Abstract:

To achieve organizational goals, Internet companies often stimulate continuous innovation of employees by cultivating a happy and joyful work environment. However, the link between playful climate and employees’ innovative behaviors is still underdeveloped, primarily focusing on theoretical analyses and lacking empirical support. Building on the prior findings of playfulness in the field of organizational management, the present study explores three important issues. Based on the theory of organizational climate and the characteristics of playfulness, study 1 develops a scale to measure team playful climate in Chinese Internet firms. Standing on the team level study 2 discusses the cross-level mechanisms underlying the relationship between playful work environment and employees’ innovation from the perspective of Conservation of Resources Theory. Based on the Componential Theory of Individual Creativity, study 3 introduces individual thinking styles and multiple identities to explore the boundary conditions that stimulate employees’ innovative behaviors. Our findings have developed the concept of team playful climate in Chinese Internet companies, enhanced playful climate theory. And the implications for practice in the context of Internet companies are discussed.

Key words: playful climate, innovative behaviors, job crafting, conservation of resources theory, componential theory of individual creativity