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1. Introduction
During the latest years, a great deal of research has highlighted the importance of innovation for organizations (e.g. Jia et al., 2018; Prasad and Junni, 2016). In a turbulent, extremely dynamic and globalized context, innovation may help companies to improve their competitive position, respond to rivals, as well as to enhance financial and non-financial results. Therefore, innovation is a gateway to boost organizational performance and remain competitive (Lam, 2005). As a result, numerous studies try to analyze which are the mechanisms that promote innovation (e.g. Khalili, 2016).
The present research is part of the trend of studies that disentangle the antecedents of innovation within organizations. Precedent research found evidence of different facilitators for innovation to occur, such as appropriate information systems (Domínguez-Escrig et al., 2018), leadership style (Oke et al., 2009) or organizational learning (Jimenez-Jimenez et al., 2008), to name but a few. Among the enablers of innovation within companies, leadership plays an essential role (Prasad and Junni, 2016). Consequently, many studies have focused on the function of leaders to promote a proper environment that may lead to innovation (e.g. Domínguez Escrig et al., 2016; Jia et al., 2018; Prasad and Junni, 2016).
In the latest decades, the need for a change in management and leadership styles in business is evident. In this sense, some authors have identified some problems in contemporary organizations: for example, abusive supervision (Liu et al., 2012; Mitchell and Ambrose, 2007), unethical leadership (Brown and Mitchell, 2010), leader toxicity (Pelletier, 2010), destructive leadership (Krasikova et al., 2013), petty tyranny (Kant et al., 2013) and social isolation and alienation in the workplace (Sarros et al., 2002). Economic or environmental scandals, inappropriate behaviors within companies or unacceptable human resource management policies are reported more frequently (Sendjaya et al., 2008). So, toxic and harmful workplaces are becoming unnecessarily common in the organizational context, limiting the competitiveness of companies and organizations. As a consequence, a loss of confidence in the business world has spread in society and an interest in improving workplace conditions has arisen. Employees demand more friendly work centers, managers want to improve results and academics try to find ways to satisfy both objectives.
Therefore, companies have to be managed...