*2.2. Employee Mental Health and Job Performance*

The relationships between mental health and job performance have received increased attention in the organizational literature. We propose that employee mental health is positively correlated with job performance. This view is consistent with the happy–productive worker hypothesis that suggests that mental health is positively related to job performance [24,25]. Specifically, mentally healthy employees with positive affective states can improve cognitive flexibility and find more solutions to problems in work tasks [26]. Thus, employees with good mental health perform better on work tasks than those with poor mental health. Moreover, positive affective states are associated with individuals building good interpersonal relationships [27], which enable them to receive help from their leaders and colleagues at work. Studies also showed that good social relationships are an important source of job-related information and knowledge [28]. Finally, many studies also support this hypothesis. For example, in a meta-analytic study from 111 independent samples obtained from a search of the literature, Ford et al. [13] indicated that psychological health was a moderate-to-strong correlate of work performance. Similarly, Zacher, Jimmieson and Winter [25] showed that employees' mental health had a positive effect on work performance in the sample of 165 employees providing in-home eldercare, as well as one colleague and one family member of each employee. At the same time, several meta-analytical findings indicate that poor mental health such as anxiety, depressive symptoms and job stress has a negative impact on job performance [16]. Hence, we expect:

#### **Hypothesis 1.** *Employee mental health is positively related to job performance.*

### *2.3. Work Engagement, Innovative Behavior and Job Performance*

Work engagement is defined as an active state of work characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption [29,30]. Engaged employees are energetic and passionate about their work and are often fully immersed in their work [31,32]. In this regard, by investing their cognitive, emotional and social resources into their work, employees can enhance their responsibilities and emotional connection to work, and put more effort and more time into work, which is conducive to achieving high work performance [33]. At the same time, employees with high work engagement have a strong work identity and expect to achieve good results such as high performance through work [34]. Indeed, several studies have shown that work engagement is positively related to job performance [35–37].

We further propose that employee innovative behavior has a positive effect on job performance. Innovative behavior is a process of going beyond given paradigms and routines and generating new ideas and implementing them through experimentation [38]. In this process, employees can access a broad range of information to generate creative and new ideas, which facilitate a more detailed understanding of existing problems and alternative solutions through experimentation [39,40]. Moreover, experimentation and trial and error in innovation behavior produce a larger and more elaborate pool of knowledge and involve the recombination or creation of resources [41,42]. This again will facilitate learning and develop capacity [42,43], which in turn improve work performance. Hence, we expect:
