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Purpose The effects of transformational leadership, affective commitment and organisational justice on innovative work behaviours (IWBs) have been widely published in extant literature. Yet, despite extensive scholarly publications in these areas, little is known about the joint effects of these factors on IWBs. The purpose of this study is to examine if the effects of transformational leadership on IWBs are moderated by affective commitment and organisational justice. Design/methodology/approach Based on data collected from 263 respondents, this paper uses social exchange, job demands-resources, information processing and broaden-and-build theories to explore these relationships. This study further deploys Hayes’s (2013) PROCESS Macro to analyse data. Findings Of the three independent variables in this study, the results suggest that only transformational leadership has the main effects on IWB. More importantly, the results further suggest that transformational leadership has the largest impact on IWB when both affective commitment and organisational justice are high rather than low. The impact of transformational leadership is also significant when affective commitment is high and organisational justice is low. Practical implications This paper submits that organisations can boost IWBs through engendering employee affective commitment and concomitantly assisting supervisors to acquire transformational leadership and fairness skills. Originality/value To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the effects on IWBs, of a three-way interaction between transformational leadership, affective commitment and organisational justice; with substantial potential to advance theory and practice in leadership and innovation sciences.