How Does Mobile Workplace Stress Affect Employee Innovative Behavior? The Role of Work–Family Conflict and Employee Engagement

The new wave of interest in mobile workplaces is profoundly changing the internal ecology of Chinese companies and creating new stress for employees. To investigate the mechanisms of mobile workplace stress on employee innovative behavior and the role of work–family conflict and employee engagement, we collected 426 valid samples from married male employees in the software and information service industries. The results show that mobile workplace stress has a significant negative effect on employee innovative behavior. In contrast, it has a significant positive effect on work–family conflict and employee engagement. In addition, work–family conflict partially mediates the relationship between mobile workplace stress and employee innovative behavior; employee engagement produces the suppressing effects. The chain intermediary effect of work–family conflict and employee engagement between the mobile workplace and employee innovative behavior is present. When we focus on the high performance of the mobile workplace, we should also pay attention to its impact on the company’s ability for innovation.