Extending the Transformational Leadership-Innovative Work Behavior Relationship: Integrating Climate for Innovation and Dissimilarities in Dyad Relational Demography

This study assessed a multilevel mediation of transformational leadership, climate for innovation, and innovative work behavior (IWB). It employed relational demography variables, which included employee-supervisor sex, age, and tenure dissimilarities, as moderators. Employees and their direct supervisors from 37 organizations (service and manufacturing) were involved in the study. The analysis used 458 dyad samples. The SPSS Macro for assessing multilevel mediation (MLMed) and Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) statistical tools were employed to examine the proposed hypotheses. A positive influence of transformational leadership on IWB was found. Climate for innovation mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and IWB. Age and tenure dissimilarities, along with climate for innovation, had positive joint effects on IWB. Sex dissimilarity and climate for innovation also had a positive, albeit weaker, joint effect on IWB. The study enriches the literature by (1) describing the mediating role of climate for innovation between transformational leadership and IWB and (2) disclosing the moderating roles of demographic dissimilarities between employees and supervisors in the relationship between climate for innovation and IWB. Research limitations and suggestions for future research are also addressed.