Unlock the potential of regional innovation environment: The promotion of innovative behavior from the career perspective

This study conducts an empirical analysis on the relationship between the regional innovation environment (RIE) and scientific workers’ innovative behavior. Additionally, it examines the role of career satisfaction and the need for achievement in the relationship between RIE and innovative behavior. A questionnaire is used to elicit responses from a sample of 4,007 scientific workers in China. The data are analyzed on the SmartPLS software using a structural equation model. The results show a positive and significant effect of RIE on innovative behavior, while career satisfaction plays a partial mediating role in the relationship. The need for achievement serves as a moderator between career satisfaction and innovative behavior, such that the relationship is stronger for scientific workers with less need for achievement. Additionally, an importance-performance map analysis of RIE is conducted; the results suggest that three of the RIE aspects (industry-university-research cooperation, policy on entrepreneurship, and policy on talents) are in urgent need of improvement. The study aims to understand RIE more fully and shed light on the relationships between RIE, career satisfaction, need for achievement, and scientific workers’ innovative behavior and to obtain valuable information for designing strategies aimed at creating a favorable RIE for stimulating scientific workers’ innovation.