Within-individual increases in innovative behavior and creative, persuasion, and change self-efficacy over time: A...

Studies of innovative behavior (the generation, dissemination, and implementation of new ideas) have generally overlooked the agency perspective on this important type of performance behavior. Guided by social-cognitive theory, we propose a moderated mediation relationship to explain why and how employees become motivated to make things happen through their innovative endeavors. First, we propose that within-individual increases in organizational trust and perceived respect by colleagues promote within-individual increases in creative, persuasion, and change self-efficacy over time. Second, we propose that within-individual increases in self-efficacy beliefs promote within-individual increases in idea generation, dissemination, and implementation over time. Finally, we propose that psychological collectivism (a between-individual variable) is a moderator, and that a higher level of psychological collectivism weakens the positive relationship between within-individual increases in self-efficacy beliefs and within-individual increases in innovative behavior. Repeated measures collected from 267 employees in Italy at 3 time points over an 8-month period generally support our proposed dynamic moderated mediation relationship.