Supervisor Leadership and Subordinates’ Innovative Work Behaviors: Creating a Relational Context for Organizational Sustainability

Abstract

Under turbulent environmental changes during the pandemic, organizational sustainability requires employees of all levels to perform innovative work behaviors in their daily jobs. Since virtual work environments could deteriorate the quality of collaborative interactions and interpersonal bonds among employees, organizations need to create more relation-focused contexts to trigger innovative behaviors from people. This study aims to explore the influence of supervisors’ relational leadership on the contexts in which subordinates are drawn to innovative work behaviors. Particularly, this study explains the process of this relationship by considering the psychological contract construct as the mediating variable, assuming that the social exchange between employees and the organization influences their decision to perform innovative behaviors. A total of 237 newcomers from a Korean conglomerate participated in the study, and surveys were conducted at two time points for the same participant to detect changes over time. The results showed that the perception of supervisors’ relational leadership was positively related to employees’ performance in innovative work behaviors over time. This relationship was partially mediated by an individual’s perception of employee promises, implying that a sense of obligation towards the organization could be an essential condition for innovative work behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.