Influencing Mechanism Of Transformational Leadership On Employee’s Innovative Behavior

With the economic and social development, the uncertainty of the organizational environment is gradually increasing in the21st century. Innovation has become a critical factor which determined the organization’s survival and development. Organizations obtained competitive advantage through the accumulation and development of knowledge and resources. Knowledge innovation has become a booster during the development of organization and economy in the knowledge economy era. The18th National Congress of the CPC indicates that we must continue to promote theoretical, institutional, cultural, technological innovation. Innovation is the power of Chinese enterprise development. Amabile (1988), Shalley (1995) consider that organizational innovation is fundamental to organizational development, and employee’s innovation (employee’s innovative behavior) is the cornerstone of organizational innovation. So how to promote innovation at the individual level has become the focus of academia and organization.In recent years, the research of innovation is transformed from group level to individual level. Most papers are around the impact of individual factors and environmental factors on employee’s innovative behavior. In this paper, we proposed a relational model of transformational leadership, psychological empowerment and employee’s innovative behavior in the Chinese context based on the transformational leadership theory(Bass&Avolio.1996), cognitive evaluation theory (Deci.1975), Creativity component model(Amabile,1997) and Psychological empowerment theory(Conger&Kanungo,1988;Spreitzer,1995).In this study, we read a lot of relevant literatures from domestic and abroad, and use the technique of combining qualitative and quantitative analysis-combining theoretical and positive analysis. First, we analyze the content, nature and characteristics of transformational leadership, psychological empowerment and employee’s innovative behavior based on data collection and literature review. Then the hypothesis that transformational leadership influence employee’s innovative behavior through psychological empowerment and select three mature scales for data collection. Third, we use the descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s Alpha, CITC and exploratory factor analysis are to modify the scales and to improve their validity and reliability. Finally, we use AN OVA, correlation analysis and regression analysis to verify our hypothesis. According to the theoretical and empirical analysis, we propose management recommendations, research limitations and research prospects. And the following conclusions are drawn as follows:First, the older employees or the senior managers have a higher level of psychological empowerment than others. R&D employees have a higher level of psychological empowerment than others. The younger employees or the ordinary employee showed less innovative behavior. And R&D employees showed more innovative behavior. The main reason is that different employee has different job content, knowledge, skills and experience.Second, the results show that transformational leadership is positively related to the psychological empowerment and employee’s innovative behavior. Psychological empowerment is positively related to the employee’s innovative behavior. And the relationship between shared transformational leadership and employee’s innovative behavior is partially mediated by psychological empowerment.