The Role of Servant Leadership in Enhancing Individual Innovativeness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.106.2.14997Keywords:
Innovativeness, Altruistic Calling, Emotional Healing, Organizational StewardshipAbstract
It is undeniable that organizations today need to be more innovative in order to be sustained due to the increasingly competitive environment. Further, creative and innovative employees are crucial in supporting the organization to be more competitive. Unfortunately, the level of individual innovativeness in Malaysia remains at a moderate level. Thus, it is believed that the role of servant leadership is imperative to enhance the innovativeness among the staff in the organisations. This study aims to examine the influence of servant leadership’s characteristics, i.e. altruistic calling, emotional healing, and organizational stewardship in fostering individual innovativeness. A total of 177 administrative staff from private educational institutions in Selangor participated in the survey. The Partial Least Square (PLS) Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) (PLS-SEM) was applied in assessing the path modeling. The results indicated that altruistic calling, emotional healing, and organizational stewardship positively and significantly influenced the individual innovativeness. A well-practiced servant leadership in the organisation will lead the employees to be more creative and innovative. In addition, individual innovativeness can increase the innovative performance level of the organization. This study will serve as a guideline for the management to design new strategies in engaging leaders and employees to strive for innovation as well as to stimulate individual innovativeness.
References
World Intellectual Property Organization (2022). “Global Innovation Index 2022”. Retrieved at https://www.wipo.int/global_innovation_index/en/2022/
Munir, R, & Beh. L. S, Measuring and enhancing organisational creative climate, knowledge sharing, and innovative work behavior in startups development. The Bottom Line, 2020. 3(4): p.269-289.
Avdul, D. N. Servant leadership and an innovative work culture: A correlational research study (Order No. 10244460). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Global. (1878929887), 2016.
Kozioł-Nadolna, K., The role of a leader in stimulating innovation in an organization. Administrative Sciences, 2020. 10(3): p.59.
Ismail, A., & Mydin, A. A. The Impact of Transformational Leadership and Commitment on Teachers’ Innovative Behaviour. In 4th ASEAN Conference on Psychology, Counselling, and Humanities (ACPCH 2018). Atlantis Press.
Ebrahim, Z. B., Sauid, M. K., & Mustakim, N. A. Relationship Between Leaders’ Role and Lecturers’ Innovative Work Behavior in UiTM Cawangan Melaka, Islamic perspectives relating to business, arts, culture and communication, 2015. p.351-361.
Rahim, R. A., Salleh N.F., Ahmad S.F.S., & Mustapha R.M.R. Exploring the Relationship Between Leadership Style, Knowledge Management Practices, and Innovative Behavior. Proceedings of the Colloquium on Administrative Science and Technology, 2015. p. 499-507
Sidra Riaz & Yusen Xu & Shahid Hussain. Understanding Employee Innovative Behavior and Thriving at Work: A Chinese Perspective. Administrative Sciences, MDPI, 2018. 8(3): p.1-14.
Tebogo Sethibe & Renier Steyn. The Mediating Effect of Organizational Climate on the Relationship between Leadership Styles and Their Components on Innovative Behaviour, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India,2018. 4(1):p.22-32.
Wu, J., & Lin, Y. Interaction between the Different Leadership Styles on Innovative Behavior based on Organizational Culture in Ecological Industry: Empirical Research from China. Ekoloji, 2018. 27(106):p.643-649.
Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., Van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The leadership quarterly, 2019. 30(1):p.111-132.
Yusuf, M.F., Ashari, H. Razalli, M.R., Environmental Technological Innovation and Its Contribution to Sustainable Development. International Journal of Technology, 2019. 9(8): p.1569-1578
Rogers, E. M., Singhal, A., & Quinlan, M. M., Diffusion of innovations. In An integrated approach to communication theory and research 2014. p. 432-448. Routledge.
Aldahdouh, T. Z., Nokelainen, P., & Korhonen, V., Technology and social media usage in higher education: The influence of individual innovativeness. SAGE Open, 2020. 10(1), 2158244019899441.
Sahin, G., Individual innovativeness: An example of midwifery of primary health care services in Turkey. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 2020. 13(1): p. 352-358.
Iskandarani, K. M., Assessing the impact of transformational leadership, organizational climate, and personality on individual innovativeness at work (Order No. 10270654). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, 2017. (1966211477).
Awang, A. H., Mohd Sapie, N., Hussain, M. Y., Ishak, S., & Md Yusof, R., Nurturing innovative employees: effects of organisational learning and work environment. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 2019. 32(1): p.1152-1168.
Vnoučková, L., Criteria of innovativeness and creativity in start-ups and innovative entrepreneurship. Quality Innovation Prosperity, 2018. 22(1): p.27-43.
Andrews, C. W., Jr., The effect of servant leadership on employee empowerment in a department of defense (DoD) context (Order No. 27837116). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 2020. (2395538659)
Greenleaf, R. K., Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. 1977. New York: Paulist Press.
Barbuto Jr, J. E., & Wheeler, D. W. Scale development and construct clarification of servant leadership. Group and Organization Management, 2006. 31(3): p. 300-326.
Jelača, M. S., Milićević, N., Bjekić, R., & Petrov, V., The effects of environment uncertainty and leadership styles on organisational innovativeness. Engineering Economics/Inžinerinė ekonomika, 2020. 31(4): p.472-486.
Pencheva, K., Transformational leadership and employee involvement in department-level decision-making processes: A comparative case study on job satisfaction and innovativeness (Master's thesis, University of Twente), 2019.
Drayton, T. D., The empowerment of privately owned service organization employees using perceived leadership style: A quantitative study (Order No. 10271984). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (1912010196), 2017.
Van Dierendonck, D., Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 2011. 37(4): p. 1228-1261.
Barbuto, J. E., & Hayden, R. W., Testing relationships between servant leadership dimensions and leader member exchange (LMX). Journal of Leadership education, 2011. 10(2): p.22-37.
Skerrett, P., Servant leadership factors’ predictability on organizational innovativeness in nonprofit human service organizations (Order No. 27540724). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 2019 (2307786366).
Baykal, E., Zehir, C., & Mahmut, K. Ö. L. E., Effects of servant leadership on gratitude, empowerment, innovativeness and performance: Turkey example. Journal of Economy Culture and Society, 2018. (57): p. 29-52
Jit, R., Sharma, C. S., & Kawatra, M., Healing a broken spirit: Role of servant leadership. Vikalpa, 2017. 42(2): p. 80-94. https://doi: 10.1177/0256090917703754.
Hurt, H. T., Joseph, K., & Cook, C. D., Scales for the measurement of innovativeness. Human Communications Research ,1977. 4(1): p. 41-45.
Hair, J. F., Thomas, G., Hult, M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M., A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (2nd ed.) 2017. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage.
Hair, J.F., Sarstedt, M., Hopkins, L. and Kuppelwieser, V.G., Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM): An Emerging Tool in Business Research. European Business Review, 2014. 26: p.106-121.
Henseler, J., Ringle, C., & Sarstedt, M. A New Criterion for Assessing Discriminant Validity in Variance-based Structural Equation Modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2015. 43(1): p. 115-135.
Franke, G., & Sarstedt, M., Heuristics versus statistics in discriminant validity testing: a comparison of four procedures. Internet Research, 2019. 29(3): p. 430-447.
Kock, N., & Lynn, G. S., Lateral collinearity and misleading results in variance-based SEM: An illustration and recommendations. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 2012. 13(7): p.546-580.
Kock, N., Common method bias in PLS-SEM: A full collinearity assessment approach. International Journal of e-Collaboration, 2015. 11(4): p. 1-10.
Hair, J., Risher, J., Sarstedt, M., & Ringle, C., When to use and how to report the results of PLS-SEM. European Business Review, 2019. 31(1): p. 2-24.
Ramayah, T., Cheah, J., Chuah, F., Ting, H., & Memon, M. A., Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3.0: An Updated Guide and Practical Guide to Statistical Analysis (2nd ed.), 2018 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Pearson.
Hahn, E. D., & Ang, S. H., From the editors: new directions in the reporting of statistical results in the Journal of World Business. Journal of World Business, 2017. 52(2): p. 125-126.
Faraz, N., Mughal, M., Ahmed, F., Raza, A. and Khalid Iqbal, M., The Impact of Servant Leadership on Employees’ Innovative Work Behaviour-Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment. International Journal of Management Science and Business Administration, 2019. 5(3): p. 10-21.
Domínguez Escrig, E., Mallén Broch, F. F., Chiva Gómez, R., & Lapiedra Alcamí, R., How does altruistic leader behavior foster radical innovation? The mediating effect of organizational learning capability. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 2016. 37(8): p.1056–1082.
Salas_Vallina, A., Ferrer_Franco, A. and Fernandez Guerrero, R., Altruistic leadership and affiliative humor's role on service innovation: Lessons from Spanish public hospitals, The International journal of health planning and management, 2018. 33(3): p.e861-e872
Lee A., Lyubovnikova J., Tian A.W., Knight C., Servant leadership: A meta-analytic examination of incremental contribution, moderation, and mediation. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 2020. 93: p.1–44.
Ruiz-Palomino, P., Hernández-Perlines, F., Jiménez-Estévez, P. and GutiérrezBroncano, S., CEO servant leadership and firm innovativeness in hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 2019. 31(4): p. 1647-1665.
Domínguez-Escrig, E., Mallén-Broch, F.F., Chiva, R. and Lapiedra Alcamí, R., Effects of emotional healing on organisational learning and radical innovation: a leadership-based approach, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 2022. 35(1): p.224-239.
Kül, S. and Sönmez, B., The effect of nurse managers' servant leadership on nurses' innovative behaviors and job performances. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 2021. 42(8): p. 1168-1184.
Krog, C. L., & Govender, K., The relationship between servant leadership and employee empowerment, commitment, trust and innovative behaviour: A project management perspective. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 2015. 13(1): p. 1-12.
Domínguez-Escrig, E., Mallén-Broch, F. F., Lapiedra-Alcamí, R., & Chiva-Gómez, R., The Influence of Leaders’ Stewardship Behavior on Innovation Success: The Mediating Effect of Radical Innovation. Journal of Business Ethics, 2018. 159(3): p. 849–862. 355
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Rosintansafinas Munir, Wafaa Syuhada Noridan, Hanitahaiza Hairuddin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
