AI Insight
This study of 400 Chinese clinical nurses found that head nurses who demonstrate scientific research and innovation leadership increase innovative work behavior among their team members, partially through creating perceptions of intra-team competition. However, this competitive dynamic was most effective for nurses with lower harmonious work passion, while those with higher intrinsic passion for their work showed less dependence on competitive motivation to innovate. The findings suggest that leadership-driven innovation operates through both cognitive team-level processes and individual motivational states.
Why it matters
The research provides evidence that nursing managers should balance competitive incentives with cultivating intrinsic work passion to sustainably promote innovation in healthcare settings. This has practical implications for leadership training and organizational strategies aimed at improving patient care through innovative nursing practices.
Understand the Science
BackgroundNurses’ innovative work behavior represents an important form of proactive workplace behavior in healthcare organizations. Although head nurses’ scientific research and innovation leadership may create conditions that support innovation, how such leadership is translated into nurses’ innovative work behavior through team-level cognitive processes and under what motivational conditions this association is strengthened or weakened remain insufficiently understood.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted among 400 clinical nurses in China. Participants completed validated measures of head nurses’ scientific research and innovation leadership, intra-team competition perception, harmonious work passion, and nurses’ innovative work behavior. Pearson correlation analyses, hierarchical regression analysis, mediation analysis, and moderated mediation analysis were performed.ResultsHead nurses’ scientific research and innovation leadership was positively associated with nurses’ innovative work behavior. Intra-team competition perception partially mediated this association. Harmonious work passion moderated the association between intra-team competition perception and nurses’ innovative work behavior: the association was stronger among nurses with lower harmonious work passion and weaker among those with higher harmonious work passion. The conditional indirect association between head nurses’ scientific research and innovation leadership and nurses’ innovative work behavior through intra-team competition perception was also stronger when harmonious work passion was lower.ConclusionBy integrating transformational leadership theory and self-determination theory, this study extends existing research on nurses’ innovative work behavior by identifying intra-team competition perception as a team-level cognitive pathway and harmonious work passion as a motivational boundary condition linking leadership context with innovation behavior. Nursing managers should not rely solely on competitive cues to stimulate innovation, but should also cultivate nurses’ internalized work passion and provide supportive leadership for sustainable innovation.