The mediating effect of organizational culture of effectiveness on the relationship between innovative work behavior and transformational leadership

Abstract

In these times of uncertainty in which change is the only constant, sustaining one’s business and succeeding in a competitive market has been challenging. Innovative work behavior has become increasingly critical, and businesses had to find different ways to encourage their employees to engage in such behavior to achieve their goals and reach their objectives despite the drawbacks. This study aims to examine the relationship between transformational leadership, innovative work behavior and organizational culture of effectiveness. The main aim is to investigate the role of organizational culture of effectiveness as a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative work behavior, especially that to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine such mediating effect in the UAE. Furthermore, this research examines the theoretical importance of applying transformational leadership to maximize the employees’ innovation and creativity through shaping organizational culture. A total of 336 questionnaires were collected and analyzed using SPSS. Findings indicate that there’s a positive relationship between transformational leadership and both organizational culture of effectiveness and innovative work behavior. Similarly, there’s a positive effect between organizational culture of effectiveness and innovative work behavior. Moreover, organizational culture of effectiveness mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative work behavior. We conclude a complementary mediation and thus all hypotheses were supported. Finally, this research discusses the limitations, as well as the theoretical and managerial implications, and concludes with recommendations for future research on this topic.