How does ethical leadership boost follower's creativity? Examining mediation and moderation mechanisms

Sajjad Nazir, Amina Shafi, Muhammad Ali Asadullah, Wang Qun and Sahar Khadim

European Journal of Innovation Management, 2020, vol. 24, issue 5, 1700-1729

Abstract: Purpose - The main purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism through voice behavior mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' creativity. This study also examines the moderating role of psychological empowerment and innovative climate between ethical leadership and employee creativity. Design/methodology/approach - We used a survey questionnaire to collect multi-wave data from 295 employees working in the IT sector to test the proposed hypotheses of this study. Findings - The findings revealed that ethical leadership boosts employee creativity, and voice behavior mediates the positive relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. Moreover, the results confirm the significant moderating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between ethical leadership and voice behavior. A positive moderation of innovative climate was also confirmed in the association between voice behavior and creativity. Employees with supportive innovative climate adopt creative behavior when they can voice their concerns freely. Practical implications - Ethical leadership is a vital tool for fostering employee's creativity by providing autonomy to raise their voice at the workplace in the emerging markets. Originality/value - This is one of the leading researches to emphasize the role of ethical leadership for employee creativity, and the key contribution is to discover voice as a potential mediator for ethical leadership and an innovative climate as a potential moderator in the relationship between voice behavior and employee creativity.

Keywords: Ethical leadership; Voice behavior; Psychological empowerment; Innovative climate; Creativity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ejimpp:ejim-03-2020-0107

DOI: 10.1108/EJIM-03-2020-0107

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