Innovative work behavior is the key to the sustainable competitiveness of the tourism industry. This study aims to investigate ways to enhance innovative work behavior among tourism employees. The data were collected from 452 employees across various tourism enterprises in the Chongqing region of China. Multi-level structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data. A significant positive relationship was found between leader humility and empowering leadership. In addition, harmonious passion and self-efficacy positively mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and innovative work behavior. Tourism organizations should realize that leader humility can effectively promote empowering leadership. Managers should be humble and observe employees' harmonious passion at work. They should also focus on creating a quality job environment that fosters work engagement and self-efficacy to enhance innovative work behavior among tourism employees. This study examines how to enhance tourism employees' innovative work behavior by developing and testing a research model that incorporates perceived empowering leadership and explores the mediating effects of harmonious passion and self-efficacy. This paper demonstrates the value of humble leader behavior in fostering innovative behavior within the tourism industry in China.
Bo et al. (2025) studied this question.