The Antecedents of Innovative Work Behavior: The Roles of Self-Monitoring

In this study, the authors examined why employees engage in innovative behavior even though innovation is a risky behavior. Employees tend to engage in innovative behavior since they expect positive image gains. Besides, employees tend to avoid innovative behavior because it forfeits their image inside organization (expected image risks). Furthermore, the willingness to engage in innovative behavior depends on individual differences. Therefore, the authors tried to examine the role of individual differences, drawing from self-monitoring theory. The surprising findings were the quality of relationship between employees and their peers did not affect employee image risk and self-monitoring did not moderate the relationship between expected image gain and innovative work behavior.