Volume 18, No. 6, 2021
Transformational Leadership And Role Of Internal And External Support In Organizational Innovation
Muhammad Younis Maitlo , Khansa Masood & Warda Gul , Zeeshan Shaukat
Abstract
Leadership is one of the significant factors in innovation. It has been suggested that transformational leadership positively relates to organizational innovation; however, contextual conditions have been hardly examined to study the elevated effect in this relationship. Hence, this study examines the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation and investigates the influence of contextual conditions such as external and internal support. Organizational innovation is defined as creating new products and services that are useful and valuable for an organization. A hypothesis was formed to suggest the positive influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation. Internal support such as innovation-friendly working climate and policies and external support such as financial assistance or technical consultation from external institutes were hypothesized to have a moderating role in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. Small and medium enterprises were used as a sample to conduct this study. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis; data was collected using two questionnaires for employees and leaders. This study showed a significant positive relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. However, the moderating role of internal support was not supported. The moderating role of external support was significant, indicating that external support augments the relationship between transformational support and organizational innovation. The findings of this study contribute as it is conducted on small and medium enterprises whose managers should get external support to increase innovative projects at work. The mediating role of contextual conditions in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation may further be investigated in future studies.
Pages: 5275-5283
Keywords: Transformational Leadership, Internal Support, External Support, and Organizational Innovation