Just the right amount of ethics inspires creativity: a cross-level investigation of ethical leadership, intrinsic motivation, and employee creativity
Just the right amount of ethics inspires creativity: a cross-level investigation of ethical leadership, intrinsic motivation, and employee creativity
Based on ideology-infused psychological contract theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this study investigated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. A curvilinear mediation model was proposed to explain the impact of ethical leadership on creativity, using employee intrinsic motivation as the mediator. Applying a two wave sampling design that consist 258 employees and their leaders, we found that employee creativity improved as ethical leadership increased from low to moderate levels. However, the employee creativity improvement was attenuated when ethical leadership increased from moderate to high levels. Furthermore, the study also revealed that employee intrinsic motivation partially mediated this curvilinear relationship. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
645-658
Feng, Jie
04452f3e-c817-4657-a717-f535e1378d73
Zhang, Yucheng
3a7eb0ef-8c03-419f-abdf-4f11f9d097ea
Liu, Xinmei
32792743-8fb0-488e-a208-b556ae73489d
Zhang, Long
1f6aac80-9c61-475a-bc48-30647d37c93f
Han, Xiao
d9285409-4a39-474f-9e8c-c739f771123b
1 December 2018
Feng, Jie
04452f3e-c817-4657-a717-f535e1378d73
Zhang, Yucheng
3a7eb0ef-8c03-419f-abdf-4f11f9d097ea
Liu, Xinmei
32792743-8fb0-488e-a208-b556ae73489d
Zhang, Long
1f6aac80-9c61-475a-bc48-30647d37c93f
Han, Xiao
d9285409-4a39-474f-9e8c-c739f771123b
Feng, Jie, Zhang, Yucheng, Liu, Xinmei, Zhang, Long and Han, Xiao
(2018)
Just the right amount of ethics inspires creativity: a cross-level investigation of ethical leadership, intrinsic motivation, and employee creativity.
Journal of Business Ethics, 153 (3), .
(doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3297-1).
Abstract
Based on ideology-infused psychological contract theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this study investigated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. A curvilinear mediation model was proposed to explain the impact of ethical leadership on creativity, using employee intrinsic motivation as the mediator. Applying a two wave sampling design that consist 258 employees and their leaders, we found that employee creativity improved as ethical leadership increased from low to moderate levels. However, the employee creativity improvement was attenuated when ethical leadership increased from moderate to high levels. Furthermore, the study also revealed that employee intrinsic motivation partially mediated this curvilinear relationship. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
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Accepted/In Press date: 2 August 2016
Published date: 1 December 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 481478
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/481478
ISSN: 0167-4544
PURE UUID: 65c06047-4474-4cd1-83a9-d374361b66ba
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Date deposited: 29 Aug 2023 17:21
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:21
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Contributors
Author:
Jie Feng
Author:
Yucheng Zhang
Author:
Xinmei Liu
Author:
Long Zhang
Author:
Xiao Han
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