EMPOWERMENT AND INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOR: DOES EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY EXPLAIN THE RELATIONSHIP?

Abstract

This study examines the role of digital empowerment, structural empowerment, and psychological empowerment in enhancing employees' individual innovative behavior within the telecommunications sector of Pakistan, and investigates employee creativity as the underlying mechanism linking these empowerment practices to innovative outcomes. Data were collected from 200 employees of telecommunication companies across Pakistan using a structured survey and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS. The findings indicate that structural, psychological, and digital empowerment each significantly and positively predict employee creativity, and that employee creativity, in turn, significantly predicts individual innovative behavior. The results further show that employee creativity mediates the relationships between each empowerment dimension and individual innovative behavior, and that the creative work environment moderates the relationship between empowerment and innovative behavior. This study contributes to the empowerment and creativity literature by jointly examining digital, structural, and psychological empowerment alongside employee creativity, creative work environment, and individual innovative behavior within a single model in the telecommunications sector. For practitioners, the findings suggest that structural, digital, and psychological empowerment are important organizational levers for stimulating employee creativity and encouraging innovative behavior, particularly as telecommunication firms face increasing pressure to innovate sustainably and remain competitive.