The Influence of Leadership Style in China SMEs on Enterprise Innovation Performance: The Mediating Roles of Organizational Learning

Abstract

This study explores the relationship among leadership styles (transformation and transaction types), organization learning, and enterprise innovation performance in China SMEs. The main purpose of this study is to find out the innovation performance of Chines SMEs, according to leadership styles. Thus, we collected data from 417 Chinese consumers through on/off line. The major empirical findings are as follows. First, the transformation leadership and transactional leadership style have a positive impact on organizational learning. Second, the research results of this study verify the positive impact of leadership style on innovation performance. Third, organizational learning has a forward impact on innovation performance. We conclude that organizational learning has a partial intermediary role on the relationship between leadership styles and enterprise innovation performance. This study enriches and expands research in leadership style and innovative performance, thus rationalizing improvements in corporate innovation performance. This study also contributes to the provision of theoretical support for leadership decisions of enterprises and other types of of organization.