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PurposeThe aim of this study is to examine the relationships between taking charge, bootlegging innovation and innovative job performance, and to explore the moderating roles of felt responsibility for constructive change (FRCC) and creative self-efficacy (CSE).Design/methodology/approachData for this research was collected from 503 employees working in a chain company. Through a longitudinal study design, a three-wave survey with 397 valid data provided support for the proposed theoretical model.FindingsThe results maintain a positive association between taking charge, bootlegging innovation and innovative job performance, indicating the mediating effect of bootlegging innovation. Additionally, both the FRCC and CSE facilitate the indirect effect of taking charge on innovative job performance through bootlegging innovation. Furthermore, the integrated moderated mediation model analysis suggested that FRCC is more vital in improving employees' innovative job performance.Originality/valueThis research aims to break the black box between taking charge and innovative job performance, which has been relatively unexplored. Drawing from self-determination theory (SDT) and the proactive motivation model, the authors verify the bridge-building role of bootlegging innovation and the dual-facilitating effects of FRCC and CSE while employees conduct taking charge. This study’s results provide new insight for managers to foster, encourage and support employees' proactive behavior.

In dynamic organizational environments, employee-driven bootlegging innovation has emerged as an important micro-level pathway to sustainable competitive advantage. Drawing on self-determination theory, conservation of resources theory, and regulatory focus theory, this study examines how job crafting facilitates bootlegging innovation through psychological capital and how promotion focus conditions this process. Using a two-wave survey of 370 employees from multiple industries in China, we found that job crafting is positively associated with bootlegging innovation both directly and indirectly via psychological capital. Mediation analyses indicate that psychological capital significantly transmits the effect of job crafting on bootlegging innovation. Moreover, promotion focus strengthens the positive relationship between job crafting and psychological capital as well as the relationship between psychological capital and bootlegging innovation, resulting in a stronger conditional indirect effect at higher levels of promotion focus. These findings conceptualize psychological capital as a renewable reservoir of psychological resources that enables proactive job redesign to translate into constructive deviant innovation while highlighting promotion focus as a dual-path catalyst in both resource generation and resource mobilization. This study advances our understanding of the micro-level mechanisms underlying sustainable innovation and offers practical guidance for organizations seeking to foster constructive deviance in a controlled and sustainable manner.

Purpose Employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior is common and plays an important role in enterprise management. Based on the resource conservation theory and self-regulation theory, the purpose of this study is to explore the influence mechanism of leaders’ abusive supervision on employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior, with psychological safety as a mediator and mindfulness at workplace as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were gathered from 591 employees’ self-assessment questionnaires in China. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the research model through SPSS and AMOS. Findings This study found that the leaders’ abusive supervision negatively affects employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior; employees’ psychological safety completely mediates the negative effect of leaders’ abusive supervision on employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior; and mindfulness at work moderates the influence of leaders’ abusive supervision on employee’ bootlegging innovation behavior, as well as the influence of leaders’ abusive supervision on employees’ psychological safety. Research limitations/implications This study has significant implications in passive leadership that affect employees’ innovation. Authors found that leaders’ abusive supervise, mindfulness at workplace play a crucial role in employees’ bootleg innovation through psychological safety. Originality/value Theoretically, this study has enriched the antecedent research on employees’ bootlegging innovation behavior from the perspective of negative leadership behavior and employee psychology. And this study considered mindfulness at workplace as a boundary condition.

To develop innovations in large, mature organizations, individuals often have to resort to underground, “bootleg” research and development (R&D) activities that have no formal organizational support. In doing so, these individuals attempt to achieve greater autonomy over the direction of their R&D efforts and to escape the constraints of organizational accountability. Drawing on theories of proactive creativity and innovation, we argue that these underground R&D efforts help individuals to develop innovations based on the exploration of uncharted territory and delayed assessment of embryonic ideas. After carefully assessing the direction of causality, we find that individuals’ bootleg efforts are associated with achievement of high levels of innovative performance. Furthermore, we show that the costs and benefits of bootlegging for innovation are contingent on the emphasis on the enforcement of organizational norms in the individual’s work environment; we argue and demonstrate empirically that the benefits of an individual’s bootlegging efforts are enhanced in work units with high levels of innovative performance and which include members who are also engaged in bootlegging. However, during periods of organizational change involving formalization of the R&D process, individuals who increase their bootlegging activities are less likely to innovate. We explore the implications of these findings for our understanding of proactive and deviant creativity.