positivity in practical ways than to buffering their negativity. Further, we suggest
that leaders should create more opportunities for employees’ to participate in
team decision making and information sharing in order to evoke employees’
innovation potential. Team leaders need to regularly assess the emotional state
of their employees, especially frontline workers, and to pay more attention to
their emotional labor and innovative labor and to individuals’ positivity rather
than their negativity. Team leaders who show positive emotions may arouse
employees’ positive imitation. In addition, leaders should regularly assess
employees’ emotional state, and should pay more attention to individuals’
positivity than to negativity in order to provoke employee innovation.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
There are some limitations to this study and further work needs to be done
in the future. First, data from samples of employees and leaders outside of the
manufacturing industry could be gathered to increase the generalizability of our
findings. Second, although we controlled the survey process strictly, self-reported
surveys may still be biased by common method variance. Third, the use of a
cross-sectional research design may have influenced causal inferences. Diverse
research designs, such as longitudinal or experimental studies, are recommended
to examine the relationship between AL and employee innovation more deeply.
Because we only identified a partial mediator, other variables that play an
important mediating role in the mechanism need to be assessed in future studies