Transformational Leadership, Organisational Learning, and Public Sector Innovation in Lagos State

This dissertation develops and empirically tests an original integrated model linking transformational leadership, organisational learning, and public sector innovation in Lagos State ministries, departments, and agencies, situated in Nigeria's South West geopolitical zone. While each of these three constructs has been individually studied in public administration contexts, their joint theoretical integration and empirical testing in a Nigerian sub-national public sector context represents an original contribution. The dissertation employs a multi-wave longitudinal quantitative design covering 22 Lagos State agencies over a four-year period from 2020 to 2023, with survey data collected from 780 civil servants at multiple organisational levels and matched to objective innovation output indicators from government annual reports. Cross-lagged panel modelling and PLS-SEM structural equation modelling serve as the primary analytical tools. Burns's Transformational Leadership Theory, Senge's Organisational Learning Framework, and the Innovation Management Theory by Hartley jointly provide the theoretical foundations. The dissertation proposes the Transformational-Learning-Innovation (TLI) Model, which specifies organisational learning as a full mediator of the transformational leadership-innovation relationship in public sector contexts, with psychological safety and resource availability as boundary conditions. Findings confirm the TLI Model with high statistical confidence and establish that organisational learning processes explain 67 percent of the variance in public sector innovation outputs attributable to leadership. The model offers transferable implications for leadership development strategies in Nigerian state governments. Keywords: transformational leadership, organisational learning, public sector innovation, Lagos State, structural equation modelling.