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Transformation leadership and creativity: Effects of employees pyschological

empowerment and intrinsic motivation

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DOI: 10.1108/PR-11-2017-0354

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PR
48,5
1082
Received 22 November 2017
Revised 26 May 2018
17 October 2018
22 November 2018
2 December 2018
Accepted 16 December 2018
Personnel Review
Vol. 48 No. 5, 2019
pp. 1082-1099
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-11-2017-0354
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
Transformation leadership
and creativity
Effects of employees pyschological
empowerment and intrinsic motivation
Jaithen Abdullah Al Harbi
Department of Management and Marketing,
College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
Saud Alarifi
Independent Writer, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and
Aissa Mosbah
Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies,
Management and Science University, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the effect of transformational leadership on
followers’ inventiveness and organizational innovation. It studies transformational leadership and innovation
at the organizational level and creativity at the individual level.
Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical model was created, which entailed the development of
variables and hypotheses. A survey instrument was used to obtain data, through a self-completion
questionnaire. The final sample was made up of 503 individuals, recruited using a random sampling technique.
Findings – The results showed that transformational leadership has a significant positive relationship with
both followers’ creativity and organizational innovation. Furthermore, a significant positive relationship was
found between followers’ creativity and organizational innovation. In addition, the relationship between
transformational leadership and followers’ creativity, through the mediating role of employees’ psychological
empowerment, support for innovation, workplace relationships and employee learning, was also found to be
both positive and significant. However, the data showed that intrinsic motivation does not significantly affect
the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity.
Practical implications – The study provides guidance to organizations that need to change their
leadership style and approach, as well as their innovation and creativity mechanisms, at a strategic level. The
resulting guidance provides organizations with insight into how they can improve the creativity of their
employees through motivating, supporting and inspiring them.
Originality/value – This study is an attempt to illustrate the extent to which transformational leadership
can affect organizational innovation in Saudi Arabia, specifically in the public sector, and to explore how
employees’ creativity can be improved. This research is beneficial for academics, organizations and policy
makers, especially in the Gulf countries.
Keywords Quantitative, Transformational leadership, Saudi Arabia, Intrinsic motivation,
Employees empowerment
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Leadership is an important factor that influences followers’ attitudes and behaviors toward
the organizational goals. It always articulates future visions, supports to build up one-to-one
relationships and raise the interest of followers. However, transformational leadership is
concerned with the creative and innovative aspects of employees and organizations.
Employees’ creativity is known as an important factor for the organizational goals. It
supports individuals to existing and foresees problems with the remedies through
leadership creative ideas, thinking and experience. On the contrary, transformational
leadership creates self-confidence, intrinsic motivation, inspirations, creative endeavors and
supports innovation, personal development and social relationships among employees.
Possessing these factors among employees is more likely to add to their flexibility and Transformation
perseverance. These factors support employees’ creativity that is being attracted to and leadership and
interested in a task for new and better ways of doing things. To this extent, employee’s creativity
empowerment, intrinsic motivation, support for innovation and social relationships play an
important role in transformational leadership and creativity. However, while the existing
evidences tend to show direct relationships between these factors and employees’ creativity,
less empirical research has so far supported the mediatory role of these factors among 1083
transformational leadership and employees’ creativity in general and in the Gulf countries
context in specific (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). Considering this gap research, the current
study aims to achieve the following objectives:
• to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and followers’
creativity; and
• to examine the mediatory role of employee intrinsic motivation between
transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.
Motivation is an essential component of any reliable model of human performance
(Pinder, 2011) and has been a central focus of business and organizational psychology for
many years (Steers et al., 2004). It is a core component of healthcare systems (Franco
et al., 2002), a critical matter for academic performance (Hidi and Harackiewicz, 2000)
and a pivotal issue in personal health and well-being (Fisher et al., 2003). It is arguably the
number one problem facing many organizations (Watson, 1994). Although an exact
understanding of motivation continues to change (Kanfer et al., 2008), motivational
forces can be defined for applied purposes as either extrinsic or intrinsic (Pinder, 2011),
guiding the direction, intensity and persistence of performance behaviors (Kanfer et al.,
2008). Extrinsically motivated behaviors are governed by the prospect of instrumental
gain and loss (e.g. incentives), whereas intrinsically motivated behaviors are engaged
for their very own sake (e.g. task enjoyment), not being instrumental toward some
other outcome.
Few studies have revealed the relationship between transformational leadership and
employees creativity through the mediation of employee awareness of support for
innovation, positive and negative affectivity, essential incentive (e.g. García-Morales et al.,
2012; Gong et al., 2009; Si and Wei, 2012). The literature also witnesses that the available
research studies have been conducted in developed culture, but no such study have been
found in Gulf countries. Following the literature, this study is conducted in the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia and aims to answer the following questions:
RQ1. What is the role of employees’ perception of support for innovation, empowerment,
intrinsic motivation in the relationship between transformational leadership and
followers’ creativity?
RQ2. What is the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational
innovation?
The literature reveals that creativity of followers and organizational innovation can be
unequivocally influenced by leaders. Many empirical studies also showed that perception
of support for innovation and psychological empowerment are key sources of employee
creativity (Teirney, 1999; Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). A transformational leader
authorizes his supporters, increases organizational achievement and cultivates an
“innovative climate.” Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009, p. 462) highlight the research dearth in
investigating the reconciling roles of “empowerment and innovative climate in the
relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.” To fill this
gap, this study proposes that an employee perception of support for innovation,
PR empowerment and intrinsic motivation is a way of underlying the consequences of
48,5 transformational leadership on follower’s creativity in public sector organizations. Based
on the literature review, this research may be the first study in the context of public sector
organizations in KSA.
The literature advocates that managers can directly influence followers’ creativity
directly (intrinsic) and indirectly (extrinsic) (e.g. Jung et al., 2003; Gumusluoglu and Ilsev,
1084 2009). A number of empirical studies also bring to light that awareness of support for
innovation and psychological empowerment is a key foundation of employee creativity
(Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). Based on this, the study has exposed that transformational
managers encourages their followers, organizational performance and develops an
innovative environment. It is argued that there is a dearth in research of mediating tasks
of empowerment and innovative environment in the connection between transformational
management and followers’ creativity. Following this gap, the study then extends
above studies and proposes that an employee belief for the support of “innovation,
empowerment, intrinsic motivation,” organizational learning and workplace relationship
is a way of triggering the impacts of transformational management on creativity.
According to the literature, by transformational management, organizational learning
promotes individuals to build up new skills and knowledge to transmit effective actions
and improvement for an organization. Instead of using individual attitudinal or job
characteristics variables, relationship variable may be more important to know the
behavior of individuals. To this extent, and by examining the opinions of leaders
hypothetically and empirically against varied variables that are in-between knowledge
and innovation, transformational leadership plays an important role because of increasing
the new vision and ideas. Through the transformational leadership, employees can be
motivated through his or her intellectual stimulation abilities to think freely and adopt
exploratory and generative thinking approaches. Through the innovative ideas,
leadership can reflects the behavioral aspect of followers and motivate them for
organizational innovation. Thus, organization innovation is a vision-based motivational
process behind transformational leadership.

2. Theoretical framework and literature reference

2.1 Transformational leadership
Leadership style has been highlighted in the literature as an important strategic factor
affecting innovation and creativity (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Hsiao and Chang, 2011;
Denti and Hemlin, 2012; Si and Wei, 2012). More specifically, transformational leadership
achieved high levels of attention in the field of leadership lately (Lowe et al., 1996). That is
due for being a different approach for stimulating followers comparing to other leadership
styles (Gardner and Avolio, 1998). Moreover, transformational leadership has emerged as a
popular theoretical lens to examine the linkages between leadership behaviors and
leadership effectiveness (Hiller et al., 2011). As a result, a substantial body of empirical
evidence that associates transformational leadership behaviors with the performance of
individuals, units and organizations has accumulated (Derue et al., 2011; Judge and Piccolo,
2004). Through creating and communicating a compelling vision, role modeling a
commitment to that vision, taking the wants, needs and talents of their staff into
consideration, transformational leaders inspire their employees to put forth the effort
needed to accomplish extraordinary goals (Bass and Avolio, 1995). Motivation, therefore, is
a key psychological mechanism through which transformational leaders promote individual
and unit effectiveness (Ilies et al., 2006; Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006). Surprisingly, however,
relatively few studies have examined employee motivation as a linking mechanism between
transformational leadership behaviors and employee outcomes (e.g. Bono and Judge, 2003;
Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006).
 Today’s leadership is emerging as a new field in the history of organizational behavior. Transformation
In the literature, leader acts as boundary role to influence the activities of an organized leadership and
group toward achieving an organizational goal (Denti and Hemlin, 2012; Arnold and creativity
Connelly, 2013).

2.2 Transformational leadership and followers’ creativity

There are different ways that leaders can affect their followers’ creativity as identified by 1085
many studies. For instance, leaders can articulate a vision demonstrating long-term rather
than over short-term goals for organization and through that, they lead individual and joint
efforts of their followers in the direction of innovative work processes and outcomes
(Amabile et al., 1996). Moreover, leaders are the main determinant of organizational culture
(Schein, 1992; Biswas, 2009; Abbasi and Zamani-Miandashti, 2013).
Furthermore, transformational leadership is the style of leadership that has been proved
its relation to creativity. In this specific style of leadership, the behavior of leaders is usually
described as a driving force for creativity for the following three reasons (García-Morales
et al., 2012; Si and Wei, 2012): first, individualized consideration will act as a reward for
followers through recognizing and motivating them. Second, intellectual stimulation will
improve followers’ exploratory thinking through supporting innovation, autonomy and
challenge. Third, inspirational motivation will stimulate the followers’ process of idea
generation through encouraging followers to work in consistence with the vision of the
organization. Moreover, Bass (1990) explains that transformational leaders enhancing their
followers’ self-efficacy can make a positive impact on their creativity. That is because
followers feeling of self-efficacy increase their creative (Lee et al., 2011; García-Morales et al.,
2012). There is another force for encouraging creativity of followers that is used by
transformational leaders, which is the emotional relationships. According to Bass (1990), one
of the main characteristics of transformational leaders is that they build emotional
relationships with their followers. Those relationships, as argued by Hunt et al. (2004), are
expected to lead to higher levels of creativity.

2.3 Transformational leadership and organizational innovation

Contextual and personal factors may be integral to creativity and innovation. Chell and
Karataş-Özkan (2014) noted that personal and psychological research on innovation is very
important, because innovation in the workplace involves human behavior. The significance
of contextual factors (i.e. innovative climate) as enablers of creative performance and
innovative behavior has been well documented (Ren and Zhang, 2015).
Redmond et al. (1993) examined this relationship and found that followers showed a
higher level of creativity when their leaders encouraged constructive problem solving and
boosted their followers’ self-efficacy. In addition, transformational leaders increase the
enthusiasm of their followers to exceed self-interests for the sake of the organization; raise
the followers’ awareness to the values and significance related to required outcomes; and
heightened followers’ expectations about their performance through articulating important
vision and mission for the organization as whole (Hsiao and Chang, 2011; Denti and Hemlin,
2012; García-Morales et al., 2012).
The creation of the organizational environment may be a better strategy to foster
individuals’ creativity where followers may have to spend an enormous amount of time
and efforts to increase their intellectual capacity, expertise and creative thinking skills.
Several factors that like personality traits, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy,
organizational environment and psychological factors have been pointed out in prior
research to support individuals in increasing their level of creativity in an organization
(Amabile, 1998; Krishnan, 2012; Arnold and Connelly, 2013; Brandt and Laiho, 2013).
Present study proposes to investigate the relationship of transformational leadership
PR and followers’ creativity in the public sector organization. According to Gumusluoglu and
48,5 Ilsev (2009), majority of studies within had initially used data from the USA in
experimental settings, and using student samples. However, the difference between
individual and collective culture of the society may be different as Bass (1995) advocate
that transformational leadership is more likely to be seen in “collectivist cultures than in
an individualistic culture.” Therefore, this study suggests investigating in real settings of
1086 collective culture like Saudi Arabia to find the effect of transformational leadership
toward the followers’ creativity. Based on these arguments and previous research
findings, it is proposed that:
H1. Transformational leadership is expected to be positively associated with followers’
creativity.

2.4 Transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation

In an organization, employees can be motivated by intrinsic or extrinsic factors to perform
their responsibilities. Intrinsic motivation refers to the inspiration in which employees are
attracted in a task for its sake, instead of external outcomes and extrinsic motivation refers
to the outside factors of an organization to inspire employees to perform their
responsibilities (Deci and Ryan, 1985). In organizational progress, knowing employee
motivational state is important and intrinsic motivation is one of the key ingredients for
employee to perform their duties (Amabile et al., 1996). Employees having the intrinsic
motivation are more likely to be flexible and persevering (McGraw and Fiala, 1982). In the
literature, intrinsic motivation has been found one of the important factors of creativity that
attracted to employee work (Amabile, 1998; Jaussi and Dionne, 2003). According to the
componential theory of creativity, employees being attracted to and interested in the task
itself allow them to be creative by searching for new and better ways of doing things
(Amabile et al., 1996). The literature supports that intrinsically motivated employees might
be more flexible and attractive toward the outcome because he or she likely to find many
alternative approaches, to use non-traditional ways to solve the organizational problems
(Shin and Zhou, 2003).
Above studies have partial support in mediating role of intrinsic motivation and the
rationale for the argument is that these studies have been conducted in developed,
individualized and small private organization. With the conceptualization support of the
study of Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009) and our theoretical rationale to support the factors
relationships, we propose the following hypothesis:
H2. Intrinsic motivation is expected to positively mediate the relationship between
transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.

2.5 Transformational leadership, support for innovation and creativity

The literature confirmed that leaders have a positive role in the development of
organizational culture, environment and transformation, which are related to collective
social construction where leaders have full control and influence (Mumford et al., 2002;
Biswas, 2009; Abbasi and Zamani-Miandashti, 2013). Indeed, leaders develop a work
environment that may encourage creativity and create a climate that serves as a leading
way for more creative work process (Amabile et al., 2004; Scott and Bruce, 1994). Thus,
based on leaders’ beliefs for, what is more, leaders can create a supporting climate in their
organizations. Here leaders can change creative behavior through their influence on the
employee’s awareness of a climate supportive of innovation (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009).
According to Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009), transformational leaders, by intellectually
stimulating their followers, championing innovation and articulating a compelling vision
throughout their organization, help establish an organizational climate where employees Transformation
feel challenged and energized to seek innovative approaches in their jobs. Several leadership and
studies such as Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009) examined this effect and found evidence creativity
that organization climate supporting innovation is a significant determinant of
individuals’ creativity. However, there are also strong negative relationships between
transformational leadership and followers’ innovative behavior (Basu and Green, 1997).
Jung et al. (2003) found a positive impact of transformational leadership on innovative 1087
organizational climate. In addition, Koene et al. (2002) found a positive effect of
charismatic leadership and consideration on organizational climate. Bain et al. (2001)
conducted an empirical study in four Australian companies with large R&D projects.
They examined six indicators of innovation such as supervisory ratings and found
a significant relationship between them and organizational climate for innovation
(Bain et al., 2001). Another study conducted by Scott and Bruce (1994) examined scientists
and engineers in the R&D division in a large US company and found that organizational
climate that support innovation lead to increasing innovative behavior. They found that
leader–follower exchanges were positively associated with innovation support. Based on
these observations, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H3. Followers’ perception of support for innovation is expected to positively mediate the
relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.
Transformational leadership, workplace relationships and creativity employees in
any organization are like partners in social and task interaction. Positive association
between co-workers and their leaders is shown as constructive attitudes and behaviors
toward the organizational goals and negative relationship between co-workers and their
leaders support to stress (Viswesvaran et al., 1999). The relationships that employee form
at their workplace with their supervisors and co-workers represent social exchange
relationships that are especially salient with respect to task and citizenship behavior
(Li and Hung, 2009). In social identity theory, individuals like to categorize themselves
into two important categories such that leader–member relationships and co-workers
relationships (Tajfel and Turner, 1985; Sias, 2005). Interpersonal relationship between
leaders and workers constitute an interconnected social system in an organization.
According to Li and Hung (2009), members in a transformational leadership context
interact more frequently with their leaders and have their leaders’ support, confidence,
encouragement and consideration, and hence are more satisfied with their leader,
identify with the leader, trust in the leader and by extension, are more willing to form
and maintain a high quality relationship with their leaders. However, social aspects
regarding the relationships at workplace have been ignored, and first time Li and Hung
(2009) explored this kind of relationship. Thus, maintaining such behavior by direct
influence of leaders toward individuals on the development and maintenance their
characteristics, values and beliefs. Based on this conceptualization, the following
hypothesis is proposed:
H4. Workplace relationship is expected to positively mediate the relationship between
transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.

3. Methods
3.1 Data collection
A survey research design involving the use of a questionnaire as the primary data source
was adopted. The questionnaire was distributed with a number of government
organizations in the city of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
PR 3.2 Measurement scales
48,5 3.2.1 Transformational leadership. The study used the Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire form 5X-Short (Bass and Avolio, 1995). This questionnaire has four
dimensions such as idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation
and individual consideration. Each dimension has four questions with a five-point Likert
scale ranging from 1, “not at all,” to 5, “frequently, if not always,” employee indicated how
1088 frequently each statement fitted their immediate supervisors. α reliability of
transformational leaders was 0.93.
3.2.2 Intrinsic motivation. Employee intrinsic motivation was adapted from the work of
Amabile (1985) and used by Teirney (1999). In this variable, five items were used with a
five-point Likert scale. Cronbach’s α was 0.74.
3.2.3 Psychological empowerment. The study also used four dimensions of
empowerment. Three items of “Meaning” were taken from Tymon (1988) and used by
Spreitzer (1995). For “Competence,” three items were adapted for confidence from Jones’s
(1986) study. Third dimension is “Self-determination” for those three items were adapted
and used by Spreitzer (1995). Finally, “Impact” were measured by taking three items from
Ashforth’s (1989) study and used by Spreitzer (1995). For all four-dimension research used a
five-point Likert scale from very strongly disagree to strongly agree.
3.2.4 Perception of support for innovation. By adapting 22 items scale containing two
subscales (support for creativity and tolerance of differences) developed originally by
Siegel and Kaemmerer (1978) and modified later by Scott and Bruce (1994). All items were
rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 5 (very
strongly agree).
3.2.5 Workplace social relationships. A four-item scale was used to measure social
relationships in the workplace. The scale was adapted from the five-item relationships
subscales of Hanpachern’s et al. (1998) revised Margin in Life scale, which itself had been
modified from the original published survey by Stevenson (1982) on a five-point Likert scale
ranging from 1, “Strongly Disagree,” to 5, “Strongly Agree.”
3.2.6 Organizational innovation. A three-item scale was used to measure organizational
innovation. The scale was based on the study of Miller and Friesen (1983) and applied by
García-Morales et al. (2012) on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1, “Strongly Disagree,”
to 5, “Strongly Agree.”

4. Results
Testing H1 that transformational leadership has positive and significant impact on
followers’ creativity. However, this study applied hierarchical multiple regression analysis
where β and t-value were used for hypotheses testing. Researchers also adopted multilevel
meditational modeling methods for testing the direct and mediated effects (Krull and
MacKinnon, 2001). To assess the mediating effect, Sobel test for multilevel mediational
modeling method (Krull and MacKinnon, 2001) was used. However, educational level and
job tenure of the employees were controlled for in all the hierarchical models. The result of
the transformational leadership indicated a positive and significant impact on followers’
creativity (see Table II) (β ¼ 0.329, p o 0.00, t ¼ 7.707) after controlling for education and
working experience. Therefore, findings support for H1, which states that there is a
positive relationship between transformational leadership and individual creativity.
Furthermore, a significant relationship also satisfies the condition of the mediation tests
for all mediator variables.
In the study, H2 suggests that the intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship
between transformational leadership and followers’ creativity. From the results of
Pearson’s r correlation coefficient (see Table I), results showed that there was significant
positive correlation between the transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation Transformation
(r ¼ 0.533; p o 0.001) and intrinsic motivation and followers’ creativity (r ¼ 0.223; leadership and
p o 0.001) (Table II). creativity
H3 proposes that perception of support for innovation mediates the relationship between
transformational leadership and followers’ creativity. From the results of Pearson’s r
correlation coefficient (see Table I), results showed that there was significant positive
correlation between the transformational leadership and perception of support 1089
for innovation (r ¼ 0.186; p o0.001) and perception of support for innovation and
followers’ creativity (r ¼ 0.268; p o0.001). The significant and positive results indicate
that the higher the transformational leadership, the higher the followers’ creativity and the
higher the perception of support for innovation. Results showed that transformational
leadership has a positive and significant relationships with perception of support for
innovation (see Table III) (β ¼ 0.210, p o0.00, t ¼ 4.765). Furthermore, perception of support
for innovation positively and significantly relates to creativity (β ¼ 0.223, p o0.00)
when entered together with transformational leadership into the equation predicting
creativity, where transformational leadership has significant impact (β ¼ 0.281, p o0.00).

No. Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Organization innovation 1
2 Creativity 0.269** 1
3 Idealized behavior 0.100* 0.255** 1
4 Inspirational motivation 0.203** 0.270** 0.278** 1 Table I.
5 Individual consideration 0.167** 0.279** 0.214** 0.503** 1 Results of the
6 Intrinsic motivation 0.055 0.290** 0.220** 0.246** 0.446** 1 Pearson’s correlation
Notes: *p o0.05; **p o 0.01; ***p o 0.001 of individual items

Step 1 Step 2

Education 0.101 0.098

Job tenure −0.004 −0.059
F 2.509 21.667**
df 2 3 Table II.
R2 0.010 0.115 Results of the
ΔR2 0.006 0.110** regression analysis for
Notes: *p o0.05; **p o 0.01; ***p o 0.001 follower’s creativity

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Education 0.101 0.098 0.098

Job tenure −0.004 −0.059 −0.061
Transformational leadership 0.329** 0.358**
Intrinsic motivation −0.038 16.323**
F 2.509 21.667**
df 2 3 4 Table III.
R2 0.010 0.115 0.116 Results of the
ΔR2 0.006 0.110** 0.109** regression analysis for
Notes: *p o0.05; **p o 0.01 follower’s creativity
PR Results of this hypothesis have a full mediating effect of perception of support for
48,5 innovation. In this test, Sobel’s test results showed that the perception of support for
innovation significantly increase the effect of transformational leadership on creativity
(t ¼ 5.221, p o0.00). In conclusion, therefore, perception of support for innovation is
significantly and positively mediates the relationship between transformational leadership
and creativity that support H3.
1090 H4 proposes that workplace social relationships mediate the relationship between
transformational leadership and followers’ creativity. Results showed that transformational
leadership has a positive and significant relationships with workplace social relationships
(see Table IV ) (β ¼ 0.060, ns, t ¼ 1.311). Results of this hypothesis have a full mediating
effect of workplace social relationships. In this test, Sobel’s test results showed that
workplace social relationships are greatly increased by the effect of transformational
leadership on creativity (t ¼ 4.642, p o0.00). In conclusion, therefore, a workplace social
relationship is significantly and positively mediates the relationship between
transformational leadership and creativity that support H4 (Table V ).

5. Discussion
The literature review section discussed the relationship between transformational leadership
and followers’ creativity. Additionally, the literature also confirmed the relationship between

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Education 0.101* 0.098* 0.109**

Job tenure −0.004 −0.059 −0.020
Transformational leadership 0.329*** 0.281***
Perception of support for innovation 0.223***
Table IV.
F 2.509 21.667*** 23.921***
Results of the
regression analysis for df2 2 3 4
follower’s creativity R 0.010 0.115 0.161
and perception of ΔR2 0.006 0.110** 0.154**
support for innovation Notes: *po 0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001

Creativity Intrinsic motivation Psychological empowerment

Education 0.098
Job tenure −0.059
Trans. leadership 0.329**
Education −0.118*
Job tenure 0.046
Trans. leadership 0.750**
Education 0.098*
Job tenure −0.061
Trans. leadership 0.358**
Intrin. motivation −0.038
Education 0.018
Job tenure 0.105
Trans. leadership 0.418**
Table V. Job tenure −0.060
Results of the Trans. leadership 0.317**
regression analysis of Workplace So. Re. 0.192**
the different variables Notes: *po 0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001
transformational leadership and organizational innovation. However, the literature also Transformation
witnessed that how important and complex these relations are. Consequently, this study has leadership and
attempted to go one step further to investigating the relationship of transformational creativity
leadership, followers’ creativity and organizational innovation. The study has empirically
tested the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity and also
organizational innovation and employee creativity for the first time in a government’s sector
institutions of collective culture context like Saudi Arabia. 1091
Data from the study demonstrated a positive and significant effect of transformational
leadership on followers’ creativity. Therefore, the study can affirm that transformational
leadership is one of the important variables, which can influence to enhance followers’
creativity. In the literature, leadership has been treated as an important influence factor
toward the attitudes and behaviors of followers (Mumford and Gustafson, 1988; Jung,
2001). However, transformational leadership is different from traditional styles, which
have high impact on increasing employees’ creativity (García-Morales et al., 2012).
Many studies showed that transformational leaders empower their followers in respective
of cognitive and motivational point of view so as to be innovative ( Jung et al., 2003).
Furthermore, the role of transformational leadership is positive and significant because it
applies the creativity concept to understanding the existed problems and putting efforts
and conventional ideas together to create new approaches to solving problems.
The objective of transformational leadership is addressing the underpinnings of creativity
that might be an effective means for encouraging creativity. Thus, the results of this
study support suggestions by creativity scholars. Specifically, this study supports the
literature for developing followers’ creativity through transformational leadership
behavior at the collectivist cultures ( Jung and Avolio, 1999). These results may support
public sector organization.

5.1 Theoretical contribution

The key contribution of this study is that it builds on a comprehensive theoretical frame
in order to investigate the factors that mediate transformational leadership’s effect on
followers’ creativity and organizational innovation in public sector organizations in
Saudi Arabia. This study is an attempt to illustrate the extent to which transformational
leadership can affect organizational innovation in Saudi Arabia, specifically in the public
sector, and to explore how employees’ creativity can be improved. The findings are
beneficial for academics, organizations and policy makers. In line with the objectives of the
study, a theoretical model was used that enabled an investigation of the relationship
between transformational leadership and the enhancement of followers’ creativity through
psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, support for innovation and improved
workplace relationships. However, the first objective of the study was to examine the
relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.
With respect to this objective, a large amount of empirical research has been found
relating to positive relationships (Shin and Zhou, 2003; Jung, 2001; Kahai et al., 2003; Jaussi
and Dionne, 2003; Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). More recently, studies have focused on
relationships with both negative and positive impacts. In this respect, Eisenbeib and
Boerner (2013) centered their research on both types of impact, and empirically showed that
transformational leadership promotes followers’ creativity, but also suggested that such
dependency might also reduce followers’ creativity. However, all of this research work has
related to the developed world, with negligible studies found in the context of developing
countries. Additionally, Bass (1995) suggested that collectivist societies, rather than
individualist societies, encouraged the impact of transformational leadership on followers’
creativity. Therefore, the current work considers the influence of transformational
leadership on followers’ creativity in the context of a collective culture.
PR This study highlights the existence of a significant positive relationship between
48,5 transformational leadership and workplace social relationships, and between workplace
social relationships and followers’ creativity. The results also show that transformational
leadership has significant positive relationships with workplace social relationships.
Finally, hypothesis testing has revealed the mediating effect of workplace social
relationships on the link between transformational leadership and followers’ creativity.
1092 Previously, a positive relationship had been found between transformational leadership
and followers’ attitudes and behavior ( Judge and Piccolo, 2004). In the literature, few
studies have examined transformational leadership as a mediating path that links
leadership style to performance (Bass et al., 2003). However, empirical research on how
co-workers’ relationships affect the impact of transformational leadership on followers’
creativity is inconsistent and limited. Results of the current study highlighted the
importance of co-workers’ relationships as a mediating factor on the impact of
transformational leadership on employees’ creativity. The findings of this study support
the notion that the effect of transformational leadership on followers’ creativity will differ
according to co-workers’ relationships within the workplace. Past studies have suggested
that co-workers’ relationships are the best predictor of the effect of transformational
leadership on followers’ creativity. Thus, from a learning point of view, the results of this
study support the assertion of creativity scholars that transformational leadership
approaches emphasizing creativity might be effective in enhancing co-workers’
relationships in the workplace.
On an academic level, this study contributes to the literature by conducting empirical
research into the connection between transformational leadership and both organizational
innovation and followers’ creativity. Based on previous research in this field, this study
investigates how transformational leadership can enhance organizational innovation in two
ways: first, through a direct link between transformational leadership and innovation, and
second, through an indirect relationship between them as a result of the connection between
followers’ creativity and organizational innovation. This study was also conducted at a
large scale, to increase the robustness of the findings.
Furthermore, an important aspect of this study is that it represents a significant
departure from previous work that has relied on theoretical arguments and practical
evidence; it proposes a theoretical framework for an empirical investigation. In addition,
prior research has confirmed that organizational innovation can be encouraged through
transformational leadership. The relationship between transformational leadership and
organizational innovation can be made more positive and significant through employee
support for innovation and psychological empowerment. The same is true of the effect of
transformational leadership on followers’ creativity.

5.2 Practical implications for HR

The practical implications of this study are significant for managers, especially those who
are concerned with the human resource function in an organization. These implications can
be applied in a global context, not only in the context of the KSA.
First, organizations must have leadership qualities in which to nurture the growth of
transformational leaders. Through improved managerial quality, leaders must be
vigorously involved in nurturing and mentoring employees in the firm. Success and
effective leadership must inspire followers to pursue organizational goals and the shared
vision. In addition, HR managers must talk to first line managers and encourage them to
think in different ways to implement such qualities.
Second, the organization must inspire the application, transformation, acquisition and
use of new and appropriate understanding and skills. The stream of knowledge and skills
may develop the followers’ ability and give sense to understand and utilize the considered
tacit knowledge to advance the performance of the organization and its followers’ Transformation
creativity. To this extent, knowledge of leadership must encourage the followers’ capacity leadership and
with reference to organizational goals and leaders must devote continuous and substantial creativity
investment in developing knowledge in the organization. Leaders must accomplish
diverse activities based on supporting organizational goals through followers’ absorptive
capacity. These actions will help the HR managers to plan modern, organizational
structures and policies regarding the better knowledge of followers and stimulate 1093
organizational flexibility toward innovation and better knowledge transfer.
Third, in any organization, good performance of individuals is not directly available at
all times. However, it might be available only with the appropriate internal characteristics
like transformational leadership. Results of the study showed that leadership should be
accompanied by equally important concerns about the learning climate. This can be
implemented through the special training programs implemented and formalized by the HR
management. In addition, results confirmed that the development of organizational
practices for learning is essential in order to create an atmosphere to improve performance
through organizational innovation and followers’ creativity. Accordingly, HRM is advised to
implement succession planning in their recruitment and selection of the best candidates
through processes.
Fourth, managers of the organization should also believe that a transformational
leadership would be effective in creating a culture of skills development and organizational
innovation in which performance will enhance HR policies and practices to support staff and
employees toward acquiring these skills.
Fifth, in the Arab culture, employment is currently in a dynamic state, and this study
underlines the fact that HR managers apply performance management and improvement
systems to the worker’s knowledge and skills, self-respect, social relationship, support for
innovation and dignity through their recruitment and selection process.
Finally, HR managers need to plan appropriate training to close the skills shortage and
should allocate resources proficiently and successfully to attract and retain essential skilled
managers in their succession planning, especially with the skills shortages in KSA.

6. Limitations and future research

The results of the study are promising, useful and encouraging. However, this research
has a few limitations that can be noted and overcome in future research. This study
proposed to investigate the role of transformational leadership in organizational
innovation and followers’ creativity, which may limit its generalizability. To this extent,
the results are targeted specifically at employees of public sector organizations, which
mean that employees of other kinds of organization may have different responses and
may react differently.
In view of previous studies, this study has conceptualized and addressed some factors
based on organizational competency approaches, but not culturally, socially and religiously
influenced factors that might be interesting to study empirically in the future because of the
unique environment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The important point here is that Arab
employees might have particular social and workplace characteristics; therefore, this study
has some limitations, and future researchers should consider how such variables affect
individuals’ learning and organizational innovation. Such factors should be tested using a
larger sample of organizations, which might further support the value of transformational
leadership. In the light of the new theoretical framework and a larger sample of employees,
this might strengthen this study’s generalizability.
Another limitation with this study is that the data were collected during one point in
time, so that the study was not longitudinal. Therefore, longitudinal research, instead of a
cross-sectional study, should be conducted. Furthermore, sampling for the study was
PR limited to public sector organizations of an Arab country. The selection of the institutions
48,5 may have been biased, with other public sector organizations not being selected.
The study proposed to investigate the effect of transformational leadership on
organizational innovation and followers’ creativity in the public sector of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. It can be recommended that this theoretical framework should be tested in
contexts other than public sector organizations, to confirm the generalizability of this
1094 research. It is possible that employees of different organizations might have different
responses and may react differently. Moreover, the study did not consider cultural, social
and religious factors, which are important in the Arabic culture. It should be interesting to
investigate different factors relating to the workplace, such as environmental, cultural,
social and religious factors, because of the unique environment of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. Finally, the outcomes of this paper can provide new insights into work
design research in the field of HRM, which eventually informs HR managers and directors
in the application of effective strategies, and which will transform the role of the
employees, encouraging greater creativity and innovation.
Information sharing with employees, generating a collective vision, and learning
management and feedback, can help public sector employees to maintain employees’
knowledge, skills, self-respect and social relationships, and support innovation and
dignity. Furthermore, regarding organizational innovation, the results of the study show
that organizations depend upon employees, and that they should facilitate employees’
creativity by enhancing managers’ transformational management style. To the knowledge
of the authors, previous research work has revealed that transformational management
can be developed in focused training programs (Barling et al., 1996; Dvir et al., 2002).
Hence, organizations in an Arabic culture should emphasize followers’ creativity and
innovation through transformational management, because of knowing how to effectively
encourage, motivate and intellectually stimulate their followers. The results of this study
indicate that transformational management may enhance followers’ creativity and reduce
dependency on the leader. From support for innovation and motivational perspectives,
transformational management seems to be imperative for followers’ personal
development. Moreover, the workplace of Arabic organizations is an extension of a
social, cultural and religious network for employees whereby significant decisions are
influenced more by interpersonal relationships than by task requirements. To this end,
this study has offered the necessary indicators for effective transformational management
intervention for Arabic practitioners in particular.
Moreover, this study was conceptualized on the basis of theory not having been
applied in the previous literature. This might raise the issue of theory, and so it is
recommended that appropriate theories for fresh conceptualization are used in future
research. However, there might be relevant theories that can be used to examine the role of
transformational leadership in enhancing organizational innovation and followers’
creativity. Thus, there is a need to take other theories into consideration in order to
develop a theoretical model to examine the factors related to the role of transformational
leadership for followers’ creativity. That is why many variables were used in the model.
Context wise, the study has proposed an examination of the framework in an Arabian
country other than Saudi Arabia, where the results might be different. In addition, the
proposed research framework should be tested in private organizations, rather than in
public sector organizations alone.

7. Conclusion
This study has examined the relationship between transformational leadership and
innovation, at the organizational level, and creativity at the individual level, in
Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is facing problems as a result of being a young, wealthy and
developing country. The current state of innovation in its public sector and human Transformation
resources creativity provides insights for policy makers with reference to leadership leadership and
approaches. This research study has been conceptualized on the basis of a literature creativity
review, and hypotheses have been developed with the support of the relationships
between variables.

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Corresponding author
Jaithen Abdullah Al Harbi can be contacted at: jalharbi@qu.edu.qa

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