Impact of Leadership on Innovation: Evidence from the Hotel Industry

Abstract

Research Question: The paper investigated a relationship between innovation and transformational/transactional leadership, as well as the impact of these two leadership styles on innovation. Motivation: As there are small number of studies that have examined the impact of transformational and transactional leadership on innovations within the hospitality industry and in Serbia, the need for investigation is imposed. The paper draws on methodology and works of Bass and Avolio (1997), Hogan et al. (2011) and Nasution et al. (2011) which are, in this paper, applied to the context of hotel industry. The results of this study will expand theory in this field and it could be used as a significant practical guide for hotel management in order to achieve business improvement. Idea: In today's turbulent business environment the ability of the organization to innovate been the decisive factor of surviving, creating and maintaining competitive advantage on the market and also a critical factor in improving what the organization does. The aim of this research is to determine the predictive effect of transformational and transactional leadership on innovations within hotel industry in Serbia. Data: The study included 512 employees in 57 tree, four and five-star hotels in Serbia. Convenient sampling method was applied. The questionnaire used measured the attitude of the employees towards innovations and transformational and transactional leadership, as well as socio-demographic variables Tools: Data was prepared and analysed using statistical software IBM SPSS 24.0. Statistical data processing methods used in this paper are descriptive statistics, the reliability of the instrument, correlation and regression analysis. Findings: The research results show that both transformational and transactional leadership predict innovations, where transformational leadership style is a stronger predictor and better correlate with innovations. The results show that transactional leaders may also encourage innovativeness, but within the frames of the tasks already set. They can also motivate the employees by using different methods such as stimulative rewards, but that they are primarily focused on task execution. Contribution: The results can be used in making future decisions, measures and standards related to human resources management, as well as the development and promotion of innovative activities in hotels.

Leadership Styles Dimensions and Organizational Commitment Nexus: Evidence from a Public Sector in Nigeria

“…Inspirational motivation refers to how leaders can motivate their followers to achieve a state of inspiration that enhances their ingenuity, innovation, and ability to do their utmost to help achieve goals for their organization (Vuković, Damnjanović, Papić-Blagojević, Jošanov-Vrgović, & Gagić, 2018). It is important for leaders to eradicate doubts and fears for their followers through the use of inspirational motivation and encourage them to believe in change for the application of an effective change initiative.…”

The role of transformational leadership and innovation adoption in restaurant performance

“…In a complementary way, the business leadership brings the attribution of reformulating or recreating processes, services, and products in the middle of this cycle. The aspects of inspiration and empowerment generated by Transformational Leadership ultimately lead to the commitment to a vision and action that creates change agents with enhanced perceptions of self-efficacy, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and creative behaviour (Alamir et al, 2019;Jovičić Vuković et al, 2018). Therefore, transformation leaders are recognised as change agents and visionaries who trust people and can deal with complexity and uncertainty.…”

“…Transformational leadership style has also been used in hospitality and tourism sector studies, demonstrated most often in the hospitality sector, working on the positive influences on Innovative behaviour, organisational commitment, and creativity performance (Alamir et al, 2019;Gu et al, 2017;Jovičić Vuković et al, 2018). Therefore, it is known that there are varied leadership styles that, consequently, have different influences.…”

“…Transformational leaders are recognised as change agents, visionaries who trust people, value-driven leaders, oriented towards lifelong learning, and able to deal with complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty (Jovičić Vuković et al, 2018). Transformational leadership has already been extensively tested concerning employee satisfaction and engagement in hospitality (Elkhwesky et al, 2022).…”

The link between transformational leadership and the EFQM model elements

“…In addition, this leadership style is important for improving performance (Chen et al, 2020). This is the case because the characteristics of transformational leadership are compatible with the principles and values of QM and because it promotes the creativity of employees to introduce improvements and thus enhance performance (Jovicic et al, 2018;Khattak et al, 2020).…”