Transformational leadership and innovative work behavior

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of transformational leadership on employee’s innovative work behavior, and the mediating role of motivation to learn, and the moderating role of task complexity and innovation climate on the link between transformational leadership and innovative work behavior. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire, designed as a self-reported survey, was distributed to full-time employees and their respective supervisors working in 35 firms (services and manufacturing sectors) in Pakistan. Data were collected from 338 employee–supervisor dyads. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Findings Results showed that transformational leadership had a positive impact on employees’ innovative work behavior and motivation to learn mediated transformational leadership–innovative work behavior link. The study further showed that task complexity and innovation climate moderated the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. Research limitations/implications Based on the premises of interactionist perspectives on individual innovation, this study integrated multi-level variables to investigate leaders’ influences on followers’ innovative work behavior. This study contributed to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on influence of transformational leadership on employees’ innovative work behavior as well as the impact of both individual and organizational level variables. Practical implications The close connection among transformational leadership, motivation to learn and innovative work behavior suggests that transformational leadership traits among managers are important to enhance employees’ innovative work behavior. Organizations should pay attention to creating a climate that is supportive of innovation and encourage individuals to learn new knowledge and skills, and provide employees with opportunities to use their acquired knowledge and skills. Originality/value This paper contributed to leadership and innovation literatures and provided insights into how the practitioners could use an appropriate leadership style to enhance innovative work behavior among employees. The study adopted a distinct model comprising five variables to investigate innovative work behavior from a multi-level perspective, i.e., motivation to learn and innovative work behavior at the individual level, task complexity at the unit level and innovation climate and leadership at the organizational level. This integrated model of using predictors from multiple levels supported the theoretical assumptions that innovative work behavior resulted from the interaction of individual, group and organizational level factors.

Openness to Experience, Ethical Leadership, and Innovative Work Behavior

“…Our results might be influenced by unequal number of employees being rated by supervisors. However, this practice is in line with existing studies which examined the relationship between supervisor (e.g., leadership) and IWB using sample of employees with different numbers working under different supervisors (Afsar, Badir, & Bin Saeed, ; Gong, Huang, & Farh, ; Janssen, ; Masood & Afsar, ).…”

Transformational leadership and innovative work behavior among nursing staff

“…A 20‐item scale was taken from Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Form 5× to measure transformational leadership, including idealized behaviors, idealized attributes, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Bass & Avolio, , p. 38). We converted these scales into one higher order factor which is consistent with recent empirical (Afsar et al., ) and theoretical developments (Zhang & Bartol, ) of transformational leadership. Exploratory factor analysis using the principal components method and varimax rotation was conducted on the 20 items to determine their factor structure.…”

“…First, our overall contribution is that we have built and tested a conceptual model that uniquely integrates transformational leadership theory with important innovation process theories. Second, transformational leadership influences employee innovative work behavior through psychological empowerment (Afsar et al., ) but, according to Zhang and Bartol (), the extent to which followers actually want to experience psychological empowerment has an impact. Therefore, this study introduced the moderating role of empowerment role identity and found that transformational leadership affects psychological empowerment strongly when nurses view empowerment as part of their role identities.…”

Examining Relationships between Transformational Leadership and Employee Creative Performance: The Moderator Effects of Organizational Culture

“…Positive associations between transformational leadership (TFL) and individual, team, and organizational performance outcomes have been reported (e.g., Wang, In‐Sue, Courtright, & Colbert, ). In fact, transformational leaders increase employee creative performance (CP) by enhancing employee beliefs and motives and supporting employees in achieving higher‐level functioning (Afsar, Badir, & Saeed, ). Rosing, Frese, and Bausch's () meta‐analysis comparing leadership styles found that TFL was the strongest leadership style for increasing CP.…”

“…Burns’ () TFL theory posits that leaders can enhance beliefs and motives in their followers and support them in achieving higher‐level functioning. Thus, as a part of understanding predictors of creativity, a body of research has focused on the effect of TFL on individual (Si & Feng, ), group (Zheng, Khoury, & Grobmeier, ), and organizational (Afsar et al., ; Tienne & Mallette, ) CP. Specifically, research has found a positive association between leaders with a TFL style and CP produced by teams led by these leaders (Eisenbeiss & Boerner, ; Vaccaro, Jansen, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, ).…”