Abstract
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.
Highlights
In a competitive environment characterized by economic globalization, rapid technological change and shortened product renewal, organizational innovation has been regarded as the crucial facilitator for enterprise to gain competitive advantages and realize the sustainable development
Some researchers have garnered their interest in one kind of relational leadership, inclusive leadership, which differs from transformational leadership, servant leadership, and authentic leadership by its explicit focus on the openness, availability, and accessibility of leaders to meet the needs of employees (Bandura, 1977)
By reviewing previous literature studies, we find that most studies only use one mediating variable to explain the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior
Summary
In a competitive environment characterized by economic globalization, rapid technological change and shortened product renewal, organizational innovation has been regarded as the crucial facilitator for enterprise to gain competitive advantages and realize the sustainable development. This study integrates the social cognition theory and motivation theory to construct a moderated multiple mediation model of inclusive leadership affecting employee innovative behavior, which uses psychological safety and creative selfefficacy as mediating variables and innovation rewards as a moderating variable. Based on Hypotheses 2 and 3, combined with the social cognitive theory, both creative self-efficacy (Can I do it?) and psychological safety (How risky is it?) belong to “can do” cognition, and these two variables can mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. Innovation rewards positively moderate the mediating effects of both psychological safety and of creative self-efficacy on the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. Hypothesis 8: Innovation rewards positively mediate the indirect effects of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior through creative self-efficacy.
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