Innovative behaviour of higher education staff: examination of the influences of inclusive leadership, psychological safety and employee autonomy

Leadership is an important antecedent variable of employee innovative behavior. In previous studies, the influence of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior mainly focus on one mediating variable, which may lead to a deviation in parameter estimation due to the omission of other mediating variables. According to the social cognitive theory and motivation theory and from the perspective of cognitive–motivation integration, this study establishes a moderating multi-mediation model to understand the impact of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior. Psychological safety and creative self-efficacy are used as mediating variables, and innovation rewards are used as moderating variables. The data are collected from 418 employees of the manufacturing industry in China. The results show that, at first, inclusive leadership has a positive effect on employee innovative behavior. Secondly, both psychological safety and creative self-efficacy play partial mediating effects between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior, with the effect of the former being significantly smaller than that of the latter. Thirdly, innovation rewards positively moderate the relationships of “psychological safety—employee innovative behavior” and of “creative self-efficacy—employee innovative behavior.” Fourthly, innovation rewards positively moderate the indirect effect of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior through psychological safety and creative self-efficacy. These findings are not only helpful to expand how inclusive leadership influences the innovative behavior of employees but also provides some suggestions for enterprise innovation development.

This study assesses the influence of inclusive leadership on employees’ innovative behavior as well as considers the mediating role of psychological empowerment and psychological safety. A theoretical study provided the conceptual foundation, context and hypotheses, which were subsequently tested through a survey comprising 223 questionnaires, sent to managers and professional specialists, and statistically analyzed using PLS SEM methodology. The research is of particular significance and value due to its unique approach of examining, empirically, the relationship between inclusive leadership, psychological safety, psychological empowerment and employee innovative behavior in the same context. Concurrently, it presents a distinctive approach to the impact of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior, and constructs a complex mediation model to complement this approach. Empirical evidence has been demonstrated to support the position of scholars in this field, illustrating that the manner in which leaders communicate strategic plans and programs to employees exerts a substantial influence on organizational behavior. In addition to this, the study puts forward the proposition that there is a preliminary framework which demonstrates how the collective impact of team-level factors, including factors such as organizational harmony, workplace dignity, workplace inclusion, work engagement, and organizational learning, influences the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. The aforementioned factors may also be integrated into a green HRM strategy that facilitates the creation and exchange of value among key internal stakeholder groups and the organization, resulting in enhanced productivity, job satisfaction, and reduced turnover.

Although employees' silence is a common phenomenon in organizations, the mediating role of relational silence has not been studied in inclusive leadership and innovative behavior. In this study, based on the theory of social exchange, relational silence is used as a mediating variable to explore the internal mechanisms of inclusive leadership on employees' innovative behavior. Data from 263 in-service leaders and employees were collected using convenience sampling and analyzed using Amos and SPSS statistical software package via questionnaires distributed to companies in six cities in the Guangdong province of China. The results showed that inclusive leadership has a significant positive predictive effect on employees' innovative behavior (β = 0.590, p < 0.01), while inclusive leadership is negative and significantly correlated with relational silence (β = -0.469, p < 0.01). More so, relational silence has a significant negative correlation with employees' innovative behavior (β = -0.408, p < 0.01), and relational silence partially mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovation behavior. The mediating role of relational silence between inclusive leadership and employees' innovative behavior is revealed for the first time, theoretically broadening and enriching the connotation of inclusive leadership's influence mechanism on employees' innovative behavior and providing new ideas in practice for constructing inclusive leadership styles, reducing the incidence of relational silence, and evoking employees' innovative behavior.

To secure competitiveness by responding to the rapidly changing environment, innovative behavior of employees, the core agents of organizational innovation and performance creation, became more important than ever. In this study, coaching leadership as an effective leadership strategy and psychological safety as an emotional and psychological factor were noted for facilitating employees' innovative behavior. This study verified the effect of each sub-variable of coaching leadership on employees’ psychological safety and innovative behavior.&#x0D; As a result of this empirical analysis following the survey conducted on 358 employees, it was identified that the direction and relationship of coaching leadership showed a significant effect on the employees’ innovative behavior but development and feedback didn’t have a significant effect. The sub-variables of coaching leadership had positive effects on employees’ psychological safety in the order of relationship, feedback, development, and direction. Psychological safety had a positive effect on innovative behavior. There was a significant mediating effect of psychological safety between direction and relationship of coaching leadership and innovation behavior.&#x0D; This study identified the theoretical model by expanding the simple causal relationship study on the effect on employee’s innovative behavior from the two perspectives of coaching leadership by sub-factors and psychological safety. This study is meaningful, first in that the result highlighted the importance of coaching leadership execution and perceived psychological safety to improve corporate competitiveness. Secondly, this study provides theoretical and practical in-depth implications to enhance effectiveness of coaching leadership by identifying its detailed operating mechanism to facilitate innovative behavior, eventually reinforcing corporate competitiveness to create perfomance, to improve human resource quality, and to conduct innovation strategy. Based on this research findings, the limitations and future research directions were discussed.

PurposeIn the practice of inspiring employees’ innovative behavior (IB), managers often pay attention to the role of policies, capitals, incentive measures, equipment and other factors, while ignoring the role of the relationship between leaders and employees. Based on social exchange theory and conservation of resources theory, this paper is to examine the mediating role of job satisfaction (JS) and organizational commitment (OC) in the relationship between supervisor–subordinate guanxi (SSG) and employee IB, and the moderating role of psychological safety (PS) in the series mediation model between SSG and employee IB.Patients and MethodsCross-sectional data came from 207 employees of Chinese scientific and technological enterprises. The participants completed the SSG scale, JS scale, OC scale, IB scale, and PS scale. SPSS PROCESS macro was used to test the research hypothesis.ResultsSSG was positively associated with employee IB. SSG can not only influence IB through JS or OC (SSG→JS→IB; SSG→OC→IB) but also influence IB through JS and OC (SSG→JS→OC→IB). PS moderated the joint mediating effects between SSG and IB (SSG→JS→OC→IB).ConclusionTo stimulate employees’ IB within an enterprise can pay attention to the relationship between leaders and employees, improve employee JS, and strengthen employee OC. The lower the PS, the stronger the joint mediation effects between SSG and employee IB. Therefore, leaders should also pay attention to employees with high PS to avoid the counterproductive effect of cultivating SSG.

While leadership plays a crucial role in fostering employees' innovative behavior, limited research has explored the specific relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovation. This study aims to address this gap by examining how inclusive leadership influences innovative behavior in the workplace through the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS). A quantitative research approach was employed, utilizing survey data collected from 15 Malaysian companies across various industries. The study's theoretical framework guided the data analysis, ensuring a robust examination of the relationships between inclusive leadership, POS, and employee innovative behavior. The results indicate that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on both employee innovative behavior and perceived organizational support. Additionally, POS is strongly and positively associated with innovative behavior, acting as a mediator that strengthens the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovation. The study underscores the critical role of inclusive leadership in enhancing employees' innovative behavior, particularly through its influence on perceived organizational support. By fostering an inclusive work environment, organizations can create conditions that empower employees to generate and implement innovative ideas. These findings highlight the importance of organizations investing in inclusive leadership development and strengthening perceived organizational support to maximize employee innovation. By doing so, companies can enhance productivity and overall performance. The novelty of this research lies in its focus on the service sector, offering new insights into how inclusive leadership and perceived organizational support contribute to organizational success.

Purpose: This paper seeks to address the moderating effect of leader-member exchange on the link between employee empowerment and innovative work behavior. Design/Methodology: The study draws on the causal-comparative research design, and employs paper-based self-administered questionnaires to gather data from a sample of 470 employees drawn from manufacturing firms in Kenya. This sample is part of a population of 9915 employees and has been narrowed down using Yamane’s formula. The study employs stratified and simple random sampling techniques to constitute the required sample of employees. Findings: The results indicate that employee empowerment and Leader-Member Exchange positively and significantly affect innovative work behavior. The results further reveal that Leader-member exchange significantly moderates the link between employee empowerment and innovative work behavior. Practical Implication: The findings of this study provide an avenue through which managers of manufacturing firms can identify constructs that best explain innovative work behavior, especially during challenging times such as this time of Covid 19 pandemic. The results of this study provides managers with opportunities to come up with techniques, policies and strategies to improve relationship between employees and their supervisors for purposes of improved productivity, employee loyalty and reduced conflicts. Originality/Value: The study makes a novel attempt to show the moderating influence of leader–member exchange in the context of employee empowerment and innovative work behavior in manufacturing firms in Kenya. Moreover, the study underscores the importance of leader-member exchange in employees’ innovative behavior, which is vital knowledge in tough times like the current uncertainty caused by the covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 represents a challenge for digital globalization and the digital transformation of economies. In particular, IT companies are more desperate for innovation than ever before. Inclusive leadership is based on the concept of "fully inclusive and Participation" attracting attention as a leader capable of inducing innovative behavior. And it can adapt to the independent needs of new generation employees. Currently, a large amount of literature studies inclusive leadership and its direct impact on employees' innovative behaviors. However, few studies have explored the internal mechanism of action between inclusive leadership and innovative behavior. This study investigates how inclusive leadership influences employees' innovative behavior through error management climate and self-efficacy. Taking error management climate and self-efficacy as intermediary variables, the author constructs a theoretical, conceptual model of the dual-path mechanism of inclusive leadership on employees' innovative behavior based on multiple mediating variables. The author conducts an online questionnaire survey of on-the-job employees of Chinese Internet technology companies and adopts SPSS21.0 and AMOS 24.0 to carry out an empirical analysis of the questionnaire survey data. The result shows that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on employees' innovative behavior, error management climate, and self-efficacy. Meanwhile, error management climate and self-efficacy also reflect the intermediary effect in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior.

This study focuses on participative leadership as an important factor influencing employees' innovative behavior. In recent years, participative leadership has begun to receive attention as an useful leader behavior that can explain employees’ innovative behavior. Based on social cognitive theory, we hypothesized the mediating effect of psychological empowerment in the relationship between participative leadership and innovative behavior as well as the moderating effect of perceived psychological safety climate in the relationship between psychological empowerment and innovative behavior. Both psychological empowerment and psychological safety are considered to relate to innovative behavior, but their interaction effect have not been adequately discussed and tested. This study tested their interaction effect in innovative behavior. Data were collected using questionnaires from 280 employees to test three hypotheses. Hierarchical regression analyses and SPSS Macro analysis were performed and the results supported all the hypotheses. First, participative leadership positively related to employees' innovative behavior. Second, the relationship between participative leadership and innovative behavior was mediated by psychological empowerment. Third, perceived psychological safety climate positively moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and innovative behavior. The positive moderating effect means that the higher the perceived psychological safety climate is, the greater the impact of psychological empowerment on innovative behavior. Fourth, the conditional indirect effect was supported, indicating that the indirect effect is stronger when psychological safety climate is high than when psychological safety climate is low. The results of this study confirmed the importance and usefulness of participative leadership by showing the motivational effect of participative leadership on employee innovative behavior. In addition, this study confirmed the mediating effect of psychological empowerment and the moderating effect of psychological safety based on social cognitive theory, which provides the theoretical basis for participatory leadership research. Based on the results of this study, academic and practical implications were further discussed and suggestions for future research were presented.

Recently, inclusive leadership is considered as a major leadership concept positively affecting a subordinate’s psychological safety and voice behavior. In this vein, it is suggested that further research on the effect of inclusive leadership is needed to be performed across various industries. In addition, it is pointed that more studies are needed to investigate the contingency factors or boundary conditions to explain relative effects of psychological safety. Based on the social information processing theory, this study examined the influence of inclusive leadership on subordinates’ voice behavior through psychological safety in a bank industry. This study also examined the moderating effects of subordinate’s learning goal orientation and power distance orientation on the relationship between psychological safety and voice behavior. Five hypotheses were developed based on literature review and data were collected using off-line questionnaires from employees working for a large-size bank in Korea. A total of 730 questionnaires were used for the analyses to test hypotheses. The results supported all of five hypotheses developed in this study. First, the result shows that there is a significant and positive relationship between inclusive leadership and a subordinate’s voice behavior. Second, inclusive leadership significantly and positively relates to a subordinate’s psychological safety. Third, a subordinate’s psychological safety partially mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and voice behavior. Forth, a subordinate’s learning goal orientation positively moderates the relationship between psychological safety and voice behavior. Finally, a subordinate’s power distance orientation negatively moderates the relationship between psychological safety and voice behavior. This study shows the importance of inclusive leadership of bank branch manager and its relationships with a subordinate’s psychological safety and voice behavior, and the boundary conditions explaining the relative effect of psychological safety on voice behavior. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed and the directions for future research are proposed.

The study reported in this paper analyzed the influence of leader psychological capital (PsyCap) on employees’ innovative behavior and the roles of psychological safety and growth need strength (GNS) in this process within the context of positive psychology theory and conservation of resources theory. Three stages of questionnaire surveys were administered to 81 enterprise leaders and their 342 direct subordinates in South China to test our theoretical model. The results showed that leader PsyCap had significant and positive effects on employee innovative behavior, psychological safety had a partially mediating effect, and GNS positively moderated the relationship between psychological safety and innovative behavior. The results revealed the mechanism of PsyCap and external boundary conditions of the influence of leader PsyCap on employee innovative behavior. The study expands the research results of leader PsyCap theory and also provides guidance on how enterprises manage employees’ innovative behavior.

PurposeDrawing on social exchange theory (SET) and conservation of resource (COR) theory, the purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between servant leadership and employees' innovative behaviour and explore the neglected mediating role of psychological safety and thriving.Design/methodology/approachFollowing cross-sectional research design, data was collected from 347 employees of large size information technology (IT) companies in Pakistan. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was used for data analysis.FindingsThe results reveal that servant leadership has direct and positive relationship with employees' innovative behaviour. Moreover, psychological safety and thriving partially mediate this relationship.Practical implicationsThis research reinforces the role of servant leadership in organizations striving for a high rate of innovation. Findings of this study suggest managers to practice servant leadership behaviours which enhance employees psychological resources: psychological safety and thriving and prompt them to engage in innovative behaviour.Originality/valueThis research makes novel contribution to the incipient literature by providing first empirical evidence on the simultaneous role of psychological safety and thriving in translating the influence of servant leadership on employees' innovative behaviour.

For female employees with two children, societal stereotypes and organizational barriers frequently hinder career progression and diminish proactive work attitudes, including a reluctance to engage in innovative behaviors. Consequently, it is imperative for organizations to strategically focus on fostering their innovative behavior. This research is grounded in social identity theory and social exchange theory. Using Mplus 8.0, we meticulously analyzed and processed data from 528 questionnaires. Through this approach, this research examined the underlying mechanism connecting inclusive leadership with innovative behavior among female employees who have two children. The findings revealed five pivotal insights: (1) Inclusive leadership was positively associated with the innovative behavior of female employees who have two children. (2) Relational identity mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and the innovative behavior of female employees with two children. (3) Organizational identity also mediated this relationship. (4) Relational identity and organizational identity jointly played a chain mediating role between inclusive leadership and the innovative behavior of female employees with two children. (5) The organizational innovative climate exerted a moderating effect on the relationship between inclusive leadership and the innovative behavior of female employees with two children. The study’s conclusions elucidated the transmission mechanism between inclusive leadership and the innovative behavior of female employees with two children, offering valuable reference for enhancing the efficacy of human resource management within organizations.

How video games saved me during the pandemic: A gamer's guide to psychological safety

PurposeThe study aims to understand the impact of psychological safety on employee creativity leading to innovative behaviour in a hybrid workforce. It further examines the drivers of psychological safety: inclusive leadership and affective climate as well as the interaction of employee creativity and proactive personality on innovative behaviour at remote work.Design/methodology/approachUsing multi-source survey-based data, the study has been conducted in two phases for independent variables (IV) and dependent variables (DV). The first phase has gathered data for IVs from 515 team members and DVs from 105 teams’ leaders from various software development teams in the information technology and information technology enabled services sectors. The study has used component-based partial least square structural equation modelling to test various arguments developed in the paper.FindingsThe results of the study confirm the positive association of affective climate and inclusive leadership to psychological safety, which facilitates employee creativity leading to innovative behaviour. However, the results show there is no interaction of a proactive personality with employee creativity on innovative behaviour. Also, the results have supported the social network theory, which says that the strong ties among employees promote innovative behaviour.Practical implicationsAccording to the study, psychological safety might help strengthen and increase the social ties that bridge structural holes and improve collaboration across business units. This may encourage employee creativity, especially in remote work. Further, it highlights how employee creativity and proactive personality are important independent factors that facilitate innovative behaviour.Originality/valueThe study is a unique attempt to explore the role of psychological safety in enhancing creativity and innovative behaviour in hybrid mode of work setting.