This research seeks to contribute to leadership theory by proposing an integrative framework to reveal how servant leadership and employee cognitive factors foster the conditions that promote employee innovative behavior. Building on social cognitive theory, we hypothesize that servant leadership improves employee innovative behavior through inspiring employee knowledge‐sharing. We predict that employee organizational identification strengthens the impact of servant leadership on knowledge‐sharing, and that employee learning goal orientation amplifies the relationship between employee knowledge‐sharing and innovative behavior. We also propose that the positive indirect effect of servant leadership on employee innovative behavior via knowledge‐sharing is strongest when both moderators are at a high level. Using data collected from 215 supervisor‐employee dyads from three private high‐tech firms in China and a multisource and multiphase research design, we find support for our proposed model. Theoretical and managerial implications for leadership and management practices are also discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.