The consequences of face-threatening feedback on innovators' psychological safety, affect, and willingness to engage in future innovation projects

While there is substantial research on how firms successfully end project initiatives deemed unsuitable for them very few studies focus on how leaders and managers communicate termination messages. Drawing from politeness theory and organizational support theory we explore the impact termination messages varying in face sensitivity have on innovators' feelings of psychological safety, affect, and their willingness to continue to innovate We find that face-threatening messages significantly and negatively affect innovators' psychological safety, affect, and willingness to further innovate. The negative effects are amplified when innovators feel high commitment to their projects.

The importance of team psychological safety climate for enhancing younger team members’ innovation-related behaviors in South Korea

Indigenous cultural nuances such as age-related hierarchies in South Korea have the potential to impact workers’ engagement in innovation-related behaviors (IRBs). We use self-categorization theory to examine both the relationship between employee age and IRBs and the cross-level interaction effects of team psychological safety climate. Using a multilevel sample of 282 South Korean employees working in 65 teams across 45 different organizations in various industries, we find that team psychological safety climate moderates the relationship between age and engaging in IRBs. More specifically, we find that when teams have a weaker psychological safety climate, age is positively related to engaging in IRBs. However, when teams have a stronger psychological safety climate, age is not related to engaging in IRBs. We discuss the implications of these findings for innovation and managing work teams in Eastern contexts.