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Organizations that operate in the present fast changing world face an increasing demand to create and deliver new products and services. Information Technology (IT) departments are experiencing rapidly evolving environmental pressures, tremendous technological changes, and increasing customer demands. IT plays a significant role in planning, operating, and supporting organizational processes and enabling end users to carry out their activities in an innovative, efficient and productive manner. Innovative work behavior (IWB) can be utilized as a unique asset (Sartori et al., 2013) to enable organizational success in dynamic environments (Ramamoorthy et al., 2005; Wojtczuk-Turek and Turek, 2015).
Transformational Leadership (TL) is one of the main paths to innovation, creativity, and success in organizations. Transformational leadership (TL) plays a significant role in fostering employees’ IWB to create and deliver new products or services. TL motivates employees to change (Albrecht, 2005), empowers and inspires them to step out of their comfort zone (Bass, 1985), and encourages team work to achieve a visualized new future (Vera and Crossan, 2004).
Although there have been a lot of studies conducted on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness, few have analyzed leadership behaviors, innovation, and effectiveness in public sector organizations (Schutte and Barkhuize, 2016) and, particularly, in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This study is one of the first to investigate the relationship between TL and employees’ IWB of an IT department in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and in Bahrain in particular. More specifically, the study seeks to examine the following:
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Employees’ perceptions of IWB in the IT department;
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Employees’ perceptions of TL in the IT department;
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Differences in IWB based on employees’ demographics;
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Relationships between the TL and IWB.