AI Self-Efficacy and Transformational Leadership on Innovative Work Behavior: The Mediating Role of Work Engagement Among Jakarta Hotel Employees

Background: Amid ongoing technological change, the hospitality sector relies more on the innovative work behavior (IWB) of its employees to stay competitive; nevertheless, how AI self-efficacy, transformational leadership, and work engagement together drive innovation in this field remains scarcely documented. Objective: Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework, this research investigates how AI self-efficacy and transformational leadership influence IWB among staff of four- and five-star hotels in Jakarta, treating work engagement as the mediating variable. Methods: A cross-sectional quantitative survey gathered responses from 180 hotel employees recruited via non-probability snowball sampling. The data were obtained through an online questionnaire and examined with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in AMOS. Results: AI self-efficacy exerted significant positive influences on both IWB and work engagement, whereas transformational leadership shaped work engagement significantly yet showed no significant direct influence on IWB. Work engagement was a significant predictor of IWB and partially carried the AI self-efficacy-IWB link, while it fully carried the transformational leadership-IWB link. Conclusion: The results show that personal and job resources reach employee innovation along distinct routes. AI self-efficacy contributes that is at once direct and indirect by way of work engagement, while transformational leadership operates mainly through engagement. To foster innovative work behavior, hotel management is advised to combine the cultivation of AI capability, the practice of transformational leadership, and initiatives that build employee engagement.