Psychological ownership and ambidexterity influence the innovative work behavior and job performance of SME employees: a mediating role of job embeddedness

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are important in a nation’s economic development and growth. Many SMEs cannot achieve their objectives without instilling a psychological sense of ownership in their team. This study examines the impact of job-based psychological ownership and employee ambidexterity on innovative work behavior and job performance among SME employees. The 279 respondents from Chinese SMEs were sampled using a purposive strategy to obtain data. The proposed research model is evaluated utilizing techniques of structural equation modeling. The study’s findings indicate that job-based psychological ownership has significant effects on the job embeddedness of SME employees but no significant predictive influence on job performance. Additionally, employee ambidexterity increases the development of SME employees’ job embeddedness but has little effect on job performance. Therefore, it may be inferred that the direct impact of job-based psychological ownership and employee ambidexterity on job performance is negligible; however, there is an indirect impact via job embeddedness. The findings also suggest that managers must develop policies and action plans to teach employees job embeddedness to improve their innovative work behavior and job performance.