Sustainable leadership and employee innovative behavior: Discussing the mediating role of creative self-efficacy

The idea of sustainable leadership is becoming more popular with organizations. Although sustainable leadership and its work-associated outcomes have been examined in previous literature, only a small number of studies highlighted the role of sustainable leadership style in fostering employee innovation, mediated through their creative self-efficacy (CSE) in the context of Pakistan. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between sustainable leadership and employee innovation in software houses. In addition, we intend to study the mediating role of CSE in the relationship between sustainable leadership and employee innovation. Data were collected via email from 250 staff working in Pakistan's software houses. They replied to questions about their leader's sustainable leadership style, employee CSE, and innovation. There was a response rate of 64.1%. PLS-SEM has been used to analyze data. Study findings indicate that the effect of sustainable leadership on workplace creativity is essential. The results also revealed that CSE mediates the relationship between sustainable leadership and employee innovation. Although this study expands our knowledge about the mediating role of CSE between sustainable leadership and employee innovation, the prospects for future research are still present. The cross-sectional design of the study might not have been able to extract the true essence of the cause-and-effect relationship between sustainable leadership and employee innovation. The study also offers several policy implications for policy-makers to boost innovation among employees with the help of sustainable leadership and CSE.