Creativity research on the personality approach has focused on the relationship between individual attributes and innovative behavior. However, few studies have empirically examined the effects of positive psychological traits on innovative behavior in an organizational setting. This study examines the relationships among creative self-efficacy, optimism, and innovative behavior as well as the moderating effect of optimism. Longitudinal data across two periods were collected from 120 spa employees of a diet and beauty salon company in Taiwan. After controlling for the effects of job tenure and the Big Five personality traits, this study found that employees with a high level of creative self-efficacy demonstrate a high level of innovative behavior at work, and optimism does not have a direct effect on employees' innovative behavior, but it does play a moderating role. When employees' creative self-efficacy is high, those with greater optimism exhibit greater innovative behavior at work. Toward the end, this paper offers suggestions for future research and discusses the practical implications of this study.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore flow as an underlying mechanism linking psychological ownership (PO) and subjective happiness and identify how flow affects employees’ subjective happiness. Design/methodology/approach Two separate samples were used. Sample 1 examined the responses of 120 female spa workers. Sample 2 examined the responses of 334 male logistics technicians. Data were collected through paper-based questionnaires across two time points. Findings PO was positively related to employees’ subjective happiness across both samples. Furthermore, PO has distinct impacts on employees’ subjective happiness through two distinct measures of flow: immersion and mastery. The authors found that immersion fully mediates the relationship between PO and employee subjective happiness in Sample 1, and mastery in Sample 2. Originality/value This is one of the first empirical studies to examine whether and how PO increases employees’ subjective happiness. The results contribute to the literature by providing a theoretical rationale for and an empirical analysis of a model wherein flow mediates the linkage between employees’ feelings of PO and their subjective happiness.

PurposeThe primary purpose of this paper is to verify the importance of psychological ownership in the organisational context of a franchise by testing predicted relationships concerning feelings of ownership towards branding, legal ownership of complementary assets, organisational commitment, and a willingness on the part of franchisees to diffuse a franchise brand to peers.Design/methodology/approachEvidence is presented from an empirical study on the largest taxi franchise fleet in Taiwan. Two formal questionnaires/surveys were conducted in May 2005 and September 2005, from which data were collected from 147 franchisees. Regression analysis is employed to test seven hypotheses.FindingsThe empirical results demonstrate that analysing the psychological ownership of a franchise brand from two dimensions (i.e. the degree of psychological ownership and the self‐centred propensity towards psychological ownership) sees an increase in explained variance in organisational commitment and brand diffusion in the context of the franchise organisation. It also illustrates that both dimensions of psychological ownership are negatively affected by the ownership of the non‐brand‐specified complementary assets owned by a franchisee.Research limitations/implicationsThe majority of previous research has investigated the phenomenon of franchising from the perspective of the agency theory or of resource scarcity; and has focused on the franchisor's concerns. A major implication of this study indicates that these perspectives, while essential, are insufficient in explaining the growth through franchising strategies. Researchers need to consider how to integrate asset ownership (or property rights) and affect elements in order to influence a franchisee's cognition and behaviour entrepreneurially. A limitation of this study is that it is conducted within the respective boundaries of cultural, professional, and industrial factors.Practical implicationsThis study indicates that entrepreneurs can achieve better brand diffusion effects for franchise growth if they engage in merging the structures of asset ownership and psychological ownership.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to examine the psychological ownership of branding within the setting of a franchise organisation and highlights the importance of a sense of ownership in entrepreneurship.

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