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The In today’s highly competitive world, only a small number of organizations can hope to survive and prosper. This reality equally applies to future research on creativity and innovation. Employee creativity and innovation can only flourish under effective leadership styles paired with a supportive culture and environment in the workplace. Hence, leadership plays a central role in encouraging creativity and innovation in organizational contexts. Leadership can be described as the act of influencing employees to strive enthusiastically toward achieving organizational objectives. In various definitions, leadership is presented as the process of guiding and influencing others to align their behaviors with organizational goals [1], [2]. In the contemporary business landscape, organizations must adapt to their surrounding environments to survive and remain competitive. To achieve this adaptation, organizations need to develop certain capabilities, such as fostering creativity, making swift and informed decisions, embracing calculated risks, leveraging advanced technologies, and aligning their processes with the dynamic demands of the market. Additionally, organizations must identify and address new customer needs while enhancing their competencies to align with market trends. To meet these goals, organizational leaders must adopt appropriate strategies, one of the most crucial being their method of guiding employees. If a manager can adapt their leadership style to varying circumstances and inspire entrepreneurial behaviors among their workforce, they can secure and elevate their organization’s position.

Businesses also face rapid changes and dynamic environments, necessitating that they direct their activities toward survival, competitive advantage, value creation, profitability, and sustainable growth. This requires the presence of leaders and managers with entrepreneurial and innovative approaches who can guide businesses toward a culture of commitment to entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation, ultimately driving superior performance.

Entrepreneurial leadership emerges as a new theoretical framework in the existing leadership and entrepreneurship literature, addressing the dynamic changes of the 21st century. While relatively novel, entrepreneurial leadership is significantly impactful as it focuses on creating value. In the modern era, creativity and innovation are vital in generating value, serving as essential prerequisites for organizational survival and development while also providing a competitive advantage.

Iqbal et al. [3] suggest that the concept of entrepreneurial leadership represents a critical phase in the evolution and transformation of businesses. This paradigm of leadership begins with defining a vision and engaging in strategic thinking. Subsequently, it fosters employee motivation and commitment, enabling the organization to explore and exploit emerging opportunities. Entrepreneurial leadership encourages innovation and the creative utilization of human and social capital, along with other organizational resources, to co-create value. Ultimately, it establishes the necessary foundation and environment to facilitate entrepreneurship within organizations [4].

Entrepreneurial leaders focus on enhancing the identification and exploitation of opportunities through their actions and influence on others. By setting examples and engaging in entrepreneurial behaviors themselves, they encourage others to imitate their practices and challenge the status quo. The passion, creativity, and vision of entrepreneurial leaders inspire employees to experiment and learn independently. Such leadership characterizes organizations that successfully seize new opportunities in a timely manner and derive value from them.

Risk-taking is the essence of fostering an innovative environment, as no innovation can occur without taking risks. Proposing something different and new inherently involves uncertainty; the idea may fail, face criticism, lack support, or even lead to outright failure. Without the courage to embrace such risks, innovations remain mere ideas. Therefore, leaders must cultivate and promote a non-punitive environment that encourages risk-taking.

Entrepreneurial leaders themselves exhibit risk-taking behaviors and inspire their employees to focus on creative tasks rather than mundane ones [5], [6]. Observing the risk-taking behaviors of their leaders, employees are expected to develop attitudes, confidence, and competencies to take calculated risks in their creative endeavors. Previous studies have established a positive relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity and innovation, emphasizing that a risk-tolerant environment significantly contributes to generating novel ideas. In other words, creative behaviors are closely tied to risk-taking.

The research methodology of this study is classified as applied in terms of its objective, as its results have practical applications. Regarding its nature and content, the study falls under the category of descriptive-survey research. Descriptive refers to the collection of information through library studies, while survey-based indicates that data collection tools include questionnaires. The research methodology is categorized as descriptive-survey in both aspects of nature and content.

Since data collection was conducted during the first half of 2023, the research is considered cross-sectional in terms of its temporal horizon. The statistical population comprises permanent and contractual employees of Aftab Oil Refining Company, totaling 148 individuals, as determined by Cochran’s formula. Simple random sampling was employed in this study.

To assess employee creativity, the study utilized the questionnaire developed by Zhou and George [7], which consists of 13 questions. Employee innovation was measured using Janssen's [8] questionnaire, comprising 9 questions. Entrepreneurial leadership was evaluated through Renko et al. [6] questionnaire, containing 8 questions that measure five dimensions: innovativeness, creativity, motivation, intense work enthusiasm, risk-taking, and visionary leadership.

The study also employed Segal et al. [9] questionnaire to measure risk-taking. This tool includes 15 questions divided into three dimensions: the willingness to pursue challenging goals in life, the inclination to undertake work with reasonable income and job security, and the desire to execute new and risk-taking projects. All questionnaires were based on a five-point Likert scale.

The relationships among the study’s components were analyzed using statistical software, with SPSS employed for data analysis.

To ensure the validity of the questionnaires, both face validity and construct validity (via Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)) were assessed. The face validity of the questionnaires was reviewed and confirmed by academic advisors and supervisors. Cronbach’s alpha and Composite Reliability (CR) metrics were utilized to evaluate the reliability of the reflective measurement model.

The factor loadings are presented in Table 1. All factor loadings for the variables exceed 0.5, indicating an acceptable level of validity.

According to the software output, the factor loadings of items 10, 32, 33, and 44 were reported to be less than 0.50. Therefore, these items are not validated and have been excluded from the analysis.

Cronbach’s Alpha is a criterion used to evaluate the internal consistency of questionnaire items. A Cronbach's Alpha value of 0.70 or higher is considered acceptable for each variable.

CR is a more advanced measure of reliability compared to Cronbach’s Alpha, as it evaluates the reliability of variables based on the correlation between indicators rather than using an absolute scale. If the CR of each variable is greater than 0.70, it indicates a reasonable internal consistency for the model [10]. The CR of each research variable is presented in Table 2.

After the validation of the questionnaire and model fit, which is part of the model fitting process, the research hypothesis must be examined.

previously mentioned, the main goal of this research was to examine the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on employee creativity and innovation. The regression test results showed that entrepreneurial leadership has an effect on creativity and innovation in employees.

Entrepreneurial leadership's effect on creativity is represented by a standardized Beta coefficient of 5.453. In other words, with an increase of one standard deviation in entrepreneurial leadership, employee creativity increases by 0.411 standard deviations.

The effect of entrepreneurial leadership on innovative behavior is represented by a standardized Beta coefficient of 12.372. In other words, with an increase of one standard deviation in entrepreneurial leadership, innovative behavior increases by 0.715 standard deviations. Entrepreneurial leadership, as a leadership style, involves generating new ideas, assessing risks, encouraging creativity, and enhancing employee confidence. In this context, the following recommendations can be made:

Creating a Creative and Innovative Organizational Culture: Leaders should strive to create a creative and innovative organizational culture. This can be achieved by fostering a dynamic environment and providing opportunities for new ideas and encouraging creativity.

Encouraging Risk-taking: Leaders should allow employees to take risks and propose new ideas. This can be done by creating an environment for idea sharing and encouraging risk-taking.

Providing Positive Feedback: Leaders should provide positive feedback and acknowledge employees' efforts. This can be done by encouraging the generation of new ideas and fostering creativity.

Providing Educational Opportunities: Leaders should provide training opportunities for employees to improve their creativity and innovation skills.

Encouraging Collaboration and Teamwork: Leaders should encourage employees to collaborate and work as a team. This can be done by creating spaces for collaboration and teamwork and encouraging new idea generation.

Creating an Environment to Enhance Self-Confidence: Leaders should create an environment to enhance employees' self-confidence. This can be achieved by encouraging risk-taking and new idea generation. In previous studies, a positive relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity and innovation was observed. However, the goal of this research was to investigate the mechanism through which this relationship is formed. The theoretical significance of this research lies in the fact that, in previous studies, the three components—entrepreneurial leadership, employee creativity and innovation, and employee risk-taking—have not been comprehensively studied together. Additionally, from a practical standpoint, this research can be vitally important for organizations, as in today's dynamic, challenging, and competitive business environment, employee creativity and innovation are crucial for achieving the fundamental goal of organizational survival. Subsequently, they help organizations gain a competitive advantage and improve their market share.

Therefore, this research focuses on entrepreneurial leadership, a new and highly regarded style in many organizations and among researchers. This style plays a crucial role in creating vision, guiding and encouraging employees, and creating value, and it explores its relationship with employee creativity and innovation, considering employee risk-taking as a key variable.

First and foremost, I thank God for His endless blessings, guidance, and strength throughout this journey. I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Golnaz Tajeddin, for her invaluable guidance, support, and encouragement.

I also want to express my heartfelt thanks to my parents for their unwavering love and support, which has been a constant source of strength and inspiration in my life.