Balancing act: Exploring the interplay of production pressure and innovation/flexibility climates on employee well-being

Abstract

This study explored the separate and joint effects of innovation/flexibility and pressure to produce climates on employee exhaustion, and ultimately, turnover intentions. Survey data collected from 335 full-time employees across various sectors in Türkiye were analysed using a latent moderated structural equations approach. The findings revealed that, while innovation climates were inversely related to exhaustion and turnover intentions, production pressure climate had the opposite effect, which provided support for the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. Importantly, the study uncovered a significant interactive effect, indicating that the positive impact of production pressure on exhaustion was amplified under increased innovation demands. This finding provided support for the conservation of resources (COR) theory, suggesting that heavy and conflicting job demands depleted employees' psychological resources by impeding the deployment of defensive strategies. The findings contribute to innovation research by revealing that individual-level competing demands of balancing exploration and exploitation through contextual ambidexterity may pose challenges to employees' psychological well-being.