A Longitudinal Study of Servant Leadership and Employee Innovation in Public Organizations

Employee innovative performance has been central to public organizations’ growth and effective service delivery to citizens. Although the literature has acknowledged servant leadership as an important antecedent exerting influence on employee innovative performance, most research has overlooked the dynamics inherent in this relationship. Drawing on the servant leadership literature and the componential model of creativity and innovation, we examined the within-person effect of servant leadership on employee innovative performance and a boundary condition that shapes this effect. Using longitudinal data collected throughout three-month innovative projects of 87 dyads in 47 public organizations, we found that receiving servant leadership reduced employee innovative performance. However, a test of the cross-level interaction effect showed that servant leadership was associated with decreased innovative performance only for employees with low accountability. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and provide some recommendations for future research.