Why and When I Am Innovative Because of “Us”: The Roles of Conformity to Organizational Norms and Leader Innovation Encouragement

ABSTRACT It is important for organizations to foster employees' innovative behavior. Organizational identification has long been examined as an antecedent of innovative behavior. However, both positive and negative relationships were found. Conformity to organizational norms was considered to explain the negative relationship. We argue that the mediating role of conformity to organizational norms is contingent on employees' perceived encouragement of innovative behavior from leaders and organizations respectively; employees' perceived organization encouragement of innovative behavior moderates the relationship between norm conformity and innovative behavior via perceived leader encouragement of innovative behavior. Analyses of the three‐wave data among nurses provide support for most of the hypotheses. A supplementary study further demonstrates that conformity to organizational norms positively mediates the relationship between organizational identification and innovative behavior. These findings may change the understanding of norm conformity in the literature and provide organizational leaders with useful guidance for motivating employees' innovative behavior.