Leaders’ Calling and Employees’ Innovation: Mediating Role of Work Meaning and Moderating Effect of Supervisor’s Embodiment

The objective of this research is to investigate whether and how leaders' sense of calling influences employees' innovative behavior, and to explore the conditions that may define the boundaries of this effect. This research, based on the theory of interpersonal sensemaking, conducted an empirical analysis using data from 186 pairs of supervisor-subordinate matching questionnaires and developed a moderated mediation model. We hypothesized and found that: firstly, leaders’ calling directly enhanced employees’ innovative behavior. Secondly, the relationship between the leaders’ calling and employees’ innovative behavior was mediated by employee’s sense of work meaning. Thirdly, the supervisor’s organizational embodiment positively regulated the relationship between the leaders’ calling and the employee’s sense of work meaning. Specifically, when the degree of supervisor’s organizational embodiment is higher, the relationship between the leaders’ calling and employee’s work meaning will be stronger. At the same time, the supervisor’s organizational embodiment positively regulates the mediating effect. Specifically, when the degree of supervisor’s organizational embodiment is higher, the mediating effect of employee’s work meaning is stronger.