HOW DOES TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP FOSTER TEACHERS’ INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOR? A SEQUENTIAL CAPABILITY-BUILDING MODEL VIA TALENT MANAGEMENT AND TEACHER SELF-EFFICACY IN CHINESE TVET UNIVERSITIES

This study examines how transformational leadership relates to teachers’ innovative work behavior at Chinese vocational and technical universities and tests a sequential mechanism involving talent management and teacher self-efficacy. Survey data were collected from 429 full-time teachers across six TVET universities in Gansu Province using systematic random sampling and analyzed with covariance-based structural equation modeling. Transformational leadership showed a modest but significant direct association with innovative work behavior and strongly predicted talent management. Talent management did not directly predict innovative work behavior but was positively associated with teacher self-efficacy, which emerged as the strongest proximal predictor of innovative work behavior. Bootstrapped mediation tests supported the serial pathway from transformational leadership to innovative work behavior through talent management and teacher self-efficacy, whereas single-mediator routes were not supported. The findings suggest that leadership becomes behaviorally consequential when translated into enabling development infrastructures that strengthen teachers’ efficacy resources, offering implications for implementation capacity building in reform-intensive TVET settings.