TY  - EJOU
AU  - Ma, Qian 
AU  - Zhou, Hao 

TI  - Leaders’ expectations of innovation and employees’ innovative behavior: The roles of employees’ expected positive performance outcomes and innovative self-efficacy
T2  - Journal of Psychology in Africa

PY  - 2025
VL  - 35
IS  - 1
SN  - 1815-5626

AB  - Employees’ innovative performance determines an organization’s innovation, which critically impacts its structural optimization and sustainability. Applying expectancy theory, we examined how and when the Pygmalion effect occurs in the relationship between leaders’ expectations of innovation and employee innovative behavior. Our sample comprised 201 frontline employees (female = 31.84%; mean age = 41.48 years, SD = 7.97 years) in a Chinese coal enterprise, who completed surveys on innovation expectations of leaders, expected positive performance outcomes, innovative self-efficacy and innovative behavior. The results revealed that employees’ expected positive performance outcomes mediated the positive relationship between leaders’ innovation expectations and their innovative behavior. Employees’ innovative self-efficacy positively moderated the relationship between their expected positive performance outcomes and innovative behavior, with this relationship being stronger for employees with high innovative self-efficacy. Moreover, we validated the moderated mediation model. Findings suggest that leaders can stimulate employee innovative behavior through expressing expectations and they also need to consider the boundary conditions.
KW  - expectations of innovation; expected positive performance outcomes; innovative behavior; innovative self-efficacy; organizational innovation

DO  - 10.32604/jpa.2025.065775