2017 - THE EFFECT OF SCHOLARS' HERO'S JOURNEY ON THEIR RADICAL INNOVATION AND THE UNDERLYING MECHANISM

Session: D05S011 - Self-regulated learning 3
AUTHORS:
Zhong Jianan (Zhejiang University, Department of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences ~ Hangzhou ~ China) , Mengwei Zhang (Zhejiang University, Department of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences; Zhejiang University of Finance & Economics Dongfang College ~ Hangzhou ~ China)
Abstract text:
As the international technology competitions become extremely fiercer, accelerating the enhancement of independent innovation and original innovation capabilities is particularly urgent and important. Extant studies used the variable-oriented methods, which were deemed to have the problems of over-generalizability, not seeing individuals holistically, and neglecting the inhomogeneity between different groups. To improve these weaknesses, this study used personal narratives as a person-oriented research paradigm, emphasized the wholeness and dynamic of the personality, and also used personal narratives to explain the deep source of personal traits and motivations.
Study 1 used biographies of several outstanding scientists as analyzed materials, and used theme analysis to conclude that the scientific research journeys of those scientists were also narrated following the elements of hero's journey.
Study 2 used doctoral dissertations as materials for data analysis. The findings showed that the extent of scholars' hero's journey of each doctoral student shown in their dissertations' acknowledgments, was positively related with several indexes representing the radical innovation level of their research achievements.
Study 3 recruited 318 participants with snowballing techniques, and used scales to measure the variables. The findings proved that scholars' hero's journey positively predicted radical innovation behaviors. Attentional focus and resource orchestration played as two mediating variables. Conflict between family-research narrative archetypes negatively moderated the relationship between scholars' hero's journey and attentional focus. Narrative complexity positively moderated the relationship between scholars' hero's journey and resource orchestration.
This study adopts the person-oriented approach to indicate the characteristics of the high radical innovation scholars, creatively proposes a new narrative archetype as scholars' hero's journey, and also extends the application of the theory of life stories, the goal-setting theory, the work-family resources model, and the concept of resource orchestration.