Research on the Impact Mechanism of High-Quality Relationship on Proactive Behavior and Creative Collaboration:The Mediating Effect of Meaningfulness of Work and the Moderating Effect of Positive Reciprocity Beliefs

Abstract

Abstract Purpose The meaningfulness of work has become a hot topic of discussion in academia and practice in recent years, but existing research lacks in-depth exploration of the antecedents and outcomes of meaningfulness of work. Based on the sense making theory and social exchange, this paper analyzed the impact mechanism of high-quality relationship on proactive behavior and creative collaboration. Participants and Methods: This study used a combination of email and paper questionnaires to investigate knowledge-based employees from a total of 13 enterprises in Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai regions. In order to reduce the effects of common method biases and causal lag effect, this study is divided into three stages for data collection, with a time interval of a month, and uses the four digits at the end of the mobile phone tail of the survey subjects as the only clue for matching before and after the questionnaire. The hypothesis test was carried out by hierarchical regression analysis, bootstrap and so on. Results The results showed that high-quality relationship positively affect employees' proactive behavior and creative collaboration; meaningfulness of work plays a mediating role between high-quality relationship, proactive behavior, and creative collaboration; positive reciprocity beliefs play a moderating role between high-quality relationship and meaningfulness of work; positive reciprocity belief positively moderates the mediating effect of meaningfulness of work between high-quality relationship, proactive behavior, and creative collaboration. Conclusion This paper explores the antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions of meaningfulness of work. It responds to scholar Robertson et al.'s call to search for meaningfulness of work from a relational perspective and Chua et al.'s focus on creative collaboration between two people, which provides valuable reference and inspiration for how to enhance employees' meaningfulness of work and promote positive behavior.