The Art of Making Workplace Innovative: A Conceptual Integration of Leader-Member Exchange, Workplace Innovation and Employee Creativity

Abstract

Increased digitalisation and globalisation forced contemporary business organisations to look for ways to cultivate innovation at different levels such as individual, team and organisational. To cultivate innovation at the individual level, organisations need to focus on employee creativity and to provide a favourable working environment. This short commentary aims to conduct an extant literature review to identify if Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) have an impact on employee creativity and if workplace innovation plays any role to strengthen this relationship. Based on the social exchange theory, the literature on LMX, employee creativity, and workplace innovation has been explored. It was conceptualised that LMX an impact on employee creativity and workplace innovation mediates this relationship. The conceptual model of this study could help the managers in managing the employees' creativity, innovation and LMX within the organisations to enhance creativity and supportive leadership could help in minimising the uncertainties. Findings of this study suggest that organisations should implement better LMX practices, better interaction with employees help in the cultivation of ideas to improve employee creativity.

Keywords

• Workplace Innovation
• Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)
• Employee Creativity