Servant leadership and innovative work behaviour: a meta-analytic structural equation modelling examination of the mediating role of psychological empowerment

Purpose Servant leadership (SL) is argued to foster employees’ innovative work behaviour (IWB) by empowering them, yet primary studies have tested psychological empowerment (PE) as the intervening variable only in fragments. This study aims to synthesise the available evidence on how far PE accounts for the SL–IWB association. Design/methodology/approach Following PRISMA 2020, 17 field studies (combined n = 6,378) reporting at least one of the SL–PE, PE–IWB and SL–IWB correlations were meta-analysed. Pooled correlations were fitted to a mediation model using two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modelling, with sensitivity and small-study checks. Findings SL, PE and IWB were positively associated. The SL–IWB association operated partly through empowerment, which accounted for about half of the total association, while a smaller direct association remained. Empowerment is thus an important but incomplete pathway, not the sole route. Associations varied substantially across studies. Research limitations/implications Much of the primary evidence is cross-sectional and single-source, and the empowerment cells rest on fewer studies, so the findings describe observed associations rather than causal effects; small-study diagnostics indicated no clear bias but had limited power. Practical implications The pattern is consistent with developing SL capability and helping employees experience it as genuine empowerment, though the synthesis cannot show these practices cause innovation. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first meta-analytic structural equation model to position PE as the focal intervening variable between SL and IWB and to quantify the heterogeneity in this literature.