The Impact of Traditional Paternalistic Leadership on Employees' Innovative Behavior in the Digital Era

Drawing on social cognitive theory and social exchange theory, we introduced innovation self-efficacy as a mediating variable and constructed a mediation model moderated by the organizational innovation climate. We explore the role and mechanism of traditional paternalistic leadership on employees' innovative behaviors within the context of China's digital economy at the individual level. Through a survey of 368 questionnaires from enterprises that have implemented digital transformation nationwide, the analysis revealed the following: innovation self-efficacy facilitates and partially mediates the relationship between benevolent and Moral leadership and employees' innovative behaviors, while it negatively affects and fully mediates the relationship between authoritative leadership and employees' innovations. Additionally, organizational innovation climate positively moderates the relationship between benevolent and moral paternalistic leadership and employees' innovation self-efficacy, and negatively moderates the relationship between authoritarian leadership and innovation self-efficacy.