Servant Leadership and Innovative Behaviour: An Empirical Analysis of Ghana’s Manufacturing Sector

Mavis Agyemang Opoku, Suk Bong Choi and Seung-Wan Kang
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Mavis Agyemang Opoku: College of Business, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea
Suk Bong Choi: College of Global Business, Korea University, 2511 Sejong-ro, Sejong City 30019, Korea
Seung-Wan Kang: College of Business, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 22, 1-18

Abstract: In the competitive global market, innovation is vital to a firm’s longevity. To this end, organisations seek new and alternative ways to motivate employee innovation. This study examines the role of servant leadership as an antecedent to innovation. Drawing on the social identity model, this study examines the effect of servant leadership, team-member exchange (TMX) and perceived insider status on employee innovative behaviour. Primary data were collected from six manufacturing companies in Ghana. Using a sample of 213 employees and their immediate supervisors, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the discriminant validity of our measurement model. Hierarchical multiple regression was then used to determine direct and interaction effects, followed by bootstrapping tests to identify mediation and moderated mediation effects. The results showed that servant leadership and TMX are significantly related to perceived insider status. The bootstrapping indirect test and Sobel test demonstrated that perceived insider status mediates the relationship between servant leadership and innovative work behaviour. Moreover, the mediated relationship is only significant when TMX is low. This study empirically validated servant leadership as an antecedent to employee innovative behaviour. The findings demonstrated that perceived insider status is a mediating mechanism in this relationship, with TMX as its boundary condition.

Keywords: servant leadership; social identity theory; perceived insider status; team-member exchange; innovative work behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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