Abstract: Employee innovation is the source of value for enterprises to maintain competitiveness in uncertain situations. When individual innovation conflicts with organizational norms or is not supported by the organization, employees may resort to informal ways, that is, bootleg innovation. Recent studies have proved that organizations can increase employees' bootleg innovation by reducing their risk perception or by stimulating their organizational motivation. As an effective means for organizations to respond to environmental uncertainty, flexible work arrangements continues to play a role in the post-pandemic era. Flexible work arrangement is a flexible work schedule negotiated between organizations and employees, which reflects the "principle of reciprocity" in the social exchange theory. It can stimulate employees' bootleg innovation by strengthening the social exchange relationship between organizations and employees. However, the existing researches lack a comprehensive review of the relationship between flexible work arrangements and employee' bootleg innovation, and ignore the realization process of bootleg innovation, resulting in theoretical research lagging behind management practice.
In order to break the limitations of existing researches, this study, based on the social exchange theory, clarifies the internal mechanism and boundary conditions of flexible work arrangements affecting employees' bootleg innovation from the perspective of work autonomy and employees' perception of the error aversion culture. The results of the empirical analysis of 373 valid questionnaires by employees are as follows: flexible work arrangements has a positive impact on bootleg innovation; work autonomy mediates the relationship between flexible work arrangements and bootleg innovation; perception of the error aversion culture not only negatively moderates the relationship between work autonomy and bootleg innovation, but also negatively moderates the whole mediating mechanism.
The theoretical contribution of this study is reflected in the following three aspects: First, there is a lack of in-depth theoretical discussion on how work arrangement and work characteristics affect employees' bootleg innovation at present. Based on the social exchange theory, this study explores the impact mechanism of flexible work arrangements on employees' bootleg innovation, enriches the research on the effectiveness of flexible work arrangements, and expands the relevant research results of bootleg innovation in the post-pandemic period. Second, from the perspective of work autonomy, this study opens the "black box" of the impact mechanism of flexible work arrangements on employees' bootleg innovation, and further expands the interpretation range of antecedent variables and outcome variables of work autonomy in an uncertain environment. Third, this study focuses on the differential impact of employees' perception of the error aversion culture, and comprehensively analyzes the complex process of the impact of flexible work arrangements on employees' bootleg innovation.
The guidance for managerial practices is also provided. First, based on the local situation of China and the actual situation of enterprise development, the organization should dialectically implement flexible work arrangements to meet the personalized work needs of employees, give full play to the functional value of flexible work arrangements, and reduce the constraints of organizational norms on employees' bootleg innovation. Second, the organization should change the traditional enterprise management mode, optimize the job design to match employees' work preferences, and stimulate employees' initiative in organizational innovation. Third, enterprises should not invest a lot of costs to eliminate errors in daily operation, but adopt flexible strategies to deal with errors, create an inclusive and open atmosphere for error management, and change the concept of error management.

Key words: Flexible Work Arrangements, Bootleg Innovation, Work Autonomy, Perception of Error Aversion Culture, Social Exchange Theory

摘要： 弹性工作制得到广泛应用的同时,其对员工越轨创新行为的影响尚未明确。本研究基于社会交换理论,对弹性工作制、工作自主性和差错反感文化感知影响员工越轨创新行为的作用机制进行了探索。基于373份有效样本数据的实证分析结果表明:弹性工作制对员工越轨创新行为具有显著正向影响;工作自主性在弹性工作制和员工越轨创新行为之间起部分中介作用;员工的差错反感文化感知不仅负向调节工作自主性与员工越轨创新行为之间的关系,还负向调节弹性工作制通过工作自主性影响员工越轨创新行为这一中介机制。研究结果揭示了弹性工作制影响员工越轨创新行为的作用机制与边界条件,为企业探索有效创新管理提供了理论启示与实践指导。

关键词: 弹性工作制, 越轨创新, 工作自主性, 差错反感文化感知, 社会交换理论