Introduction:
One of the most recent events in evaluating the areas related to human resources of an organization is the development of human resources and the study of important changes such as innovation and agility. One of the characteristics expected from employees in today's organizations that have a dynamic environment is to have innovative behavior and spirit. All organizations need new ideas and innovative ideas to grow and survive. As the environment in which organizations have become increasingly turbulent, a type of leadership is needed that is called entrepreneurial leadership. To gain competitive advantage and achieve organizational success through innovation in a dynamic and complex work environment, leaders must help subordinates identify and take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities. According to the previous material, it can be acknowledged that entrepreneurial leadership plays an important role in developing and influencing the work atmosphere and movement of desirable behaviors. Innovation and the climate of innovation go far beyond creating the skills and competencies needed to lead organizations and require systems and procedures that align the purpose and the organization. Organizations are trying to place their human resource capabilities comprehensively at all levels of developers. Also, a review of the conducted studies shows that innovative behavior plays a very colorful role in organizations in today's conditions, and the leadership style in the organization that represents the ruler of the organization plays an important role in the management of the organization. Therefore, the current research is trying to answer the question of whether the entrepreneurial leadership style has an effect on the innovative behavior of the employees of Razavi Khorasan gas company with the role of successive mediators of innovation atmosphere and intellectual agility.
Methodology:
The current research was applied in terms of purpose, quantitative in terms of data type, descriptive in terms of implementation method, and causal in terms of examining relationships between variables. The data collection tool was a standard questionnaire. Questionnaires include; Entrepreneurial leadership style questionnaire (Parsa et al., 2010) includes 26 items, Jansen's innovative behavior questionnaire (2000) includes 9 items, Friso et al.'s innovation atmosphere questionnaire (2015) includes 6 items, and Tan et al.'s intellectual agility questionnaire (2007) includes 12 items. have been. The statistical population of the research included the employees of Khorasan Razavi gas company; Their number is 1500 people. The research sampling method was stratified random method. The sample size was calculated using Cochran's formula of 306 people. In order to measure the validity of the content, the questionnaires have been given to experts in the field of management. In this study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to measure reliability. Data analysis was done using the structural equation modeling technique by Smart PLS software.
Results and Discussion:
Data analysis has shown that all research hypotheses have been confirmed. The main hypothesis: entrepreneurial leadership has a positive and significant effect on innovative behavior through the atmosphere of innovation and intellectual agility of employees. The results obtained from the Sobel test show that the indirect effect of entrepreneurial leadership on innovative behavior through the atmosphere of innovation and intellectual agility of employees has been successively equal to 0.138, and the value of the Sobel statistic has become significant at the 95% confidence level. The significance level is less than 0.05). As a result, entrepreneurial leadership has a positive and significant effect on innovative behavior through the atmosphere of innovation and intellectual agility of employees, and the main hypothesis of the research is confirmed. Hypothesis 5: Entrepreneurial leadership has a positive and significant effect on intellectual agility through the mediation of innovation atmosphere. The results obtained from the Sobel test show that the indirect effect of entrepreneurial leadership on intellectual agility due to the atmosphere of innovation is equal to 0.527 and the value of the Sobel statistic is significant at the 95% confidence level (significance level is less than 0.05 has been). As a result, entrepreneurial leadership has a positive and significant effect on intellectual agility due to the mediating role of self-efficacy, and the hypothesis is confirmed. Hypothesis 6: Innovation climate has a positive and significant effect on innovative behavior through the mediation of intellectual agility. The results obtained from the Sobel test show that the indirect effect of innovation climate on innovative behavior through intellectual agility is equal to 0.181 and the value of Sobel's statistic is significant at the 95% confidence level (significance level is less than 0.05 has been). As a result, the climate of innovation has a positive and significant effect on innovative behavior according to the mediating role of intellectual agility, and the hypothesis is confirmed.
Conclusion:
The present research has investigated the effect of entrepreneurial leadership in encouraging the innovative behavior of employees with the consecutive mediating role of innovation climate and intellectual agility. It can be acknowledged that entrepreneurial leaders play an important role in today's society. By using their abilities and capabilities, they will be able to encourage employees to show innovative and creative behaviors. One of the abilities of entrepreneurial leaders is that they lead employees to identify and exploit opportunities. This leadership role causes the employees to feel useful, so they are motivated to identify opportunities and take advantage of them for the benefit of the organization.