Éditorial

Small and medium companies (SMEs) constitute a sector that is crucial in addressing the worldwide demands of 21st-century businesses. To perpetually enhance and maintain the operations of SMEs globally, there is a must for increased innovation stemming from value addition, particularly in emerging economies. This necessity facilitates the examination of which specific leadership behavior’s impact the innovative performance of SMEs. A quantitative research methodology employed a cross-sectional survey to collect 305 responses from business owners and management personnel of SMEs by convenience sampling. We find that leader support for innovation and entrepreneurial competence are positively associated with innovation performance, whereas delegation shows a non-significant, slightly negative direct effect. Moderation analyses reveal that entrepreneurial orientation and technology orientation amplify the effects of entrepreneurial competence and delegation, while market orientation strengthens the effect of leader support for innovation. The results suggest that supportive leaders and entrepreneurially competent leaders foster SME innovation, and that delegation pays off only in firms with a strong entrepreneurial and technology orientation, whereas support is most effective under strong market orientation. We discuss implications for leadership development and strategic orientation in resource-constrained SME settings.