Abstract:The sudden outbreak has greatly increased the environmental dynamics and uncertainty faced by organizations and individuals, and has also caused many changes in the behavior of organizations and individuals. However, there is still a lack of research on the intermediary mechanism and boundary conditions of how the dynamic work environment affects employee behavior and outcomes. Based on the theory of uncertainty reduction and self-regulation, and following the research paradigm of "environment-behavior-performance", an intermediary model with task reshaping as an intermediary variable and adjustment focus as an adjustment variable is constructed. Through the two-stage questionnaire survey and the statistical analysis of the 320 valid questionnaires obtained by MPlus, this paper discusses the mechanism of how the dynamic work environment affects the task performance by promoting the staff to carry out task remodeling. The results show that the dynamic work environment can positively affect the task performance of employees, and task reshaping plays a mediating role in the relationship between the two. In addition, facilitative regulatory focus positively moderated the positive relationship between dynamic work environment and task reshaping and the indirect relationship between dynamic work environment and task performance through task reshaping.

Key words:dynamic work environment; task remodeling; task performance; adjustment focus

Abstract: The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has made many organizations been involved in a huge crisis, and both organizations and individuals have to face high levels of uncertainty and complexity. So, how does a dynamic work environment affect employees' task performance? What are the intermediary mechanisms behind it? Is it affected by task crafting and regulatory focus? In a dynamic work environment, what intervention strategies can organizations adopt to activate employees? However, the current discussion on the relationship between environmental uncertainty and performance is mainly at the level of the organizations or management teams. Studies have not fully considered the impact of the dynamic work environment on employee behavior and performance, not explored the mechanism in depth, and cannot effectively explain the impact of the environment on employees. Thus, based on the "environment-behavior-performance" research paradigm, this research focus on the process of the dynamic work environment affecting employee behavior and performance, and introduces regulatory focus to explore the specific mechanism.Dynamics are not only challenges for organizations and managers, but also for employees. With the outbreak of COVID-19, lots of employees have found that their working environment is full of changes, challenges and opportunities.Faced with a dynamic work environment, employees need to take actions to actively respond to the opportunities and challenges in the environment. Therefore, based on the uncertainty reduction theory and the self-regulation theory, this research attempted to explore the impact mechanism of the dynamic work environment on employee behavior and performance. Through conducting a two-stage survey and using MPlus to statistically analyze the 320 valid questionnaires, this paper explored how dynamic work environment affects task performance by promoting task crafting.The results showed that: dynamic work environment can affect employee's task performance positively; task crafting plays a mediating role between dynamic work environment and task performance; promotion regulatory focus can positively regulate both the direct relationship between dynamic work environment and task crafting, and the indirect relationship between dynamic work environment and task performance via task crafting. Employees with a highly promotion regulatory focus are more likely to take the initiative to do task crafting when facing a dynamic work environment, thereby improving their task performance.Organizations and individuals should pay attention to the fact that the dynamic work environment is not absolutely a bad thing. Instead, it may“activate the individual”and prompt the individual to actively make changes to improve task performance. Therefore, organizations should guide employees to objectively analyze and predict the dynamics and complexity of the work environment, make full use of the challenges and opportunities, and proactively "self-upgrade" to achieve high performance.The innovations of this research are mainly reflected in the following aspects: First of all, the discussion of the relationship between dynamic work environment and employee task performance provided a new perspective for exploring the impact of environment on employee behavior and attitude; Secondly, by introducing task crafting, this research further explored the specific process in which the dynamic work environment has an impact on employee task performance;Finally, based on the self-regulatory theory, this research provided new content for studying the behavior of different types of employees in a dynamic work environment. Scholars can further explore the process and boundary conditions of the dynamic work environment's influence on other behaviors, attitudes and results of employees. Meanwhile, multi-source and multi-time measurement methods can be adopted to ensure the reliability and scientificity of the research results.

Key words: dynamic work environment; task crafting; task performance; regulatory focus

Authors: Song Yixiao, Cao Zhoutao, Chen Chunhua, Wu Yulu

Author: School of Business Administration, Guangdong University of Finance and Economics

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Innovation Competitiveness Research Institute

School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology

National Institute of Development, Peking University

The full text has been published in Science and Science and Technology Management, Issue 2, 2021.