How openness to experience drives R&D staff’s innovative behavior: a nonlinear mediation and moderation perspective on flow experience and emotional intelligence

TL;DR

This study explores how openness to experience influences innovation in R&D staff, showing that flow and emotional intelligence play key roles.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlinear mediation model of flow and identifies emotional intelligence as a moderator in fostering innovation.

Findings

Moderate flow enhances innovation, but excessive flow reduces it.

Emotional intelligence buffers the negative effects of high flow intensity.

Managing flow dynamics is crucial for sustaining innovation in R&D.

Abstract

Openness to experience is widely recognized as a driver of innovation, yet how flow experience mediates this relationship and whether emotional intelligence (EI) moderates it remain underexplored.

This study investigates the nonlinear mediating role of flow between openness and innovation behavior, and EI’s moderating effect, using quantitative data from 475 R&D professionals (male, 75.16%; female, 24.84%).

Results reveal a curvilinear mediation: moderate flow enhances innovation, but excessive flow diminishes it. EI buffers this relationship, enabling sustained innovation under high flow intensity.

The findings highlight the need to manage flow dynamics and underscore EI as a critical factor for fostering innovation in R&D contexts, offering practical insights for organizational creativity management.

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