Antecedents of individual innovative behavior: Examining transformational leadership, creative climate, role ambiguity, risk propensity, and psychological empowerment

Innovation is important to all organizational leaders that want to thrive in the business world. In order to increase innovation, leaders need to look no further than their own employees. Individuals create innovation, so fostering employees' individual innovative behaviors is prudent for organizations looking to increase innovation outcomes. In order to uncover ways to foster individual innovative behavior, this study examined pragmatic predictors within a holistic model that included organization-level, leader-level, and individual-level factors. Transformational leadership (a leader-level factor) was hypothesized to have a positive relationship with individual innovative behavior, such that the more individuals perceive higher levels of transformational leadership, the more individual innovative behavior they would exhibit. Creative climate (an organization-level factor), role ambiguity (a leader-level factor), and risk propensity (an individual-level factor) were hypothesized to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and individual innovative behavior, such that the positive relationship would be strengthened under conditions of high creative climate and risk propensity and weakened under conditions of high role ambiguity. Lastly, psychological empowerment (an individual-level factor) was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and individual innovative behavior.;Data were collected from 275 employees in a Fortune 100 company in the United States. Participation was voluntary and participants were recruited via email from the business leaders of three different business units within the company. The email included a survey link and encouragement to invite other coworkers to take the survey, which led to a convenience sampling of four different groups: Operations, Technology, Human Resources, and Other. Results of multiple regression indicated that transformational leadership had a positive relationship with individual innovative behavior; role ambiguity moderated this relationship, while psychological empowerment mediated this relationship. Implications of the results are discussed, such as the role leadership plays in innovation and ways that leaders can demonstrate, foster, and encourage innovative behavior while also reducing role ambiguity among employees. The importance of increasing psychological empowerment in order for employees to feel competent and capable enough to engage in innovative behavior is also highlighted. Finally, the strengths and limitations of the study, as well as recommendations for future research, are presented.