The effect of authentic leadership and innovation adoption on innovative work behavior in Thai context

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of Authentic Leadership (AL) on Innovative Work Behavior (IWB) with a consideration on the moderating effect of Innovation Adoption (IA) on that effect. Four questionnaires were used to collect data, aimed at measuring demographic information, authentic leadership, innovative work behavior, and innovation adoption of the respondents who were employees working in a private Thai company. The authentic leadership and innovative work behavior questionnaires were derived from previous research, and the innovation adoption questionnaire was newly developed for this study. A pilot study was conducted with 120 employees who were not in the sample pool. All three adjusted measurement models presented goodness of fit with the collected data and demonstrated high validities and reliabilities. Following the pilot study, 1000 questionnaires were then distributed, of which 754 (75.4%) were returned, and only 700 were completely filled. Data analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM) supported the hypothesis that authentic leadership and innovation adoption had positive effects on innovative work behavior. However, the results did not demonstrate the moderating effect of innovation adoption, rather indicating the interrelated effect of innovation adoption and authentic leadership on innovative work behavior. The size of the corporation and corporate core values (such as creativity and innovation) might undermine the moderating effect of innovation adoption. Future research should study small or diverse business companies with and without innovation embedded in their corporate core values. The innovation adoption questionnaire should also be used in other sectors or countries to test the generality of the questionnaire.

Keywords: Innovation adoption, authentic leadership, innovative work behavior, moderating effect, structural equation modeling, private Thai company