Influence of Transformational Leadership on Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior in Sustainable Organizations: Test of Mediation and Moderation Processes

TLDR

The study investigates how transformational leadership enhances employees’ innovative work behavior via trust, empowerment, and work engagement in Chinese multinational organizations. Data from 281 Chinese multinational employees were analyzed using SPSS macro PROCESS to test the hypothesized relationships. Results showed that transformational leadership positively influenced innovative work behavior through trust and work engagement, with a serial mediation chain, and that empowerment strengthened the leadership–innovation link.

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to examine how transformational leaders boost their followers’ innovative work behavior through trust in a leader, empowerment, and work engagement. Data were collected from 281 multinational organization employees in China. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) macro process was utilized to test the proposed hypothesis. The findings revealed that transformational leadership and work engagement were significantly related to innovative work behavior. The findings also demonstrated the significant impact of transformational leadership on trust in a leader, and its subsequent positive impact on the work engagement of the employees. Furthermore, the results supported a significant serial mediation between transformational leadership, trust, work engagement, and employees’ innovative behavior. The results also showed a significant moderating effect of empowerment on transformational leadership and innovative work behavior. For boosting employees’ innovative work behavior, leaders in the organization should strive to engage them effectively in their work by gaining their trust, which could help them participate in creative activities. This is the key study to investigate the different perspectives of how transformational leadership can stimulate followers’ innovative behavior through trust in the leader and work engagement within the Chinese organizational context.