How Temporal Leadership Boosts Employee Innovative Job Performance

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how temporal leadership relates to employee innovative job performance through pro-social rule breaking for efficiency (PSRB_E) and vigor. As such, it draws from both motivational and affective perspectives to investigate the way in which leaders manage employees' time to boost employee innovation at work.

Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a two-source survey with coworker dyads from multiple organizations in China. Two hundred and three focal employees rated temporal leadership, time pressure and vigor. Each focal employee was rated by a coworker on PSRB_E and innovative job performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping techniques are used to examine the hypothesized relationships with the R package for latent variable analysis (i.e. lavaan).

Findings: The results suggest that temporal leadership positively relates to employees' innovative job performance through the mediations of their PRSB_E and vigor, respectively.

Originality/value: This study is one of the first that sought to understand the effect of temporal leadership on employee innovative job performance. It also casts light upon the motivational and affective mechanisms underlying such a linkage.