Servant Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior: The Mediating Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

Innovative work behavior is a vital for organizational profitability, competitive advantage, and long-term success. Extant literature calls for a better understanding of the factors which influence individuals’ innovative behavior at work and underlying mechanism for servant leadership to positively influence employee innovation behavior within an organization. Drawing insight from social exchange theory, this paper investigates the effect of servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior as antecedents of innovative work behavior as well as the mediating effect of organizational citizenship behavior in linking servant leadership and innovative work behavior. A sample of 503 full-time workers, mainly from Saudi Arabia, participated in the study. The hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results showed that servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior predict innovative work behavior, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) partially mediated servant leadership’s effect on employees' innovative behavior. The implications of these findings for theoretical development and future research are discussed.