When Does Workload Undermine Innovative Behavior? The Joint Moderating Roles of Empowering Leadership and Perceived Organizational Support

ABSTRACT Drawing on the job demands–resources (JD–R) model, this study examines how workload relates to innovative behavior through emotional exhaustion. Prior research offers competing predictions regarding the consequences of workload, particularly from the JD–R model and the challenge–hindrance stressor perspective. Against this backdrop, we propose that workload is negatively related to innovative behavior through its positive association with emotional exhaustion. We further examine how two key job resources—empowering leadership and perceived organizational support (POS)—jointly shape this process. Using three‐wave, multisource data from 349 employees nested within 30 supervisors in a large Chinese firm, we find that workload is negatively associated with innovative behavior and that this relationship is partly explained by a significant negative indirect effect through emotional exhaustion. Moreover, empowering leadership attenuates the positive relationship between workload and emotional exhaustion, and this buffering effect is stronger when POS is high, as indicated by a significant three‐way interaction. These findings contribute to the JD–R literature by providing evidence consistent with the health‐impairment pathway and demonstrating how empowering leadership and POS jointly moderate the relationship between workload and emotional exhaustion.