Employee Performance Improvement Based on Leadership, Innovation, and Creativity with Job Satisfaction as an Intervening Variable: A Study on Culinary SMEs in Kendari City
Keywords:
Leadership, Innovation, Creativity, Job Satisfaction, Employee PerformanceAbstract
This study aims to examine the influence of leadership, innovation, and creativity on the performance of employees in culinary SMEs, both directly and indirectly through job satisfaction as a mediating variable. Field observations indicate that many culinary SMEs encounter challenges in optimizing employee performance due to ineffective leadership, low levels of innovation and creativity, and suboptimal job satisfaction. A quantitative approach is employed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with a Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique. The research sample comprises 150 employees of culinary SMEs in Kendari City selected through purposive sampling. The results show that leadership, innovation, and creativity exert positive and significant effects on job satisfaction, which in turn mediates the relationship between these three variables and employee performance. In addition, leadership, innovation, and creativity also have significant direct effects on employee performance. These findings suggest that job satisfaction functions as a psychological mechanism that reinforces the impact of leadership, innovation, and creativity on improving employee performance. The practical implications underscore the importance of developing transformational leadership, strengthening an innovation-oriented culture, and providing space for employees’ creative expression in order to enhance job satisfaction and performance. This study contributes to the management of culinary SMEs by offering insights for designing effective human resource management strategies to increase productivity and business competitiveness.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
