Does Self-Serving Leadership Hinder Team Creativity? A Moderated Dual-Path Model

Jian Peng (), Zhen Wang () and Xiao Chen ()
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Jian Peng: Guangzhou University
Zhen Wang: Central University of Finance and Economics
Xiao Chen: Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 159, issue 2, No 8, 419-433

Abstract: Abstract Self-serving leadership is a form of unethical leadership behavior that has destructive effect on its targets and the overall organization. Adopting a social cognition perspective, this study expands our knowledge of its adverse effect and the way to mitigate the effect. Integrating two sub-theories of social cognition (social information processing and social learning), we propose a theoretical model wherein self-serving leadership hinders team creativity through psychological safety as well as knowledge hiding, with task interdependence acting as a contextual condition. Results from a sample of 107 R&D teams revealed that self-serving leadership not only reduced team psychological safety, but also induced team knowledge hiding, both of which ultimately affected team creativity. The presence of high task interdependence buffered the destructive effect of self-serving leadership on team creativity via team psychological safety as well as the indirect effect via knowledge hiding.

Keywords: Self-serving leadership; Team creativity; Psychological safety; Team knowledge hiding; Task interdependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3799-0

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