Impact of green inclusive leadership on employee green creativity: mediating roles of green passion and green absorptive capacity

Purpose Organizations encourage green creativity among their employees to reduce environmental pollution and attain sustainable development. Green, inclusive leadership can produce positive outcomes and influence employees' green innovation. However, green inclusive leadership and green creativity are empirically less examined in the sustainability literature. Therefore, this study theorized a conceptual model based on the organizational creativity theory to explore the influence of green inclusive leadership on employees’ green creativity. It also aimed to explore the intermediating effect of green passion and green absorptive capacity on the relationship between green inclusive leadership and green creativity. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered through a self-administered questionnaire-based survey from 540 employees of a manufacturing enterprise in China. The hypotheses were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. Findings The findings reveal that green inclusive leadership positively and significantly influences employees' green creativity. Moreover, the results show that green passion and green absorptive capacity play positive mediating roles in the relationship between green inclusive leadership and green creativity. Practical implications This study offers practical implications for Chinese manufacturing enterprises, where green inclusive leadership is essential to enhance green passion, green absorptive capacity and green creativity among employees. Originality/value Drawing upon the organizational creativity theory, this research study is novel because it is one of the few empirical research studies to explore green inclusive leadership and green creativity in Chinese manufacturing enterprises. It further establishes the positive mediating role of green passion and green absorptive capacity in the relationship between green inclusive leadership and green creativity.