CEO TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND SME INNOVATION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL AND EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION

It is widely accepted that CEOs with a transformational leadership style can promote innovation in the organisations they lead, but the specific ways in which they influence followers and shape the organisational context to increase innovation remain largely unexplored. Improvement of our understanding of this relationship requires identifying and explaining the mechanisms that allow transformational CEOs to mobilise employees towards an active support of innovation. We argue that top managers who portray a transformational leadership style have a positive effect on organisational innovation by improving how the firm exchanges and communicates information and knowledge, that is, by increasing employees' participation and social capital. Data from a sample of 194 executives from 97 Ecuadorian small- and medium-sized firms provide support for our hypotheses.