Transformational Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior - Case Study

In today’s highly competitive and technologically advanced world, innovation plays a critical role (Smith and Tushman, 2005). Innovation by employees is one of the best ways to foster innovation and organizational success (Mytelka and Smith, 2002; Van de Ven, 1986). To motivate employees to innovate in intense knowledge-based work contexts, the role of managers as leaders has received attention of researchers and practitioners. Thus researchers have found increasing interest in discovering ways to persuade employees at individual levels to display creative behaviors through transformational leadership (Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006; Podsakoff et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2005).

However, how transformational leaders affect innovative work behaviors (IWBs) of employees has not been adequately researched (Gong et al., 2009; Jung et al., 2003). While researchers have studied the relation between individual perceptions of transformational leadership and employees’ creativity, which is first stage of innovation (Hyypia¨ and Parjanen, 2013; Malloch, 2014), minimal attention has been given to the effect of transformational leadership on employees’ IWB. A review of leadership-innovation literature reveals two issues. First, the lack of systematic attention to the impact of transformational leadership on employee’s IWB is especially surprising given that ideas are useless unless used (Levitt, 1963) and that employee’s innovation, particularly in knowledge-intensive contexts, is widely recognized as being critical to the growth and competitiveness of organizations,

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm Received 18 May 2014 Revised 3 August 2014 Accepted 8 August 2014 Industrial Management & Data Systems Vol. 114 No. 8, 2014 pp. 1270-1300 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0263-5577 DOI 10.1108/IMDS-05-2014-0152 1270 IMDS 114,8 Downloaded by Universiti Utara Malaysia At 04:10 22 September 2018 (PT) (Fiol, 1996; Shipton et al., 2006). An individual’s perception of supervisors’ transformational leadership is closely related to his/her desired outcomes (e.g. Braun et al., 2013; Chun et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2011). Second, it is very critical to understand follower’s psychological processes which translate leader behavior into follower action (Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). This study will help to understand the role of follower psychological empowerment and self-concept and identity on the relationship between transformational leadership and IWB. Employees’ IWB refers to the development and initiation of novel and useful ideas and implementing these ideas into new and improved products, services or ways of doing things (Baer, 2012; Kanter, 1988; van de Ven, 1986).

This is in line with previous research, which differentiated between idea generation phase and idea implementation phase and combined these two phases in one construct named innovation behavior (Baer, 2012; Baer and Frese, 2003; Scott and Bruce, 1998; Somech and Drach-Zahavy, 2013). Clearly, there is a need to understand the mechanisms and processes through which transformational leaders influence creativity enhancement behavior of their subordinates (Bass, 1999). Some researchers believe that prior research has not investigated the impact of the influential processes of employee’s psychological mechanisms and self-concepts on transformational leadership-creativity linkage (Shalley et al., 2004; Shin and Zhou, 2003). One particularly promising psychological mechanism which may mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity is psychological empowerment – an employee’s cognitive state characterized by increased intrinsic task motivation, perceptions of competence and self-determination to initiate and implement work behaviors (Deci et al., 1989). Psychological empowerment is an individual’s perception of autonomy and power that he/she can instigate novel and innovative positive changes (Ramamoorthy et al., 2005).

Methodology

The possible mediation effect of PE in the relationship between transformational leadership and IWB is based on the importance of PE in predicting employee creativity (Zhang and Bartol, 2010). PE increases creative process engagement and intrinsic motivation (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990; Zhang and Bartol, 2010). Since creativity is an essential element of IWB, therefore we propose that PE is likely to impact TL-IWB linkage. Bass (1999) emphasized that since transformational leaders inspire and motivate employees to display positive work behaviors, psychological empowerment which is a motivational construct mediates the effects of transformational leadership on employee’s work outcomes. Hennessey and Amabile (2010) further confirmed that employee’s intrinsic motivational state created through psychological empowerment by managers is pivotal for creative tasks and IWB.

Many researchers used psychological empowerment as a mediator to determine the impact of transformational leadership on various employee attitudes such as organizational commitment (Avolio et al., 2004), job satisfaction (Barroso Castro et al., 2008; Seibert et al., 2011), workplace aggression (Hepworth and Towler, 2004) and motivation (Epitropaki and Martin, 2005; Maynard et al., 2012). However, there is a paucity of research on the analysis of mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and work outcome with respect to IWB. This research examines the effect of empowerment on IWB through transformational leadership.

This assignment requires you to read and annotate one academic journal publications  of quantitative article. This annotation contributes 10% and the deadline of submission through blackboard.Your article annotation should have four sections as described below:

-Title of the Article

-Name of the Author(s)

-Source of the Article

-Journal Name

Publication Details – Year, Volume, Issue, and page nos.

a. Purpose of Research – summarize aim of the study and specific research objectives

b. Nature of Research – is the study exploratory, descriptive, causal?

c. Model – describe the model proposed in the study

d. Conclusion – summarize the major findings of the study.

1. Research Method – describe in detail the research method used in this study.If the author(s) does not discuss the research method in detail, or the explanation is not clear from the article, please refer to external sources.

-Identify the prime mode of data collection.

-Describe the process of data collection.

-Discuss the measuring instrument.

-Sampling Technique

-Identify the target population.

-Describe the sampling technique.

-Assess how well the sample represents the population.

4. Evaluating Qualitative Research – Trustworthiness. Describe the efforts made by the researcher(s) to relate to Credibility (parallels internal validity); Dependability (parallels external validity); Transferability (parallels reliability); Confirmability (parallels objectivity).

-Describe the tools used for analyzing the data.

Use this space to note your overall evaluation of the article. In your opinion, how good this article was compared to other articles, either in the discipline/area, or in the same journal.