How Innovative Behavior Affects Lecturers’ Task Performance: A Mediation Perspective

Objectives: Task performance is an essential determinant of organization life, including profit and non-profit organizations. Lecturers' task performance in universities is vital to realizing the goals, which include creating quality graduates and building competitiveness that promises sustainable progress for all involved stakeholders. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate lecturers' task performance by considering other relevant variables. Accordingly, this study examined Indonesian lecturers' task performance based on innovative behavior, job involvement, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The study also attempted to find relevant models of innovative behavior influencing lecturers' task performance, mediated by job involvement and OCB. Methods: Questionnaires with the Likert scale were used to collect data from 230 lecturers selected using accidental sampling. The data were analyzed using descriptive and correlational techniques and structural equation modeling. Results: Innovative behavior, job involvement, and OCB significantly affected the lecturers' task performance. Besides, job involvement and OCB mediating innovative behavior affected the lecturers' task performance. However, the mediating role of job involvement was more prominent than that of OCB. Novelty: A new model of innovative behavior mediated by job involvement and OCB was developed, affecting lecturers’ task performance. It is hoped that the model can trigger interesting discussions and raise new hope for task performance improvement based on innovative behavior mediating job involvement and OCB.


2-1-Innovative Behavior and Task Performance
Several studies indicated that innovative behavior affected task performance [18,30]. Meanwhile, other studies demonstrated that innovative behavior was related to job performance [31][32][33][34]. These studies prove that innovative behavior is essential for task performance. Basically, innovative behavior means thinking out of the box with alternative methods [35]. It refers to recognizing problems and opportunities, finding alternative solutions, inspiring others to innovate, and adopting the latest innovations [36]. Innovative behavior is also a complex action, including idea development, promotion, and realization [37]. It reflects the introduction of new ideas to aid problem-solving [38]. Innovative behavior comprises five indicators: Opportunity explorationexploring sources and seeking, identifying, and gathering information related to opportunities; Generativity -producing ideas and solutions, presenting and categorizing opportunities, and building associations and combinations of ideas and solutions; Informative investigation formulating, experimenting, and evaluating ideas and solutions; Championingmobilization, persuasion, encouragement, negotiation, and risk-taking; and Applicationimplementing, modifying, and organizing new things [39]. If in high conditions, the five indicators of innovative behavior can encourage increased task performance by, for example, changing organizational resources into services that can help organizational effectiveness and efficiency [8].
As an illustration, lecturers with highly informative investigations are characterized by formulating, experimenting, and evaluating ideas and solutions, which can drive them to turn university resources into service excellence. Likewise, lecturers with strong championing manifested in mobilization, persuasion, encouragement, negotiation, and risk-taking, as well as implementing, modifying, and organizing new things, can help achieve university goals effectively and efficiently. Referring to prior research results and illustration above, we proposed the following hypothesis (H).

2-2-Job Involvement and Task Performance
Task performance is also affected by job involvement. Kim et al. [19] and Chandrawaty and Widodo [20] demonstrated the effect of job involvement on task performance. Job involvement is the intensity of one's cognitive, affective, and conative toward work performance. Thus, job involvement involves cognition, affection (emotions), and conation (actual behavior) related to various aspects of work performance. As described by scholars, job involvement refers to one's cognitive preoccupation, engagement, and concerns with work, their positive feelings related to work, and their motivation and effort into work [46]. It reflects mental associations with work, active participation, and the notion that performance is vital for self-esteem [47]. Passion, dedication, absorption in work, and belief in the work potential to meet individuals' essential needs are motivational factors of job involvement [48]. Job involvement is also related to how individuals identify themselves in work [49]. Thus, job involvement reflects attitudes toward work such as sense of attachment, internalization, and participation in the organization [50]. These attitudes can be conditioned by evaluating the suitability level of employees with their work [51,52]. In practice, job involvement is vital for individuals and organizations. Previous studies have convincingly shown that job involvement is related to subjective well-being, life satisfaction, job satisfaction, job enrichment, and family environment [53][54][55][56][57] and can even help increase career commitment [58,59]. In addition, job involvement has been shown to reduce job stress and turnover intention [60]. It also enhances organizational productivity [61].
According to Robbins and Judge [62], job involvement can be measured through three indicators: (1) participating in various types of work, which is shown in attention, concern, and mastery of the field of work; (2) placing work as a priority so that it must be carried out optimally; and (3) doing work as perfectly as possible to increase self-esteem. If in higher conditions, the three indicators can enhance task performance manifested in activities that transform organizational resources into services and help organizational effectiveness and efficiency [8]. For example, lecturers actively involved in their work can transform various university resources into excellent academic services. Likewise, lecturers who place work as a priority that must be carried out optimally help universities carry out teaching and research activities efficiently and effectively. Based on previous studies and the argument above, the following hypothesis was formulated.
H2: Job involvement has a positive direct effect on lecturers' task performance.

2-3-OCB and Task Performance
Several prior research projects have demonstrated that OCB affects task performance [21,22,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73]. It shows the vitality of OCB as an essential antecedent of task performance. It is an employee's discretionary action outside their formal role in the organization to help colleagues do their job, have awareness, and provide the best support for the organization [74]. OCB leads to extra-role actions of organizational members that can increase the intensity of positive socialization among them. As a result, it can help build a better organizational cooperation system even though it is not formally recorded in the administrative system, including the remuneration system. Furthermore, if the number of members with high OCB is relatively large, it can help the organization achieve its goals [75]. OCB is also described as an employee's voluntary action beyond duty that exceeds the work standards, such as carrying out tasks or works of others, helping colleagues, complying with organizational regulations, maintaining the reputation and promoting the organization, and being tolerant of discomfort in the workplace [76,77]. According to Klotz et al. [78], organizational context can determine the pattern of employee citizenship in different organizations. Several previous studies have shown the strength of OCB for individuals (employees) and organizations. Widodo and Gustari [79], for example, proved that OCB was positively correlated with teachers' innovative behavior. Another study indicated that OCB affected employee productivity [80] and organizational agility [81]. Thus, in the context of educational organizations, OCB is very crucial for lecturers and universities.
Conceptually, OCB consists of five indicators. The first indicator is altruism that refers to the act of helping a coworker who is having difficulties at work or personal problems. The second indicator is conscientiousness that is the efforts of employees to exceed organizational standards. Sportsmanship as the third indicator is related to tolerance for unpleasant conditions in the organization. As the fourth indicator, courtesy is an effort to foster social interaction with others to avoid personal problems. Lastly, the fifth indicator is civic virtue, referring to personal responsibility toward the organization [82]. When at a high level, these indicators have the potential to help one improve their task performance. As an illustration, lecturers with strenuous efforts to exceed university standards and a high tolerance for unpleasant conditions in universities have a solid determination to transform university resources into excellent academic services. Furthermore, lecturers with high civic virtue tend to help the university achieve its goals efficiently and effectively. The following hypothesis was formulated based on previous research results mentioned above.
H3: OCB has a positively direct effect on lecturers' task performance.

2-4-Innovative Behavior and Job Involvement
Besides affecting task performance, innovative behavior is also shown to impact job involvement. For instance, the study by Hanif and Bukhari [26] in Telecom Sector in Pakistan demonstrated that innovative behavior had a significant relationship with job involvement. Further, Nawaz [83] claimed that innovative HRM impacted job involvement. These results indicate that innovative behavior is a crucial determinant of job involvement, particularly for university lecturers. For instance, a lecturer with a highly informative investigation reflected in formulating, experimenting, and evaluating ideas and solutions tends to have active participation in various work activities. Accordingly, we formulated the following hypothesis.
H4: Innovative behavior has a positively direct effect on lecturers' job involvement.

2-5-Innovative Behavior and OCB
Innovative behavior also affects OCB, as shown by Logahan et al. [28]. A similar study also revealed that innovationsupportive culture was related to OCB [84]. It can be concluded that innovative behavior is essential for OCB. For example, a lecturer with high championing (mobilization, persuasion, encouragement, negotiation, and risk-taking) and application (implementing, modifying, and organizing new things) processes tends to promote a tendency toward conscientiousness reflected in the effort to exceed an organization's expectations and civic virtue. Thus, we formulated the following hypothesis: H5: Innovative behavior has a positively direct effect on lecturers' OCB.

3-1-Participant
The study population included 230 lecturers from private universities in four provinces (Jakarta, Banten, West Java, and Riau) in Indonesia, selected based on their willingness to voluntarily fill out a questionnaire during the study [85]. The majority of the participants were women (70,435

3-2-Procedure and Materials
The study used a survey method through a questionnaire on a Likert scale to verify the hypotheses [86]. The questionnaire comprises five option answers, from strongly disagree (score= 1) to strongly agree (score= 5). This study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021), which required social distancing. Therefore, a survey was carried out on the Google Forms platform and shared with the lecturers via WhatsApp. The researchers developed the questionnaire themselves based on the theoretical indicators of the experts. The indicators of innovative behavior, including opportunity exploration (OpEx), generativity (Gen), informative investigation (InIn), championing (Cham), and application (Appl) [39], were subcategorized into ten items: job involvement; active participation in work (APW), showing work is the main thing (SWMT) and considers work as important to self-esteem (CWIS) [62], extracted into nine items; OCB: altruism (Altr), conscientiousness (Cons), sportsmanship (Spor), courtesy (Cour), and civic virtue (CiVi) [82], extracted into ten items; and task performance: transform raw materials into goods and services (TRMS), and help organizational effectiveness and efficiency (HOEE) [8], extracted into nine items. All the items presented in Appendix I had an item-total correlation coefficient > 0.361, and all the constructs (variables) had an alpha coefficient > 0.70, respectively indicating the reliability and validity of the scale [86,87]. The flowchart of the research methodology is visualized in Figure 1.

3-3-Data Analysis
The data were analyzed using descriptive and correlational techniques and structural equation modeling, including confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the goodness of fit (GOF), and hypothesis testing. A T-test was used to assess the significance of the direct effect, while the Sobel-test (Z) was used to examine the significance of the indirect effect [88]. SPSS 22 was used for descriptive and correlational analysis, and LisRel 8.80 was applied for hypothesis testing.   The data in Table 2 shows the results of estimating the construct (variable) measurement model carried out using CFA. In general, the factor load value of the construct indicators was greater than 3, showing that it was valid [89]. Also, the construct reliability (CR) value of the variables was greater than 0.70. Likewise, the variance extracted (VE) value was greater than 0.50, indicating good reliability and convergence [86]. GOF index results showed that the eight indices of the eleven measurement criteria were acceptable. The indices included GFI, RMSEA (part of absolute fit measures), NFI, NNFI, CFI, RFI (part of incremental fit measures), normed Chi-square, and PNFI (part of parsimony fit measures). One index, AGFI (part of incremental fit measures), was marginal, and two indices, Chi-square and Sig. probability values (part of absolute fit measures) were poor. Empirically, Chi-square was very sensitive to sample sizes larger than 200 [86], as was the case in the present study on 230 lecturers. This condition creates Chi-square and Sig. probability values not suitable for the criteria (standard). Nevertheless, it can be generally categorized as valid (fit) because the nine tested indices met the required standards. Table 3, show the hypothesis testing results. In sum, all the hypotheses were supported by empirical data, with an indication of t value > t table at = 0.05 and 0.01. In detail, innovative behavior had a positively significant direct effect on job involvement (=0.49, p<0.01), OCB (=0.56, p< 0.01), and task performance (=0.21, p<0.05). This means that innovative behavior is a crucial antecedent for job involvement, OCB, and task performance. Therefore, its existence potentially increases lecturers' job involvement, OCB, and task performance. Innovative behavior had the most significant influence on OCB, followed by job involvement and task performance. However, this finding is quite interesting because innovative behavior had a more significant effect on OCB, informal and volunteerbased behavior, than on task performance, which is more oriented toward formal work behavior. Besides, job involvement and OCB positively directly affected task performance (=0.47, p<0.01; =.18, p< 0.05), indicating that the lecturers' job involvement and OCB could also enhance their task performance. Job involvement had a much stronger influence on task performance than on OCB. The reason is that the work involvement of lecturers is generally related to formal tasks.

Figure 3. T value structural model
As shown in Table 4, the mediation effect analysis results indicated that job involvement and OCB mediated innovative behavior affecting task performance, with =0.23 (p<0.01) for job involvement and =0.11 (p<0.01) for OCB. The indirect effect was more significant in job involvement (=0.23) than in OCB (=0.11). This means that job involvement has a more vital role than OCB in mediating the effect of innovative behavior on task performance. Thus, job involvement needs more consideration than OCB in the relationship between innovative behavior and task performance.

5-Discussion
This study investigated the effect of innovative behavior on lecturers' task performance, directly and indirectly, mediated by job involvement and OCB. Innovative behavior directly affected lecturers' job involvement, OCB, and task performance. It confirms that innovative behavior is essential for lecturers' job involvement, OCB, and task performance. This evidence indicates that lecturers with higher innovative behavior tend to have greater job involvement. Therefore, innovative behavior can enhance job involvement. This finding corroborates prior studies confirming the effect of innovative behavior on job involvement [26,83]. High innovative behavior can stimulate greater job involvement, such as proactively participating in teamwork activities, placing work above self-interest, and making work an instrument to increase self-esteem. For instance, lecturers with highly informative investigations actualized in formulating, experimenting, and evaluating new ideas and solutions tend to proactively participate in various campus activities, especially those related to their primary tasks, especially teaching and research. Besides, innovative behavior also directly affects lecturers' OCB. It addresses that lecturers with strong innovative behavior tend to have powerful OCB. It means that innovative behavior can reliably improve OCB. These results are consistent with those obtained by Logahan et al. [28] and Hwang et al. [84] regarding the significant effect of innovative behavior on OCB. In practice, for example, a lecturer with high championing processes, such as mobilization, persuasion, negotiation, and risk-taking regarding new teaching ideas, as well as implementing, modifying, and organizing them, tends to promote a tendency toward conscientiousness, reflected in the effort to exceed universities' expectations as the responsibility to universities' life and competitiveness. Further, innovative behavior significantly influences lecturers' task performance. It is shown that innovative behavior potentially increases task performance. This evidence is similar to the claim by scholars that innovative behavior impacts task performance [18,[30][31][32][33][34]. In the dynamics of campus activities, the lecturer with higher innovative behavior can enhance their task performance, such as transforming organizational resources into services and aiding organizational efficiency and effectiveness [8]. For instance, a lecturer with a highly informative investigation realizes that while formulating, experimenting, and evaluating ideas and solutions, it is easy to transform various raw materials or resources available on campus into excellent academic services. Likewise, lecturers with strong championing actualized in mobilization, persuasion, encouragement, negotiation, and risk-taking regarding new ideas about research and scientific publication, as well as implementing, modifying, and organizing them, can enhance efficiency and effectiveness in accomplishing universities' goals.
This study also highlights that job involvement directly influences lecturers' task performance. It means that lecturers' task performance can be improved through more massive job involvement. This finding is in line the previous studies that job involvement is related to task performance [19,20]. In reality, job involvement that can be actualized through active participation in work, emphasizing work as an essential virtue to increase self-esteem, is a predisposition that becomes a substantial capital for someone to turn organizational resources into services beneficial to increasing the organization's efficiency in achieving its goals. For example, lecturers actively involved in their work can transform university resources into excellent academic services. Likewise, lecturers who prioritize work to increase their selfesteem can assist university activities effectively and efficiently. OCB also affects lecturers' task performance. It confirms that a strong lecturer's OCB has the potential to help improve their task performance. Thus, OCB is a vital asset for lecturers. These findings confirm previous scientific studies claiming that OCB is positively correlated with task performance [21,22]. In practice, the acts reflected in OCB are essential factors that determine the performance of lecturers' duties. For example, lecturers with high awareness and sportsmanship tend to be more proactive in transforming various potential university resources into excellent academic services for students. In addition, lecturers with a robust civic virtue tend to have a strong commitment and determination to help universities achieve goals more effectively and efficiently.
Finally, this study reveals that innovative behavior influencing lecturers' task performance is mediated by job involvement and OCB. However, the mediating role of job involvement is greater than that of OCB. It means that job involvement more robustly mediates innovative behavior affecting lecturers' task performance. These findings yielded a new empirical model regarding the effects of innovative behavior on task performance mediated by job involvement and OCB. This evidence is different from the previous studies reporting that innovative behavior directly affects job involvement [26,83], OCB [28,84], and task performance [18,[30][31][32][33][34]. The evidence is also different from other studies showing that task performance is directly affected by job involvement [19,20] and OCB [21,22]. The results of other studies do not reach the mediating analysis of the indirect effect of innovative behavior on task performance through job involvement and OCB because some of the variables are different. This finding helps explain the relationship between innovative behavior and task performance, which can be explained in terms of a direct influence mechanism and done through the perspective of mediating the indirect effect of job involvement and OCB. The mediation role is crucial, especially for job involvement, because the indirect effect (mediation) of innovative behavior is stronger than its direct effect on task performance. It has a practical implication that when universities want to take advantage of the innovative behavior of lecturers to improve their task performance, it should be in conjunction with job involvement.
Overall, this study proves the significance of innovative behavior in influencing lecturers' job involvement, OCB, and task performance. Consequently, lecturers' innovative behavior must be developed with the right approach. For example, lecturers independently seek to increase their capacity for innovative behavior by reading the latest innovative behavior literature and, on their own initiative, participating in various scientific forums and training programs relevant to developing innovative behavior. University leaders also need to initiate, motivate, and facilitate lecturers to participate in special training programs organized by universities to improve the capacity of lecturers' innovative behaviors. In this special program, training instructors must be experts in innovative behavior development, and materials selected by them promise a good mastery of innovative behavior knowledge and skills. Besides, methods chosen by training instructors must be suitable for the actual needs of training materials. However, because job involvement plays a vital role in mediating the effect of innovative behavior on task performance, improvements in innovative behavior will be more significant if accompanied by an improvement in job involvement. In short, every innovative behavior development of lecturers needs to be accompanied by an increase in the intensity of their job involvement. In this context, increasing job involvement can be understood as providing space for innovation.

6-Conclusion
Task performance is an essential determinant of organization life, including profit and non-profit organizations. University lecturers' task performance is vital to realizing the goals, which include creating quality graduates and building university competitiveness that promises sustainable progress for all its stakeholders. This research proved that innovative behavior, job involvement, and OCB affected task performance among private university lecturers in Indonesia. Besides, job involvement and OCB mediated innovative behavior affect lecturers' task performance. Accordingly, job involvement and OCB also significantly affected task performance. The evidence developed a new model regarding the innovative behavior affecting lecturers' task performance, mediated by job involvement and OCB. This finding contributes to explaining the relationship between innovative behavior and task performance, which can be explained in terms of a direct influence mechanism done through the perspective of mediating the indirect effect of job involvement and OCB. The mediation role is crucial, especially for job involvement, and thus more attention needs to be paid to its existence. This finding also provides practical implications for universities in improving lecturers' task performance based on innovative behavior through job involvement mediation mechanisms. For instance, when universities want to take advantage of the innovative behavior of lecturers to improve their task performance, it should be done in conjunction with job involvement. Theoretically, the findings can be discussed, adopted, adapted, or further developed.

6-1-Limitation and Future Research
Although it was carried out following scientific procedures, the study still has some limitations. For example, other variables that could interfere with the correlation between innovative behavior with job involvement, OCB, and task performance, such as personality, intelligence, and locus of control, were not controlled. Therefore, further research can use these variables as determinants of innovative behavior or moderators of innovative behavior that affect job involvement, OCB, and task performance. Besides, the study did not involve and synthesize all theoretical indicators/dimensions in various literature. Future research can take advantage of this limitation as an added-value benefit. Finally, qualitatively, the study did not reveal facts hidden behind the causal relationship of innovative behavior with task performance mediated by job involvement and OCB. Other future researchers can anticipate this limitation with mixed quantitative and qualitative data.

7-2-Data Availability Statement
The data presented in this research are available on request from the corresponding author.

7-3-Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

7-4-Informed Consent Statement
This research participant consented to the use of their anonymous data. They were over 25 years old and voluntarily participated in this research without receiving financial compensation.

7-5-Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this manuscript. In addition, the ethical issues, including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, and redundancies have been completely observed by the authors.