A curvilinear relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity
ISSN: 0025-1747
Article publication date: 27 April 2020
Issue publication date: 4 September 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This study examined a curvilinear and moderated relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative performance in a real-world setting by drawing from the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect and the substitutes for leadership perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
We used multisource data collected from 232 employees and their immediate supervisors to test all hypotheses.
Findings
We found empirical support for an inverted U-shaped relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative performance. Moreover, job factor (i.e. job formalization) and individual differences (i.e. power distance) moderated the curvilinear relationship, such that the curvilinear relationship was more pronounced with lower job formalization or higher power distance of employees.
Originality/value
Our findings shed light on the inconsistent reports of transformational leadership's effects on employee creativity in previous studies. We extended substitutes for leadership perspective by providing a more systematic view for future research on how leadership and its substitutes jointly influence employee outcomes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We thank the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 19BGL115) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71602140; 71972144).
Citation
Ma, X., Jiang, W., Wang, L. and Xiong, J. (2020), "A curvilinear relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity", Management Decision, Vol. 58 No. 7, pp. 1355-1373. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-07-2017-0653
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited