhong
. Impact of Culture on the Relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Innovative Behavior in IT Services Industry[J]. Chinese Journal of Management Science, 2016
, 24(4)
: 159
-166
.
DOI: 10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2016.04.018
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