The impact of daily flow on employees’ daily innovative behavior: disentangling the within-level mediation effect of job involvement and the cross-level moderation effect of person-organization fit

Employees’ innovative behavior is a crucial catalyst for public organizations’ survival, development, and growth in service quality and problem-solving capabilities. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory and self-determination theory, we proposed a conceptual model to delineate the dynamic within-person impact of the universal human experience flow on innovative behavior. We tried to disentangle the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions by taking into consideration both job involvement and person-organization fit. We followed 106 public organizational employees’ self-reports on daily flow, job involvement, and innovative behavior at work for two consecutive weeks. Data analyzed via multi-level structural equation modeling revealed that daily flow exerts a positive impact on innovative behavior through job involvement at the within-person level. Such impact is moderated by person-organization fit at the between-person level, indicating a more substantial indirect effect of flow on innovative behavior via job involvement for employees with higher (versus lower) person-organization fit. Taken together, our findings elucidate how and when flow predicts innovative behavior on a daily basis, providing empirical evidence for the role of daily flow at work in facilitating employees’ daily innovative behavior. Theoretical and managerial implications for nurturing employees’ innovative behavior in public organizations are put forward.