Abstract
Innovation plays a critical role in the sustainable development of the construction industry. This research aims at examining transformational leadership’s role in shaping employees’ innovative behavior by analyzing the mediating effect of innovation climate and the cross-level moderating effect of innovativeness as a project requirement. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 300 construction industry professionals in China and 251 valid replies were received. Data collected by the questionnaire were analyzed using the method of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). The results showed that transformational leaders could nurture a mutual climate for innovation to motivate employees’ innovative behaviors. In addition, innovativeness as a project requirement at the project level strengthens the indirect link amongst transformational leadership and innovative behavior via the innovation climate. Therefore, in the presence of higher innovativeness as a project requirement, transformational leadership is more prone to exert a positive influence upon an individual’s innovative behavior via the perceived innovation climate. The research findings improve understanding of the roles of leadership and innovation climate in affecting individual behavioral outcomes, and could help project managers and leaders encourage innovative ideas within project organizations.
Highlights
Innovation has been viewed as one of the key factors contributing to the competitiveness of construction enterprises [1]
The results suggest that transformational leadership and innovativeness as a project requirement at the project level interact to affect individuals’ innovative behaviors, thereby yielding support for Hypothesis 3
Drawing upon leadership contingency theory, social cognitive theory, and construction innovation literature, this research tested the role of transformational leadership in impacting upon innovative behavior amongst the team members of construction projects, as well as examined the mediating effects of the members’ perception of the innovation climate in project-based organization and the cross-level moderating effects of innovativeness as a project requirement
Summary
Innovation has been viewed as one of the key factors contributing to the competitiveness of construction enterprises [1]. Innovation is crucial to the successful implementation of construction projects [6]. The construction industry is considered a non-innovative and conservative industry [7], because there are many barriers to innovation in construction [8]. To address these problems, previous studies regarding construction innovation primarily focused on the organizational impacts at the organizational level [9,10] and the process model at the project level [4,8] while rarely explored or focused on innovation at the individual level
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