Critical factors for innovative work behaviour in Latin American firms: Test of an exploratory model (original) (raw)

2020, Cogent Business & Management

The aim of this study is to examine how transformational and transactional leaders, boost the employees' innovative work behaviour, directly or through work engagement, organizational climate for innovation and absorptive capacity in Latin American firms. A non-random sample of 1429 employees was used who had been working at least one year in the current company. The sample, composed of workers from different industries, was collected in postgraduate programs of business schools from seven Latin American countries. A multi-group structural equation model was built with the involved variables, which adopted two different conditions: i.e., unconstrained and constrained questionnaire measurement weights. According to the results, leadership by itself is insufficient to promote employees innovative work behaviour. Transformational and transactional leadership exert effect on this behaviour only through absorptive capacity and work engagement respectively. Likewise, absorptive capacity and employee work ABOUT THE AUTHOR This paper belongs to a wider project entitled "Toward the construction of a new model of leadership to promotes Innovative Work Behaviour" which is developed by Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá Colombia and Universität Leipzig in Germany. The paper tests an exploratory model of the leadership influence on innovative work behavior and is the result of a collaborative work with colleagues from recognized schools of business in Latin-America, such as EGADE Business School in Mexico,