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Linking empowering leadership to innovative behavior in professional learning communities: the role of psychological empowerment and team psychological safety

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Abstract

This study investigates the mediating role of teachers’ psychological empowerment and the moderating role of team psychological safety in the relationship between empowering leadership and teachers’ innovative behavior in teaching and research groups (TR groups) as professional learning communities. In total, 507 teachers from 114 TR groups in China participated in this study. The multilevel model results show that empowering leadership improves teachers’ innovative behavior by increasing teachers’ psychological empowerment, which is not influenced by team psychological safety. A supplementary analysis shows that the relationship between team psychological safety and teachers’ innovative behavior is also mediated by psychological empowerment.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Fu Qiong, Xiang Xiaotong, and You Yushi from Beijing Normal University for participating in this research. Furthermore, we thank Jiang Na, Michelle Pascoe and Dr. Kwok Kuen Tsang for polishing a draft of this manuscript.

Funding

This study is funded by the 2018 Comprehensive Discipline Construction Fund of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, and Beijing Office for Education Sciences Planning (AAFA16004).

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Correspondence to Jihai Yao.

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Zhu, J., Yao, J. & Zhang, L. Linking empowering leadership to innovative behavior in professional learning communities: the role of psychological empowerment and team psychological safety. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 20, 657–671 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-019-09584-2

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