دانلود مقاله پیوند رهبری استبدادی با خلاقیت کارکنان
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Literature review and research hypotheses
3- Method
4- Data analysis and results
5- Discussion and implications
References
Abstract
Purpose – The present study aims to examine how and when authoritarian leadership affects employee creativity. Based on social exchange theory and team identification literature, the present research attempts to simultaneously explore how leader–member exchange (LMX) and team identification serve as two important mediating processes in the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity. Furthermore, this research uncovers the mechanism under which conditions the effects of authoritarian leadership will be magnified or minimized. Design/methodology/approach – A survey has been conducted in China by using a questionnaire to collect data. The study sample consisted of 325 employees. LISREL 8.7 and SPSS 18.0 were used to test the mediating and moderating effects, respectively. Findings – Results from 325 employees revealed that both LMX and team identification mediated the negative relationships between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity. Specifically, the relationship between two mediators was that LMX was positively related to team identification. In addition, the relationship between authoritarian leaderships and LMX and team identification was moderated by power distance, such that the negative relationships will be weaker with high power distance and stronger with low power distance. Practical implications – First, firms and managers should recognize and take actions to reduce the negative effects of authoritarian leadership, such as effective selection system and interventional mechanisms because authoritarian leadership is important in influencing employee creativity. Second, managers are suggested to take specific actions, such as increasing communications and team-building activities, to promote LMX and team identification, thereby enhancing employee creativity. Third, managers should engage in behaviors that motivate employee creativity, such as empowerment behaviors, other than authoritarian leadership, when the employee has low power distance. Originality/value – The primary contribution of this research is that two psychological processes (i.e. LMX and team identification) have been identified through which authoritarian leadership is related to employee creativity. Meanwhile, this study explores the relationship between LMX and team identification. Moreover, the current research deepens our understanding of power distance by empirically examining the moderating effect of power distance. Overall, the findings extend our understanding about the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity and contribute to literature on authoritarian leadership and creativity.
Introduction
Managers’ leadership has been widely considered as the key factor affecting employee creativity (Herrmann and Felfe, 2013; Le et al., 2017; Shalley and Gilson, 2004; Shalley et al., 2004; Qu et al., 2015). The various leadership styles, such as empowering leadership and transformational leadership, have been applied to exercise managers’ formal authority and position power, which have largely played the positive role in affecting employee creativity (Gong et al., 2009; Zhang and Bartol, 2010). Recently, however, much attention has focused on “the dark, or destructive, side of leadership” (Lee et al., 2013). The increase in frequency of such destructive leader behaviors and their significant impact on organizational and individual outcomes in the workplace are important reasons for this research interest. One such a construct that embodies leaders’ ineffective behavior is that of authoritarian leadership, which refers to a leadership approach that emphasizes leaders’ absolute authority and requires subordinates to be absolutely obedient (Cheng et al., 2000). Particularly in the Chinese culture, authoritarian leadership has been viewed as an important contextual factor that affect employees’ willingness and motivation to engage in creative activities because authoritarian leadership emphasize on obedience to authority and discourage the creative thinking of employee (Zhang et al., 2011). Given its dominance role in Chinese modern organizations (Zhang et al., 2015) and its significant role in influencing employee behaviors, few studies have begun to examine the effects of authoritarian leadership on creativity. For example, Zhang et al. (2011) reported a negative relationship between authoritarian leadership and group creativity at the group level.