Servant leadership and employee innovative behaviour: Unpacking the role of support for innovation and creative self-efficacy in knowledge intensive service context

Abstract

Employee innovative behaviour is widely emphasized as a critical driver of organizational innovation. Drawing on social information processing theory, this research proposes that by exhibiting servant leadership style, organizational managers can stimulate employee innovative behaviour directly and through the mechanism of support for innovation. This study also anticipates that the role of of employees’ creative self-efficacy in strengthening the influence of support for innovation on innovative behaviour. To test the proposed relationships, data is collected from 338 IT professionals working in twelve large-sized IT-based service organizations of Pakistan. The results surfaced from PLS-SEM analysis indicate strong support for direct and positive linkage between servant leadership and innovative behaviour and significant role of support for innovation in mediating this relationship. However, the accentuating role of creative self-effecacy is not supported. This study extends existing knowledge concerning the nexus between servant leadership and innovation by examining the mechanism of support for innivation by which servant leadership can augment employee innovative behaviour. Findings of this research entails vital implications for service organizations striving for superior innovation performance. Furthermore, some contradictory findings of this research call for further empirical investigation for more finegrained managerial implications.