Leadership and Workplace Innovation: An Investigation of Asian SMEs

Few studies have explored the relationship between leadership and workplace innovation in non-Western contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine this relationship in the context of two Asian countries. To this end, structural equation modelling (SEM) was implemented to analyze 696 usable questionnaires received from staff employed in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand and Vietnam. The results revealed that design leadership has a significant effect on the four dimensions of workplace innovation, thus confirming an interactionist theory perspective which is under-researched in Thai and Vietnamese SME contexts. This study therefore extends the design leadership and innovation literatures.