Passion transfer across national borders

Abstract The transfer of a leader’s passion to employees is crucial to successful innovation, but it becomes especially challenging when the organization becomes large and complex. This study examines both the antecedents and consequences of corporate leaders’ passion transfer in the context of multinational corporations (MNCs). We consider two types of passion among leaders: “self-enhancing” passion, which enhances a leader’s own self-identity, and “self-transcending” passion, which helps members share an organizational identity. Our empirical data, collected at the level of the parent firm and subsidiaries, show that the successful transfer of a leader’s passion from headquarters to local staff is significantly and positively associated with innovation. Passion transfer is positively affected by both types of leaders’ passion and mutual communication, and negatively affected by incentive-based organizational barriers. We also find that self-enhancing passion affects innovation both directly and indirectly through passion transfer, whereas self-transcending passion affects innovation only through passion transfer.