Impact of innovative leadership on employee innovation implementation behavior: an impression management perspective

Purpose The value of creative ideas can only be fully realized through effective implementation. Although it is widely recognized that leadership plays a crucial role in fostering successful innovation, the relationship between innovative leadership and employees' innovation implementation behavior remains unclear. Building on social information processing theory and taking the perspective of impression management, this study aims to investigate how and when innovative leadership influenced employees' innovation implementation behavior, particularly through employees' expected image gains. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 398 employees in China through the Credamo platform. Hierarchical regression analyses and PROCESS macro were used to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings The results indicated that innovative leadership was positively related to employees' innovation implementation behavior, and this relationship was partially mediated by employees' expected image gains. Furthermore, employees' impression-management motivation positively moderated the relationship between innovative leadership and their expected image gains, and a moderated mediation model was supported. Originality/value This study emphasized the importance of employees' image considerations in linking innovative leadership to their innovation implementation behavior. It offers a valuable perspective on the conditions that foster innovation implementation behavior at work.