Digital Leadership and Employees' Innovative Work Behavior in Creative Design Enterprises: Evidence from Chongqing, China

This study examines the relationship between digital leadership and employee innovative work behavior in AIGC-enabled creative design enterprises in Chongqing, China. It pursues three objectives: to test the direct relationship between digital leadership and innovative work behavior; to examine the mediating roles of STARA awareness, digital work self-efficacy, and digital organizational citizenship behavior; and to assess the moderating role of work autonomy. Grounded in social cognitive theory and social exchange theory, the study proposes that digital leadership is related to innovation through lower AI-related threat, stronger digital confidence, and voluntary digital knowledge sharing, with work autonomy shaping these relationships. A sequential mixed-methods design was used. Semi-structured interviews with 25 employees and managers informed construct contextualization and item wording, followed by a pilot test with 116 valid responses. The main survey obtained 516 valid responses from employees across nine creative design subsectors. Data were analyzed using CFA, SEM, bias-corrected bootstrapping, and hierarchical regression. Results supported all 13 hypotheses. Digital leadership was positively associated with innovative work behavior, digital work self-efficacy, and digital organizational citizenship behavior, and negatively associated with STARA awareness. STARA awareness was negatively associated with innovative work behavior, whereas digital work self-efficacy and digital organizational citizenship behavior were positively associated with it. The three mediation paths jointly accounted for 75.9% of the total effect. Work autonomy buffered the negative STARA awareness–innovation link and strengthened the positive links from digital work self-efficacy and digital organizational citizenship behavior to innovation. These findings extend digital leadership research by identifying a cognitive–capability–citizenship mechanism for innovation in autonomy-supportive AIGC work.