A Study On The Relationships Between Leadership, Knowledge Sharing And Employee Innovation

With the arrival of the era of knowledge economy, enterprises are facing a complex and changeable environment. Therefore, enterprises should spare no effort to innovate to improve their core competitiveness, so that enterprises can obtain stability and development. Employee innovation is the premise of enterprises innovation. Leader as a crucial factor in the organizational environment, its'behavior will inevitably affect employee innovation.This study selects knowledge sharing as a mediator variable and analyses the relationships between leadership, knowledge sharing and employee innovation to find which kind of leadership can promote employee innovation in the Chinese context.Based on the above background, this study first reviewed the relevant theories about leadership, knowledge sharing and employee innovation. Then raised a theoretical model and a series of research hypothesis. And then tested the theoretical model and research hypothesis by empirical analysis. Finally, concluded this study and make recommendations to enterprise management practice.Research methods used in this study are:reviewing and summarizing relevant theories, questionnaire investigation and data analysis. This study analyzes the data by SPSS 17.0. The analysis methods are:descriptive statistics analysis, independent-sample T test, one-way ANOVA analysis and correlation analysis and regression analysis, etc.The main conclusions reached by this study are as follows:(1) Sample survey indicates that the levels of knowledge sharing and employee innovation are high.(2) Employees'background variable (such as age, education and enterprise scale) affects the perception of leadership and employee innovation.(3) There is a significant correlation between leadership and knowledge sharing. There is a negative correlation between task-oriented leadership and knowledge sharing. The correlation between relation-oriented leadership and knowledge sharing is positive. The correlation between change-oriented leadership and knowledge sharing is positive. (4) There is a significant correlation between leadership and employee innovation. There is a negative correlation between task-oriented leadership and employee innovation. The correlation between relation-oriented leadership and employee innovation is positive. The correlation between change-oriented leadership and employee innovation is positive.(5) There is a significant positive correlation between knowledge sharing and employee innovation. Enterprises can promote employee innovation by improving knowledge sharing.(6) Knowledge sharing plays an intermediary role between leadership and employee innovation. The leadership affects employee innovation through knowledge sharing.This study put leadership, knowledge sharing and employee innovation in a unified research framework to explore the relationship between them. Meanwhile, based on the conclusion of this study, this paper put forward some management practice to help the managers promote employee innovation.