Premium
AN EXAMINATION OF LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY: THE RELEVANCE OF TRAITS AND RELATIONSHIPS
Author(s) -
TIERNEY PAMELA,
FARMER STEVEN M.,
GRAEN GEORGE B.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
personnel psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.076
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1744-6570
pISSN - 0031-5826
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-6570.1999.tb00173.x
Subject(s) - creativity , psychology , supervisor , leadership style , social psychology , perspective (graphical) , relevance (law) , test (biology) , intrinsic motivation , management , paleontology , artificial intelligence , computer science , political science , law , economics , biology
Creativity is becoming a topic of ever‐increasing interest to organizational managers. Thus, there is a need for a greater understanding of the dynamics between the personal and contextual factors responsible for creative performance in work settings. In particular, there is a need to identify the role of leadership for creativity. Until now, creativity studies have examined leadership and employee characteristics from a single‐domain perspective. Data from 191 R&D employees of a large chemical company were used to test a multidomain, interactionist creativity model of employee characteristics, leader characteristics, and Leader‐Member Exchange (LMX). Results suggest that employee intrinsic motivation and cognitive style, LMX, the interactions between employee intrinsic motivation and leader intrinsic motivation, and between LMX and employee cognitive style relate to employee creative performance as measured by supervisor ratings, invention disclosure forms, or research reports. Implications for practicing managers and research on leadership and creativity are discussed.