Antecedents of Service Innovative Behavior: The Role of Spiritual Leadership and Workplace Spirituality

Abstract Background: Managers in labor-intensive industries are facing challenges on how to encourage innovation, as services are mostly offered by employees and not machines. Intense competition in the service and hospitality industry calls for more innovative work behavior exhibition among employees, and the question on how enterprises can nurture innovative behavior remains unanswered. The objective of the research is to clarify the inter-relationship between spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality and how their collective effect can nurture employee service innovative behavior in the hospitality industry by drawing on relational energy theory. Methodology: Data were obtained using a survey quantitative research method based on a convenience sampling technique from (n = 867) employees working in four- and five-star Jordanian hotels. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was applied to assess the proposed research model and hypotheses. Results: Findings from PLS-SEM show that spiritual leadership impacts and increases the level of workplace spirituality and service innovative behavior among employees. Workplace spirituality increases the level of service innovative behavior and mediates the relationship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. Conclusion: Spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality initiatives and practices can be beneficial for hospitality enterprises in terms of service innovative behavior. Moreover, the key point is that hospitality HR practitioners should not only focus on selecting, training, and appointing leaders with spiritual characteristics, but also on creating a spiritual work atmosphere to enable employees to exhibit service innovative behaviors. The results did not only advance our knowledge concerning the nexus and importance of spirituality in the workplace, but also validates and reveals the importance of spirituality on innovative behavior in the Arabian context.