Linking empowering leadership and employee creativity: the influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 24, Issue 5

Zhang X. and Bartol K.M.Academy of Management Journal (USA), February 2010, Vol. 53 No 1, Start page: 107, No. of pages: 22

Synthesizing leadership theories, empowerment theories, and creativity theories, this research built and tested a theoretical model linking empowering leadership with creativity via several intervening variables. Using survey data from professional employees and their supervisors in a large IT company in China, we found that, as anticipated, empowering leadership positively affected psychological empowerment, which in turn influenced both intrinsic motivation and creative process engagement. These latter two variables then had a positive influence on creativity. Empowerment role identity moderated the link between empowering leadership and psychological empowerment, whereas leader encouragement of creativity moderated the connection between psychological empowerment and creative process engagement. Article type: Research paper ISSN:0001-4273 Reference: 39AL516

Keywords: China, Creative thinking, Empowerment, Leadership,Motivation (psychology)