Entrepreneurial leadership and employee innovative behavior: Intervening role of creative self-efficacy

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Employee innovative behavior is an important factor to boost organizational innovation in order to gain a competitive advantage in the global business market. Several studies have been conducted across the world to explore the effect of different leadership styles on employee innovative behavior and find out diverse results. OBJECTIVE: Entrepreneurial leadership has been emerged as a new leadership theory from leadership and entrepreneurship literature to meet the dynamic changes in the 21st century. This study aims to investigate the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on employee innovative behavior, with the intervening role of creative self-efficacy, with the lens of social learning theory. METHODS: Data ( n = 265) were collected from the textile sector of Pakistan. Four core statistical techniques, i.e., descriptive statics, confirmatory factor analysis, discriminate validity analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Results have shown the positive direct influence of entrepreneurial leadership on employee innovative behavior and creative self-efficacy. Likewise, entrepreneurial leadership has an indirect positive influence on employee innovative behavior through creative self-efficacy. CONCLUSION: Entrepreneurial leadership is a new leadership theory, which is applicable in any nature and size of the organization. The current study explored the performance mechanism of entrepreneurial leadership on employee innovative behavior with the lens of social learning theory and provides several managerial and theoretical implications.