Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Sharing in Innovation Systems
Summary
Transformational leadership and knowledge sharing lie at the heart of contemporary innovation systems. Transformational leaders inspire, challenge and support followers to transcend routine practices, fostering a culture in which new ideas are both generated and refined. Knowledge sharing—through the exchange of explicit and tacit insights—serves as the conduit by which individual creativity is converted into collective innovation. Together, these dynamics shape organisational agility, resilience and competitive advantage across diverse sectors and geographies. In an era marked by rapid technological change and global interconnectivity, understanding how leadership behaviours catalyse knowledge flows is essential for designing policies and practices that sustain both incremental improvements and radical breakthroughs.
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Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Sharing in Innovation Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in transformational leadership and knowledge sharing in innovation systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Transformational leadership: A leadership style characterised by inspiring vision, intellectual stimulation and individualised support to motivate followers to exceed expected performance.
Knowledge sharing: The process by which employees exchange explicit (documented) and tacit (experiential) knowledge to enhance collective understanding and innovation capacity.
Radical innovation: The development of fundamentally new products, services or processes that create new markets or disrupt existing ones.
Knowledge management capability: An organisation’s ability to acquire, store, transfer and apply knowledge effectively in support of strategic objectives.
High-involvement HRM practices: Human resource practices that actively engage employees in decision-making, skill development and problem-solving activities to foster innovation.
References
- High-involvement HRM practices stimulate incremental and radical innovation: The roles of knowledge sharing and market turbulence. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity (2023).
- Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Sharing: Determinants of Firm’s Operational and Financial Performance. SAGE Open (2020).
- Transformational leadership and radical innovation for sustainability: mediating role of knowledge management capability and moderating role of competitive intensity. Innovation & Management Review (2022).
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