All executives in today's highly competitive business environment must demonstrate effective leadership skills. The leader-member exchange is one of the basic ingredients of leadership that can embody employee behaviors to exhibit innovative work behavior and perceived organizational support within organizations. The innovative work behavior depends on the supportive work environment and such organizational climates are perceived as being oriented towards creativity and innovation. The research findings signify that the relationship between leader-member exchange and innovative work behavior is mediated by perceived organizational support that serves as the main goal of this study. By applying a variety of statistical techniques including exploratory factor analysis and mediation effect analysis on a sample composed of 268 employees from a state-owned entity undertaking R&D projects, strong empirical support has been found for all the theory-driven hypothesized statements, including the mediating mechanism of perceived organizational support. This study is aimed to provide an important contribution to the existing literature by offering a profound description of how leadership characteristics of employee-centered supervisors affect the dispositional state of the employees and ultimately their roles in organizational sustainability. The results of the present study provide managers and employees with a mechanism in order to enable innovation at the workplace so that the organization can also succeed in tough competitive environments. This study provides insights into the dynamic structure of leader-member exchange in the behavioral and organizational context and it concludes by succeeding theoretical and practical implications for employees’ innovative work behavior and suggesting directions for further empirical investigations.

Keywords: Leader-Member Exchange, Innovative Work Behavior, Perceived Organizational Support, Research And Development Enterprise.