Innovate Playfully: Leading the Employees to Pursue Innovative Work Behavior through Playful Work Design

The purpose of the study is to unravel the mediating role of playful work design linking servant leadership and innovative work behavior. Additionally, the study explored the role of servant leadership in affecting employee work initiative in the form of playful work design. The study collected data from 300 employees working in the service sector of Pakistan. An interviewee administered survey was used to collect the data from the respondents. Data analysis was done through structural equation modeling (SEM) using PLS-Smart. Additionally, SPSS was used for descriptive statistics and hierarchal regression. The study found that servant leadership affects employee proclivity to indulge in playful work design. Additionally, the study found that playful work design mediates the relationship between servant leadership and IWB. The study contributes to the existing literature by confirming the mediating role of playful work design in the relationship between servant leadership and IWB.