The Role of Mindfulness in Employees Performance; Do Innovative behaviors mediate the link?

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| I N T R O D U C T I O N
Employees are one of the most influential predictors of organization performance, innovation, and competitiveness (Ogbonnaya et al., 2016; Lee & Ha-Brookshire, 2018; Weer & Greenhaus, 2017).However, all the employees do not significantly contribute to organizational performance and success due to lack of innovativeness and lack of creativity (Chowhan, 2016;Kalmuk & Acar, 2015;Wallace et al., 2016;Forés & Camisón, 2016).Some employees are more conscious, more intellectual, more intelligent, and more active while others are introverted, worried, and lack confidence.It is argued that intellectual, creative, and active employees contribute more than lack of confidence and lack of active employees (Wang, Yen & Liu, 2015; Kianto, Garanina & Andreeva, 2017).Several studies have been carried out to unleash the factors that influence employee's commitment towards organizational performance such as creativity (Martinaityte, Sacramento & Aryee, 2019), innovation (Wallace et al., 2016), commitment (Woznyj et al., 2019), knowledge (Abubakar et al., 2019), leadership (Brookshire, 2018), etc.However, despite the bunch of the studies, there are still several shortcomings in the existing literature that have remained fragmented.In particular, it is not yet disclosed articulately how the mindfulness trait of managers facilitates their performance and innovative behaviors.More precisely, studies have not yet disclosed the importance of mindfulness traits in employees' performance with a mediating role of innovative behaviors.
The importance of consciousness and mindfulness has been growing since the last several decades in business and non-business organizations (Wallace et al., 2016).For instance, Reb et al., (2019) argued that the mindfulness trait configures the creativity and innovative skills of managers (Hu, Zhao & Chen, 2019).Wallace et al., (2016) also favored the same notion and revealed that mindfulness is the key to innovation and new product development in business organizations that results in high performance.It gives numerous benefits to employees.
For instance, Rupprecht et al., (2019) scrutinized that mindfulness saves organizational resources and configure managerial skills toward efficiency.Hence, they perform their task in a better way, which gives high performance.
Managers with a lack of mindfulness are unable to perform their tasks inefficient ways (Dayan, Ng & Ndubisi, 2019).Hence, their performance and outputs in the organizations are lacking.Some studies have discussed the benefits of mindfulness in new ideas and creativity.For instance, Brookshire (2018) demonstrated that mindfulness managers seize new opportunities in the market.Similarly, it is also argued that mindfulness managers and employees are concerned about new ways of doing thing that benefits their performance (Roy, 2019).Many employees with consciousness and mindfulness have the seriousness of their work and task, hence they try to do the task in an innovative way (Van Gelderen et al., 2019).Some researchers have claimed that mindfulness does not directly contribute to employee's performance, but it first benefits the internal process and work activities.For instance, Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, Viera-Armas, and García (2019) claimed that mindfulness managers first accomplish their tasks in an efficient way which results in high performance.Similarly, Manuti and Giancaspro (2019) also favored the statement and argued that mindfulness managers focus on newness and alternative sources of doing things that benefit their task performance and outputs in the organizations.Therefore, it is worthy to state the mindfulness trait gives several advantages to the organizations including innovativeness and performance.To summarize, we posit that mindfulness managers and employees have more advantages over lack of mindfulness and lack of conscious managers and employees in the organizations.
Organizational performance and success depend on several factors such as human resources management, resources, technology, innovation, efficient managers, etc.However, despite all these resources, many organizations still fail to perform in the competitive markets due to a deficiency of creative and mindfulness managerial skills and ability.Organizations face big challenges of the low perfuming managers and lack of creative ideas.There is a great need for research to assess what types of employees can create new ideas and innovative things to perform high.Hence, managers with mindfulness traits are the key factors for high performance.For instance, if employees and managers have high mindfulness, they will create and seize new opportunities that will result in high performance.Nevertheless, mindfulness may be the central predictor of high innovative abilities that can result in high performance.However, studies have not debated the mediating role of innovative behaviors between mindfulness and employee performance.
Since the last several decades, several studies have been carried out to discuss the importance of mindfulness in organizational performance, employees' outputs, and success.Some of the studies have focused on the importance of mindfulness in organizations (Mamky, 2019, James, 2018) while others have shown their interest in employees' creativity and task performance (Yahom, 2019).Recently, several studies have given more weight to employees' performance that can be gained through mindfulness (Tipesn, 2019).However, studies are lacking on the importance of mindfulness in innovative behaviors.Moreover, Yang, (2019) argued that it is a good idea to test the importance of mindfulness in innovative behaviors that can benefit employee performance.Similarly, (Hunga, 2019) also claimed that mindfulness can be a significant predictor of innovation and high performance.
Considering the suggestions of the recent studies, we focus on the mediating role of innovative behaviors between mindfulness and employee performance.

1.1| R e s e a r c h Q u e s t i o n s
This research has answered the following questions 1.Does mindfulness trait influence employees' performance in private and public organizations of Pakistan?
2. Does mindfulness influence innovative behaviors of the employees in Pakistani organizations? 3. Do innovative behaviors of the employees influence their performance?4. Do innovative behaviors play a mediating role between mindfulness and employee performance?

| R e s e a r c h O b j e c t i v e s
This research has several objectives as it aims to enhance the performance of employees in public and private organizations of organizations.It aims to introduce a new way of employee performance in both types of organizations.Other objectives are discussed below.1.To examine the influence of mindfulness on employee performance 2. To check the influence of mindfulness on innovative behaviors 3. To assess the innovative behavior role in employee's performance 4. To check the mediating role of innovative behavior between mindfulness and employee performance.

| S i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h e R e s e a r c h
Employees provide numerous benefits to an organization such as high profitability, competitiveness, and reputation.However, not all employees provide equal benefits; some can spur their organizations ahead of others.This is because of the creativity, intellectual and competencies.Out of several competencies and skills, recently mindfulness has been received sufficient attention from researchers and scholars.Because mindfulness gives several advantages to an organization that alternatively contributes to organizational success.The present study benefits managers and responsible authorities to hire mindfulness employees for their production activities and top line.However, lack of mindfulness managers can be placed at the bottom level or should be kept away from the decision-making process.This study also benefits CEOs and executives to focus on mindfulness and selfenhancement to configure innovative activities in their organizations that are necessary for high performance.
Mindfulness does not only facilitate the innovative behaviors of the employees but also spur their performance.
Hence, this study benefits Pakistani as well as other organizations to focus on mindfulness and consciousness traits when hiring or placing employees in different departments.Literature Review

| M i n d f u l n e s s
It is defined as the state of consciousness, in which a person pays responsiveness to contemporary moment and experiences that moment with full devotion (Brown K. W., 2003).
The definition of mindfulness reflects a common understanding of the concept of mindfulness but there is an ambiguity that how mindfulness intersects with workplace settings?Mindfulness is an internal matter which cannot be directly measured and observed so one method is to comprehend mindfulness at work is to compare the theoretical processing that is essential to organizational life (Walsh, 1995) with the experimental dispensation (Brown et. al., 2007;Teasdale 1999) that is the assurance of mindfulness which involves internal (thoughts and emotions) and external stimulus observation.Mindfulness of a person can judge through observation of employee while working, maybe through putting him/her in the situation, through interview and giving them an artistic assignment to analyze that picture.But it is impossible to observe mindfulness directly because it is an internal aspect that none can measure.
The concept of mindfulness was originated from Buddhists, and it was the central aspect of their mental training.It is defined as the state of consciousness, in which a person pays responsiveness to contemporary moment and experiences that moment with full devotion (Brown K. W., 2003).The concept of mindfulness was a central aspect of Buddhist mental training, but it gained the attraction of researchers in the late 1970s.However, even gained much attraction from researchers but there is a dearth of literature on these phenomena.

| R e l a t i o n s h i p o f M i n d f u l n e s s T r a i t a n d E m p l o y e e s ' P e r f o r m a n c e
In the current era, mindfulness gains much attraction from researchers because of its benefits for organizations (Dernbecher & Beck, 2017).Many recent research studies suggested that mindfulness has significantly enhanced employee performance (Coo & Salanova, 2018;Passmore, 2019).
The importance of consciousness and mindfulness has been growing since the last several decades in business and non-business organizations (Wallace et al., 2016).For instance, Andreeva (2017) argued that the mindfulness trait configures the creativity and innovative skills of managers (Ogbonnaya et al., 2016).Wallace et al., (2016) also favored the same notion and revealed that mindfulness is the key to innovation and new product development in business organizations that results in high performance.It gives numerous benefits to employees.
For instance, Andreeva (2017) scrutinized that mindfulness saves organizational resources and configure managerial skills toward efficiency.Hence, they perform their task in a better way, which gives high performance.
Managers with a lack of mindfulness are unable to perform their tasks inefficient ways (Ogbonnaya et al., 2016).
Hence, their performance and outputs in the organizations are lacking.
Mindful employees can be a competitive advantage of an organization because when employees of the firm will be mindful then they focus on achieving their goals and targets which will increase the performance effectiveness and efficiency of the organization (Su, 2017).Mindful employees might be emotionally stable and optimistic and perform well at the workplace (Karim & Rehman, 2019).Mindful individuals may also be less expected to have previous or upcoming concerns with emotional reactions and this emotional stability affects their decision and performance at the workplace (Lawrie, Tuckey & Dollard, 2018).
Mindfulness might improve workplace outcomes from different possible disturbing aspects that can apposite attention (Hunter & McCormick, 2008;Thomas, 2019).Mindfulness enhancing intellectual capacity and flexibility might indorse agility in retorting the external instability and hindrances (Percy, 2016).With improved intellectual capability, the mindful workers will have extended cognitive resources and might be capable to organize them more effectively diverting vicinities (Fasbender,  H2: Mindfulness has a significant positive influence on the innovative behaviors of the employees.

| R e l a t i o n s h i p o f I n n o v a t i v e B e h a v i o r s a n d E m p l o y e e P e r f o r m a n c e
Hughes, Rigtering, Covin, Bouncken, and Kraus (2018) claimed that employees' innovative behavior is significantly directly associated with perceived workplace performance.Many researchers argue that innovative work behavior is considered very crucial for the high performance of employees and the organization.( H3: innovative behaviors of the employees have a significant positive influence on employee performance.

| M e d i a t i n g r o l e o f I n n o v a t i v e B e h a v i o r
It is doubtless that mindfulness displays a prominent role in employees' performance because it effectively and efficiently manages the information that configures employees to perform their tasks articulately (Montani et al., 2019).However, mindfulness does not always show a direct influence on employees' performance, but it first creates and adjusts the work activities, resources, and information in a proper way that results in high performance (Hu, Zhao & Chen, 2019).For instance, King and Haar (2017) claimed that mindfulness leaders scan the external information and environment persistently and proactively enabling them to create new ideas and innovative tactics.As a result, all these ideas and information spur employees' performance in different sectors (Rupprecht et al., 2019).Similarly, Li, Wong, and Kim (2017) also claimed that organizations need a mindfulness management team to enhance their innovative activities that are essential for high performance and success.In contrast, organizations with a lack of creative and mindful managers lose their reputation due to a lack of new ideas and novelty in their operational process (Oeij et al, 2017).Innovativeness is very important for high profitability and performance in the current era.However, it does not come directly but requires intellectuality and mindfulness (Lomas et al., 2017).Therefore, organizations should focus on mindful employees, managers, and workers who can seize new opportunities and bring new ideas that will result in high performance ( H4: Innovative behaviors significantly mediates the relationship between mindfulness and employee performance.

| C o n c e p t u a l M o d e l o f t h e S t u d y 2 | R E S E A R C H M E T H O D O L O G Y 2 . 1 | R e s e a r c h D e s i g n
To substantiate the hypotheses of the study empirical data were collected by following a quantitative research approach.A deductive research method has been used in this study to test the proposed model.This research model is recommended in social science research and management.

. | P o p u l a t i o n
For this study, the target population is public and private organizations working in Pakistan.This study focused on both public and private organizations to get more beneficial information and validity.

2.3|U n i t o f A n a l y s i s
The respondents for this study were employees between the ages of 18 to 50 years who are working in public and private organizations.

2.4|T y p e o f S t u d y
This nature of this research was 'explanatory research (Basharat, 2018)

2.5|S t u d y S e t t i n g
This study was conducted in the field because the participants participate in the study at the place where they work and filled the questionnaires in their natural work environment (Bashart, 2018).

2.6|T i m e H o r i z o n
The time taken to collect quantitative data is two months time period.The sample size of this study is 150 employees for various public and private companies who are temporary or the sample permanent employees of the organizations.However, 300 questionnaires have been distributed among employees but finally, only 151 useable questionnaires were received which are included in the data analysis.The response rate is 50%.

2.7|D a t a c o l l e c t i o n t y p e
The nature of data collection is Primary data .primarydata is the one which is the original raw form of the data, and it has never gone through any statistical procedure or technique.Usually, primary data is collected from interviews, surveys, or personal observations.A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the employees.The questionnaire was divided into two sections.The first section was about demographic factors while the other is related to the study's main factors.

2.8|M e a s u r e m e n t o f v a r i a b l e s
We used three variables in this study, mindfulness as an independent variable, innovative behavior as a mediator, and employees' performance as a dependent variable.

2.9|M i n d f u l n e s s
It is defined as the state of consciousness, in which a person pays responsiveness to contemporary moment and experiences that moment with full devotion (Brown K. W., 2003).Mindfulness play important role in improving employees' outcomes This is the independent variable of our study.Studies have measured this factor with a variety of dimensions (Hu, Zhao & Chen, 2019;Wallace et al., (2016).However, most of the studies have linked the trait with the consciousness and mind of the employees who want to learn about the organizations' ideas (Tipesn, 2019; Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, Viera-Armas, and García (2019; Wallace et al., 2016).We used 14 items to measure mindfulness and adopted from the study of Brown and Ryan (2003).

2.10|I n n o v a t i v e B e h a v i o r
This act represents the innovative ideas, creativity, and new way of doing things by employees.IWB is generally framed in the context of how individuals could facilitate the achievement of initiation and intentional introduction of new and useful ideas, processes, products, or procedures (Farr and Ford, 1990).We used 10-items of De Jong and Den Hartog's (2010) IWB scale.Cronbach alpha for this measure was greater than .70.

2.11|E m p l o y e e s P e r f o r m a n c e
It indicates the outputs and performance of employees in the task and organizational activities.Several measures are used for employee performance.We focused on the most used measures of employee performance that are validated by Liao and Chuang (2004).

2.12|C o n t r o l V a r i a b l e s
It is better to control some demographic factors of the employees to reduce the chances of spurious results.
We controlled the age of the respondents, educational background, experience, and gender while testing the model.The results are shown in the regression analysis

2.13|D e m o g r a p h i c s o f P a r t i c i p a n t s
Table 1 shows the details of employees who participate in this research.Total 151 employees participate in this research.First, the profile of participants (see table 1) represents that out of the total of 151 participants 62.3 percent were male while 37.7 percent were female.Moreover, the age group shows that 17.

. 3 | R e g r e s s i o n A n a l y s i s
The below indicate that the direct effect of mindfulness on employee performance is significant (β =0.27, t=2.99, p<0.05), and the indirect effect of mindfulness on employee performance also remained significant (β =0.049, p<0.05).
This indicates that innovative work behavior partially mediates the relationship between mindfulness and employee performance.Henceforth it's partially favoring the H4.Furthermore, the Sobel test (β =0.049, p<0.5, z=2.24) also shows that innovative work behavior mediates the mindfulness and employee performance nexus.
The coefficient of determination (R square) describes that 44% variance in Employee performance was brought by mindfulness in the presence of innovative work behavior.

| D I S C U S S I O N
The main purpose of the study is to scrutinize the effect of mindfulness on employee performance with a mediating role of innovative work behavior.Firstly, we found that mindfulness has a significant positive influence on employee performance.This favored H1.These outcomes are inconsistent with the prior work of (Coo & Salanova, 2018) who claimed that the mindfulness trait significantly enhanced employee performance.For instance, Karim and Rehman, (2019) also confirmed a positive association between mindfulness and employee performance.Secondly, this study concluded that mindfulness significantly contributes to innovative work Thirdly, this study reveals that innovative work behaviors of employees significantly enhance employee's performance which favored H3.This result is consistent with the outcomes of Hughes, Rigtering, Covin, Bouncken, and Kraus (2018) and Farzaneh and Boyer (2019).They scrutinized that innovative work behavior is a vibrant factor that boosts employees' morale and performance.Lastly, this study discovered that innovative work behavior partially mediates the nexus between mindfulness and employee performance .whichsupported H6 and H7.For instance, King and Haar (2017) claimed that mindfulness leaders scan the external information and environment persistently and proactively enable them to create new ideas and innovative tactics.
Asa result, all these ideas and information spur employees' performance in different sectors (Rupprecht et al., 2019).Similarly, Li, Wong, and Kim (2017) also claimed that organizations need a mindfulness management team to enhance their innovative activities that are essential for high performance and success.In contrast, organizations with a lack of creative and mindful managers lose their reputation due to a lack of new ideas and novelty in their operational process (Oeij et al, 2017).Innovativeness is very important for high profitability and performance in the current era.However, it does not come directly but requires intellectuality and mindfulness (Lomas et al., 2017).Therefore, organizations should focus on mindful employees, managers, and workers who can seize new opportunities and bring new ideas that will result in high performance (Lange, Bormann & Rowold, 2018).

. 1 | I m p l i c a t i o n s f o r P r a c t i c e s
Based on the findings of the research, the following recommendations are suggested for employees, top managers, and HR managers of organizations.
1. We confirmed that mindfulness significantly improves employees' performance in an organization.Hence, it is recommended for responsible managers to encourage employee mindfulness at work to improve their performance.
Burmeister & Wang, 2019).The soldier who is unloading mindfulness training has better attentional firmness than control during rigorous pre-deployment training (Eby, L. T., Allen, T. D., Conley, K. M., Williamson, Henderson & Mancini, 2019).It is obvious that when employees of the firm are attentive and nonjudgmental about anything and are unbiased then there will be effective performance outcomes (Good, Lyddy, Glomb, Bono, Brown, Duffy & Lazar, 2016; Gunasekara & Zheng, 2019).Some researchers recommended that mindfulness training programs can improve the attentiveness of the focus of a person (Berk, Warmenhoven, van Os & van Boxtel, 2018).H1: mindfulness trait has a significant positive influence on employees' performance.1.6| R e l a t i o n s h i p o f M i n d f u l n e s s a n d I n n o v a t i v e B e h a v i o rGood et al., (2016) demonstrated that the mindfulness trait enhances employees' engagement in creative work activities.All those individuals who are in a mindful state can develop an amplified level of creativity(Langer & Ngnoumen, 2017).Some studies have discussed the benefits of mindfulness in new ideas and creativity.For instance, Brookshire (2018) demonstrated that mindfulness managers seize new opportunities in the market.Similarly, it is also argued that mindfulness managers and employees are concerned about new ways of doing thing that benefits their performance(Ogbonnaya et al., 2016).Many employees with consciousness and mindfulness have the seriousness of their work and task, hence they try to do the task in an innovative way(Ogbonnaya et al., 2016).Mindfulness plays a significant role in the innovative work behavior of employees (Montani, Vandenberghe, Khedhaouria & Courcy, 2019).Rieken, Shapiro, Gilmartin, and Sheppard (2017) concluded that the mindfulness trait is significantly associated with innovative self-efficacy and people with a high mindfulness trait are motivated to contribute to learning experiences related to innovation work.Mindfulness helps in initial skills required for effective entrepreneurship such i-e innovation(Capel, 2014).Many researchers argue that mindfulness leads to higher self-efficacy, and it supports the implementation of innovative tasks (Häckel, Lindermeir, Moser & Pfosser, 2017; Wu & Chen, 2019; Small, & Lew, 2019).
Afsar, Badir & Khan, 2015; Yeoh & Mahmood, 2013; Caniëls & Veld, 2019; Shanker, Bhanugopan, Van der Heijden & Farrell, 2017).For instance, Farzaneh and Boyer, (2019) claimed that Employees who have innovative and creative potential are most likely to perform well as compared to those employees who have less innovative capabilities.Similarly, it is argued that innovative work behavior is a significant predictor of employees' performance in micro and medium firms (Eduful & Shahnazarian, 2017).A recent study conducted by Caniëls and Veld (2019) demonstrates that the innovative potential of employees enhances their performance at the workplace.
Lange, Bormann & Rowold, 2018).To summarize, several studies have claimed that mindfulness indirectly influences employees' performance via resources adjustment, opportunities, and new ideas and practices (Coo & Salanova, 2018; Eby et al., 2019; Oeij et al, 2017).Hence, we perceive that mindfulness will have an indirect influence on employees' performance with innovativeness as a mediator.
2 percent of respondents having aged between 18 to 25 years, 20.5 percent respondents fall in the age group of 26 to 35 years, 22.5 percent from the age group of 36 to 45 years, 15.12 percent respondents from age of 46 to 55 years and 24.5 from the age group of above 55 years.Most of the participants had the education of master and only 11.3 percent had the education of 18 years or more.From an employment perspective, those respondents who are working as government employees are 115, while those who are working as private-sector employees are 116 respondents, those who are working in semi-government organizations are 45 respondents participated in this survey.From the experience perspective, 35 participants take part in this research having experience from 1 to 3 years, 17 participants having experience of 4 to 7 years, 27 respondents having experience of 8-10 years, 38 having experience of 11-15 years, and 34 participants having experience of 16 years or above.
behavior and supports H2.These outcomes are in line with previous studies of Montani, Vandenberghe, Khedhaouria & Courcy, (2019) confirmed that mindfulness and innovative work behavior are significantly linked.Furthermore, Häckel, Lindermeir, Moser & Pfosser (2017) Suggested that the mindfulness trait is a powerful tool to stimulate innovative work behavior.

Table 1 . Profile of the Respondents
Below table 2 represents the alpha reliability of different variables.All the variables have Cronbach's alpha in acceptable threshold level (greater than 070).Additionally, the alpha reliability value for employee performance (α= 0.94), innovative behavior (α= 0.92), and mindfulness is (α= 0.88).The below 3 reported the descriptive stat of the main variable of the study along with the Skewness and kurtosis.The mean value and standard deviation values of all the variables such as for employee performance (M=3.58,STD=0.39),mindfulness (3.61, STD=0.40), and for innovative work behavior (M=3.44,STD=0.33).The data is normal Because the Skewness and kurtosis values are in the range of +/-2 as suggested by George (2011).

| C o r r e l a t i o n A n a l y s i s
Pearson correlation coefficient has been used to check the relationship between the variables of the study.The correlation coefficient values (see table4) of the main variables of the study are highly significant and in an acceptable range.The results show that mindfulness and innovative work behavior are significantly related to Note:EP= employee performance,IB =innovative work bevior, MINDFUL=mindfulness, **.Correlation is significant at the 0.01 and *.at 0.05 level.
table 5 and table 6 reported the mediation results.To test the mediating role of Innovative work behavior between Mindfulness and Job performance, the process method of Preacher and Hayes (2014) has

Table 5 : Results for Mediation Role of Innovative Work Behavior.
Note: LLCI = Lower Limit Confidence Interval, ULCI=Upper Limit Confidence Interval