This article provides a theoretical framework that explains how organizational actors—persons, teams, and organizations—can attempt to be innovative under institutional constraints and elaborates the sociocognitive mechanisms via which innovation emerges. Recognizing that innovative work is often relationship-driven, this article develops relationship-focused theory by integrating individualistic approaches (where each organizational actor is assumed to be internally self-sufficient) and relational approaches (where innovative work happens through a process of relating among organizational actors). Propositions suggest that contradiction versus consistency between institutionalized task and socialization structures determine the optimal type of sociocognitive relationship, and that institutionalized climate moderates the association between the type of sociocognitive relationship and the performance of innovative outcomes.

本文提供了一个理论框架，该框架解释了组织参与者（个人，团队和组织）如何在制度约束下尝试进行创新，并阐述了通过其出现的社会认知机制。认识到创新工作通常是由关系驱动的，因此本文通过整合个人主义方法（假设每个组织参与者在内部都是自给自足）和关系方法（其中创新工作是通过组织之间的联系过程发生的）来发展以关系为中心的理论演员）。命题表明，制度化任务与社会化结构之间的矛盾与一致性决定了社会认知关系的最佳类型，