Principal boundary activities and senior management team innovation: The moderating role of role stressors

This study examines whether senior teachers’ perceptions of role stressors moderate the relationship between their principals’ boundary activities and senior management team innovation in school. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, we focus on three stressors known to heighten teachers’ tension and burnout: role overload, role ambiguity, and role conflict. To reduce same-source and common-method bias, data were collected from two sources: senior management team members and principals, yielding 359 participants across 89 high schools. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that role overload and role conflict, but not role ambiguity, moderate the relationship between principal boundary activities and senior management team innovation. These findings highlight important implications for both principals and school management teams, particularly regarding resource allocation, work-design decisions, and targeted professional development to foster innovation under conditions of stress.