Sustainable Development of Mastery Goals and Innovative Behavior: Evidence from Chinese Faculty Members

It is well-acknowledged that organizational sustainability largely depends on employees’ innovative behavior, which the same case with higher education institutions. This study aimed to explore characteristics of and relationships between faculty members’ mastery goals behavior under framework achievement goal theory in research context. Results from an anonymous questionnaire survey 621 Chinese members revealed a four-dimensional structure (task-approach goals, task-avoidance learning-approach learning-avoidance goals) five-dimensional (opportunity exploration, generativity, formative investigation, championing, application). The reported high level for moderate respectively. Male scored opportunity application than their female counterparts. Innovative showed significantly positive associations task-approach negative no significant association mastery-avoidance except link championing. These results have implications understanding motivations behaviors effectively stimulating innovativeness sustainable development