Understanding the Drivers of Innovative Work Behavior: A Systematic Review of Transformational Leadership, OCB, Knowledge Sharing, and Organizational Commitment

Background: Organizations increasingly rely on employees to initiate and implement new ideas when responding to competitive and environmental change. Yet recent evidence on the antecedents of innovative work behavior (IWB) is dispersed across transformational leadership, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), knowledge sharing, and organizational commitment. Objective: This review integrates empirical studies published from 2019 to 2024 that connect these four organizational factors with IWB, maps the dimensions and explicitly reported theoretical foundations used in that research, and compares the reported patterns across industries and national settings. Methods: A PRISMA-guided systematic literature review was undertaken using Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). Empirical journal articles published between 2019 and 2024 were screened against predefined eligibility criteria; 43 studies were retained and synthesized narratively, with additional frequency-based mapping of constructs and contexts. Results: Across the included evidence, transformational leadership, knowledge sharing, and organizational commitment were repeatedly linked with higher IWB. Direct evidence connecting OCB with IWB was less extensive and more sensitive to context. The studies also differed in how constructs were operationalized, did not consistently identify a named theoretical framework, and displayed different relationship patterns across sectoral and national contexts. Conclusion: The literature most consistently positions transformational leadership, knowledge sharing, and organizational commitment as correlates of IWB, whereas the OCB-IWB pathway remains less firmly established. Future studies should test these constructs within integrated models, state their theoretical basis explicitly, and extend comparative evidence to a wider range of industries and countries.