<b>Empowering Leadership </b><b>a</b><b>nd Innovative Work Behavior: The Mediating Role </b><b>o</b><b>f Adaptive Career </b><b>a</b><b>nd The Moderating Role </b>&lt

Purpose: This study investigates how empowering leadership influences innovative work behavior (IWB), specifically exploring adaptive career as a mediator and trust in the leader as a moderator. The framework is grounded in Social Exchange Theory. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative survey method was applied, with data collected from 319 employees in Pakistan's service sector. Hayes' PROCESS macro (Models 4, 1, and 7) was used to analyze direct, mediating, and moderated mediation effects. Findings: Results show that empowering leadership significantly predicts IWB. Adaptive career partially mediates this relationship. Trust in the leader moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and adaptive career, such that the mediation is stronger when trust is low. Research limitations/implications: The cross-sectional design limits causal inference. Future research should adopt a longitudinal design or a cross-national sample for generalizability. Practical implications: The study provides actionable guidance for managers on promoting innovation by encouraging empowerment and developing adaptive career paths, especially in trust-sensitive settings. Originality/value: This research extends existing leadership literature by integrating adaptive career and trust in the leader into a Social Exchange Theory framework to explain how empowering leadership can effectively enhance IWB.