This paper investigates how participative leadership and employee voice behavior stimulate innovative behavior, through the moderating role of job autonomy within the SMEs context. Responses from 547 frontline employees at Egyptian travel agents were collected. Using variance-based structural equation modeling (VB-SEM), the results revealed that participative leadership significantly influenced both employees’ voice behavior and their innovative behavior. The findings also indicated that employee voice behavior has an intervening role between participative leadership and workers’ innovative behavior in travel agents. In addition, participative leadership has higher effects on both employee voice behavior and employee innovative behavior with high levels of job autonomy. Finally, employee voice behavior exercises a stronger effect on the innovation of travel agents’ employees with greater levels of job autonomy. Besides theoretical contributions, managerial implications for tourism SMEs managers and practitioners, limitations, and further research directions were all presented.

本文通过工作自主权在中小企业背景下的调节作用，研究了参与式领导和员工建言行为如何刺激创新行为。收集了埃及旅行社 547 名一线员工的回复。使用基于方差的结构方程模型 (VB-SEM)，结果显示，参与式领导显着影响员工的发言行为和他们的创新行为。研究结果还表明，员工建言行为在参与式领导和旅行社员工创新行为之间具有干预作用。此外，具有高度工作自主性的参与式领导对员工建言行为和员工创新行为都有更高的影响。最后，员工建言行为对工作自主程度更高的旅行社员工创新的影响更大。除了理论贡献外，还提出了对旅游中小企业管理者和从业者的管理启示、局限性和进一步的研究方向。