“Demanding perfection, losing innovation”: The sequential mediating roles of psychological contract breach and knowledge-hiding behavior and the buffering effect of artificial intelligence technology acceptance

This study investigates how organizationally prescribed perfectionism (OPP) influences organizational innovation through the sequential mediating roles of psychological contract breach (PCB) and knowledge-hiding behavior (KHB), with artificial intelligence technology acceptance (AITA) demonstrating a moderating impact. Adopting a four-wave, time-lagged research design, data were gathered from 849 employed adults in South Korea, yielding 363 usable responses. The measurement model was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, which demonstrated the distinctiveness of the core constructs. Structural equation modeling assessed the hypothesized relationships and revealed that OPP had no direct effect on innovation; rather, its impact was mediated by PCB, which occurs when employees perceive the unyielding demands of an organization as violating mutual obligations, and subsequently by KHB, which refers to individuals withholding work-related information. This chain of unfavorable perceptions and behaviors ultimately diminishes organization-level innovation capacity. Furthermore, AITA functioned as a crucial buffer in the link between OPP and PCB, signifying that employees who were more receptive to AI tools were less likely to interpret perfectionistic standards as unfair. This study’s findings enhance the current theoretical discourse by highlighting a multi-level explanatory process that elucidates how externally imposed performance pressure erodes innovation potential. The results also demonstrate technological acceptance’s pivotal role in mitigating such challenges.