Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article is well build on research evidence. It is very technical and statistical methods are convincing. We miss some information about the data set (more explanation about the respondents, their activity, sector, etc…). We also suggest to add some practical managerial advices that could make the article more convincing. The conclusions remain to technical and less practical.

The title does not reflects the contents of this article. There is no explanation why the perspective of a developing country plays a role as is suggested in the title.

We would like to know the kind of activities or sectors the respondents are working in. Are respondents linked to a knowledge intensive sector, or to the industrial sector, or other? What about the average size of companies? We suggest to give some more information about the data set.

Why not working with control variables to enrich the explanation and RSquare?

Since answers come from leaders and subordinates. A problem may arise in terms of multi-level explanation. The questionnaire and questions are different for leaders and subordinates in terms of their perspective. Subordinates have different perceptions of TL or other variables then leaders have. How do you cope with this problem?

Author Response

To Reviewer 1:

Thanks for your useful comments and constructive suggestions for the revision. As per your suggestion, we revised/corrected the paper.

Comment 1: We miss some information about the data set (more explanation about the respondents, their activity, sector, etc…).

Our response: We added details information in page 5 and 6.

Comment 2: We also suggest to add some practical managerial advices that could make the article more convincing.

Our response: We revised managerial implications in page 14.

Comment 3: The conclusions remain to technical and less practical

Our response: We revised conclusion for making it convincing at page 14.

Comment 4 The title does not reflects the contents of this article. There is no explanation why the perspective of a developing country plays a role as is suggested in the title.

Our response: We explained it the last two paragraphs of introduction at page 2, and in the last paragraph of discussion at page 22

Comment 5: We would like to know the kind of activities or sectors the respondents are working in. Are respondents linked to a knowledge intensive sector, or to the industrial sector, or other? What about the average size of companies? We suggest to give some more information about the data set.

Our response: We explain it in page 5.

Comment 6: Why not working with control variables to enrich the explanation and RSquare?

Our response: We have added control variable in page 6. In table 3, we have found that none of the control variables have any significant associations with the variables in the structural model. Hence, we decline to add them in the structural model as they are not significantly associated in the correlation analysis.

Comment 7: Since answers come from leaders and subordinates. A problem may arise in terms of multi-level explanation. The questionnaire and questions are different for leaders and subordinates in terms of their perspective. Subordinates have different perceptions of TL or other variables then leaders have. How do you cope with this problem?

Our response: In introduction, we noted the previous studies limitation that the generalizability of the previous study was impaired due to the self-report, and other reports. Thus studies [see Podsakoff et al. (2003), Gupta et al. (2017), and Zhang and Bartol (2010)] urged to go for both reports survey to minimize the response bias. Hence, we administered two separate questionnaires (both reports)-one for leader and one for subordinates to prevent the limitations of self-report and other-report.

Please feel free to contact us for any further concern regarding the paper.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author(s)

Let me thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting and well written piece. I beleive the paper does have merits to be published. Below are some comments that would hopefully improve the paper further:

A concise and well written introduction, which does a very good job setting the scene of the research. This being said, more need to be done in relation to the contribution of the paper. The authors argue that: “Despite the conspicuous importance of CPE and sustainable IWB to the organisational 48 competitiveness, few studies have been conducted in the developing and South Asian nations 49 including Bangladesh [24,25]”. While this is a valid contextual contribution, the author(s) would need to justify/acknowledge the need to do additional research in developing countries. Why would this be important for these contexts?

Acronyms need to be introduced first. E.g. CPE

The link between TL and Intrinsic motivation needs to be supported first in order to support the mediating role of intrinsic motivation. Similarly, the link between Proactive behaviour and CPE need further enhancement. When mediations are hypothesised, the author(s) need to ensure that the direct links between the dependent ad mediating variables and between the mediating and dependent variables are clearly supported.

The methods are well explained, however, the sampling technique needs to be discussed. Also, I suggest the samples’ features to be presented in a table too.

The analysis is robust. However, collinearity issues should be assessed too.

The results are well discussed, however, the author(s) need to contextualise the findings further. Did the Bengali context play a role in shaping the results? Can this explain some of the contrasting findings with the literature?

Implications for employees and managers need to be combined as they tend to be overlapping.

Author Response

To Reviewer 2:

Thanks to reviewer (2) for valuable time and encouraging comments. We appreciate your comments to improve the merit of the paper. As per reviewer’s suggestion, we revised/corrected the paper.

Comment 1: While this is a valid contextual contribution, the author(s) would need to justify/acknowledge the need to do additional research in developing countries. Why would this be important for these contexts?

Our response: The comment is addressed in last two paragraphs in Introduction, and in the last paragraph of discussion in page 12.

Comment 2: Acronyms need to be introduced first. E.g. CPE.

Our response: We addressed this issues at introduction.

Comment 3: The link between TL and Intrinsic motivation needs to be supported first in order to support the mediating role of intrinsic motivation. Similarly, the link between Proactive behaviour and CPE need further enhancement..

Our response: We added the relevant discussion at page 3.

Comment 4: The methods are well explained, however, the sampling technique needs to be discussed. Also, I suggest the samples’ features to be presented in a table too.

Our response: We revised sampling technique and added table for demographic information.

Comment 5: The analysis is robust. However, collinearity issues should be assessed too.

Our response: We included collinearity assessment table (4) in page 9 for responding it.

Comment 6: The results are well discussed, however, the author(s) need to contextualise the findings further. Did the Bengali context play a role in shaping the results? Can this explain some of the contrasting findings with the literature?

Our response: We revised discussion by enacting more relevant discussion at first and paragraphs at pages 11-12.

Comment 7: Implications for employees and managers need to be combined as they tend to be overlapping.

Our response: We combined both and rewrote it as ‘Managerial Implications in page 13.

Please feel free to contact us for any further concern regarding the paper.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

The past century has witnessed dynamic changes in competition, globalization in the 23 workforce, internationalisation of business and its operations, and information and communication 24 technology [1]. These issues demand business enterprises to sustain their innovativeness seamlessly 25 for being competitive [2,3]. In effect, the research on creativity and innovation has experienced 26 robust growth in last few decades [4]. Recent studies shed light on employees’ autonomy, 27 motivation, and engagement for accelerating creative efforts [5-7]. Although, in most of the studies, 28 creativity is conceptualised as an outcome of a creative effort, however, the CPE part, which 29 precedes the creative outcome, is ignored [8,9]. With the interplay of the CPE’s constituents, such as 30 problem identification, information search, encoding, and an idea generation, employees come up 31 with a creative idea to resolve the prevalent problems in the organisation [8,10,11]. Until recently, 32 little is known about CPE’s contribution to sustainable IWB due to the limited stance in literature 33 and its relativity as a process by which the innovative outcome is comprehended [8,10].

CPE should be identified in the document the first time it is used, not just in the introduction. Same with IWB and TL.  "These issues demand business enterprises to sustain their innovativeness seamlessly for being competitive" means what? "limited stance in literature"--stance is not a good word here. "theory of creativity theorise" ?"nonformal"?

Transformational leadership needs to be defined and the key authors of the concept need to be addressed.

There needs to be a discussion of the influence of culture on leadership and on innovation and creativity by employees.

There is no discussion about what innovation and creativity in employees really means.  How much power is given to an employee to innovate on his or her own.  Can an employee use creativity to change the way a process works without discussing it with a manager? 

"The reported results advance the understanding that 466 nonetheless transformational leadership is directly connected to creative process engagement and 467 sustainable innovative work behaviours, but transformational leaders’ connection to employees’ 468 innovative work behaviours disappear whenever intrinsic motivation, proactive behaviour, creative 469 process engagement are employed as mediators." This makes little sense in terms of actually implementing it.  Transformational leadership is not learned; some of it is inherent.  Not all employees can be creative nor do they want to be.  Asian culture can work against employees being creative individualists.

5 Hypotheses is too many. Focus on two or three and explore them in detain so they can be used by practioners and other researchers. This would also allow for discussion of the differences in the respondents. The total survey needs to be in an appendix.  The sections on the questions do not include all the questions.  Proactive behavior has 5 items but only 3 are identified. It is not acceptable that the authors expect readers to accept the authors' assertion that all the questions are appropriate to the concept.

Author Response

To Reviewer 3:

Thanks to the reviewer for providing insightful recommendations to enrich the merit of the manuscript. We revised the paper as per the suggestions were given by the reviewer in the following areas.

Comment 1: Extensive editing of English language and style required 

Our response: We edited the manuscript from Sage Language Services (Order ID: 7DR95FCV; Invoice #: S7DR95FCV)

Comment 2: CPE should be identified in the document the first time it is used, not just in the introduction. Same with IWB and TL. 

Our response: We have addressed this issue in introduction.

Comment 3: "These issues demand business enterprises to sustain their innovativeness seamlessly for being competitive" means what? "limited stance in literature"--stance is not a good word here. "theory of creativity theorise" ?"nonformal"?

Our response: These issues were checked and removed from the literature.

Comment 4: Transformational leadership needs to be defined and the key authors of the concept need to be addressed.

Our response: We addressed this in page 3.

Comment 5: There needs to be a discussion of the influence of culture on leadership and on innovation and creativity by employees.

Our response: The impact of national culture on the influence of TL on CPE is recommended to study by the future researchers. Thus, it is mentioned in limitation section for the future enquiry.

Comment 6: There is no discussion about what innovation and creativity in employees really means.  How much power is given to an employee to innovate on his or her own. 

Our response: We revised the text in page 2 and 3.

Comment 7: Can an employee use creativity to change the way a process works without discussing it with a manager?  

Our response: In page 4, it is mentioned.

Comment 8: Not all employees can be creative nor do they want to be.  Asian culture can work against employees being creative individualists.

Our response: It is predominantly believed that Asian culture can work against employees. This why we study in Asian culture to see if the role of TL can make any difference. This respond is clarified in the last two paragraphs in Introduction, and also in the last paragraph in Discussion.

Comment 9: Hypotheses is too many.

Our response: Considering the conceptual model with 5 different variables, we rationalized hypotheses into 5 for explaining all the relationships.

Comment 10: The total survey needs to be in an appendix.

Our response: Appendix is attached before the list of References.

Please feel free to contact us for any further concern regarding the paper.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

The authors

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Corrections have been made and content strengthened.