The Role of Participatory Leadership and Employee Innovative Behavior on SMEs’ Endurance

Ghadah Alarifi () and Nawal Abdalla Adam
Additional contact information
Ghadah Alarifi: Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business & Administration, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh P.O. Box 84428, Saudi Arabia
Nawal Abdalla Adam: Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business & Administration, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh P.O. Box 84428, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have struggled to survive during the COVID-19 crisis. The factors that contributed to their survival during the period deserve to be investigated. Drawing on social-exchange theory, this study aims to explore the mediating effect of participative leadership on the relationship between employee work innovative behavior (EWIB) and the survival of SMEs after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 390 managers randomly selected from 114 medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the hypothesized relationships between the research variables. The results of the study indicate a significant and positive association between EWIB and participatory leadership. There is a positive and important effect of both participatory leadership and EWIB on the endurance of SMEs. Participatory leadership had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between EWIB and the SMEs’ endurance during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The study sheds light on the importance of the innovative behavior of the workers and the participatory leadership for the survival and continuity of SMEs in times of crisis similar to COVID-19. The study’s findings provide suggestions for SMEs’ managers regarding adopting a participatory leadership style to develop employees’ innovative behavior and ensure the enterprise’s endurance.

Keywords: participatory leadership; employee innovative work behavior; SMEs endurance; COVID-19; SMEs survival (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2740/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/3/2740/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:3:p:2740-:d:1055920

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().