Abstract: Paternalistic leadership (PL) is an emerging topic in the field of leadership and organization behavior, and its application, explanation, and effect are worth investigating. From the perspectives of knowledge management, we proposed a multi-level conceptual model. We explored the content and structure of PL in the context of university organization and revised PL’s scales through 80 scientific research teams (SRTs) data from universities in Beijing and Guangdong. Then, we chose 342 SRTs, which are granted by China Ministry of Education, to investigate with our questionnaires. The study results show that there is PL behavior with SRT leader, but the contents and constructure are different with conclusion in the context of enterprise. SRT leader’s benevolent, moral, and authoritarian leadership have different effect paths on team team-level innovation performance via the mediating variables of knowledge sharing and integration.

Key words: scientific research team, paternalistic leadership, innovation performance, multi-level research