Drawing on organismic integration theory, we propose that transformational leadership and transactional leadership are most likely to predict outcomes, under uncertain social contexts, when accompanied by organizational financial and nonfinancial rewards. Using survey data from professional employees and their supervisors, from 260 Chinese enterprises, with less than 5 years of entrepreneurial experience, we found that (1) transformational leadership is not significantly related to employee creativity, while transactional leadership is positively related to followers’ creative behaviors, (2) synergy between transformational leadership and financial rewards and between transactional leadership and nonfinancial rewards accentuate the effect on employee creativity respectively, (3) psychological empowerment fully mediates the aforementioned relationship. These findings offer a new theoretical framework for future theory development of leadership.
AmabileT. M. (1993). Motivational synergy: Toward new conceptualizations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the workplace. Human Resource Management Review, 3, 185-201.
2.
AmabileT. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the psychology of creativity. High Ability Studies, 2, 100-101.
3.
AmabileT. M.ContiR. (1999). Changes in the work environment for creativity during downsizing. Academy of Management Journal, 42, 630-640.
4.
AmabileT. M.SchatzelE. A.MonetaG. B.KramerS. J. (2004). Leader behaviors and the work environment for creativity: Perceived leader support. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 5-32.
5.
ArmstrongM.MurlisH. (2007). Reward management: A handbook of remuneration strategy and practice (5th ed.). London, England: Kogan Page.
6.
AvolioB. J.ZhuW.KohW.BhatiaP. (2004). Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: Mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of structural distance. Journal of organizational behavior, 25(8), 951-968.
7.
BarsadeS. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 644-675.
8.
BassB. M.RiggioR. E. (2006). Transformational leadership. London, England: Psychology Press.
9.
BassB. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Collier Macmillan.
10.
BasuR.GreenS. G. (1997). Leader–member exchange and transformational leadership: An empirical examination of innovative behaviors in leader-member dyads. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 27, 477-499.
11.
BoxallP.PurcellJ. (2003). Strategy and human resource management. London, England: Palgrave Macmillan.
12.
BrislinR. W. (1986). The wording and translation of research instruments. In LonnerW. J.BerryJ. W. (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Research and Methodology Series: Vol. 8. Field methods in cross-cultural research (pp. 137-164). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
13.
BrownM. E.TreviñoL. K. (2006). Socialized charismatic leadership, values congruence, and deviance in work groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 954.
14.
BurnsJ. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
15.
CarlessS. A. (2004). Does psychological empowerment mediate the relationship between psychological climate and job satisfaction?Journal of Business and Psychology, 18, 405-425.
16.
de VilliersR. (2014). Book essay on “The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective”. Journal of Business Research, 67(12), 2512-2514.
17.
EisenbeißS. A.BoernerS. (2013). A double-edged sword: Transformational leadership and individual creativity. British Journal of Management, 24(1), 54-68.
18.
ErgeneliA.ArıG. S.MetinS. (2007). Psychological empowerment and its relationship to trust in immediate managers. Journal of Business Research, 60, 41-49.
19.
FarhJ. L.PodsakoffP. M.ChengB. S. (1987). Culture-free leadership effectiveness versus moderators of leadership behavior: An extension and test of Kerr and Jermier’s “substitutes for leadership” model in Taiwan. Journal of International Business Studies, 18(3), 43-60.
20.
FernandezJ. A.UnderwoodL. (2006). China CEO: Voices of experience from 20 international business leaders. New York, NY: Wiley.
21.
GagnéM.DeciE. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 331-362.
22.
GongY.HuangJ. C.FarhJ. L. (2009). Employee learning orientation, transformational leadership, and employee creativity: The mediating role of employee creative self-efficacy. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 765-778.
23.
GoodwinV. L.WoffordJ. C.WhittingtonJ. L. (2001). A theoretical and empirical extension to the transformational leadership construct. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 759-774.
24.
GrantA. M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 458-476.
25.
HairJ. F.BlackW. C.BabinB. J.AndersonR. E.TathamR. L. (1998). Multivariate data analysis (Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 207-219). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice hall.
26.
HayesA. F.ScharkowM. (2013). The relative trustworthiness of inferential tests of the indirect effect in statistical mediation analysis: Does method really matter?Psychological science, 24(10), 1918-1927.
27.
HerriotP.ManningW. E. G.KiddJ. M. (1997). The content of the psychological contract. British Journal of Management, 8, 151-162.
28.
HirstG.van KnippenbergD.ZhouJ. (2009). A cross-level perspective on employee creativity: Goal orientation, team learning behavior, and individual creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 280-293.
29.
HofstedeG. H. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. London, England: Sage.
30.
HowellJ. M. (1988). Two faces of charisma: Socialized and personalized leadership in organizations. In CongerJ. A.KanungoR. N. (Eds.), Charismatic leadership (pp. 213-236). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
31.
JanssenO.HuangX. (2008). Us and me: Team identification and individual differentiation as complementary drivers of team members’ citizenship and creative behaviors. Journal of Management, 34, 69-88.
32.
KimJ.-G.LeeS.-Y. (2011). Effects of transformational and transactional leadership on employees’ creative behaviour: Mediating effects of work motivation and job satisfaction. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation, 19, 233-247.
33.
JudgeT. A.PiccoloR. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 755-768.
34.
KanungoR. N.HartwickJ. (1987). An alternative to the intrinsic-extrinsic dichotomy of work rewards. Journal of Management, 13, 751-766.
35.
KerrS.JermierJ. M. (1978). Substitutes for leadership: Their meaning and measurement. Organizational behavior and human performance, 22(3), 375-403.
36.
LandyF. J.FarrJ. L. (1980). Performance rating. Psychological Bulletin, 87, 72-107.
37.
LaschingerH. K.ShamianJ. (1994). Staff nurses’ and nurse managers’ perceptions of job-related empowerment and managerial self-efficacy. Journal of Nursing Administration, 24(10), 38-47.
38.
LiaoH.LiuD.LoiR. (2010). Looking at both sides of the social exchange coin: A social cognitive perspective on the joint effects of relationship quality and differentiation on creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 1090-1109.
39.
LiuD.LiaoH.LoiR. (2012). The dark side of leadership: A three-level investigation of the cascading effect of abusive supervision on employee creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 1187-1212.
40.
MadjarN.OldhamG. R.PrattM. G. (2002). There’s no place like home? The contributions of work and nonwork creativity support to employees’ creative performance. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 757-767.
41.
MilesM. S. (1998). Leadership in the land of the dragon: An exploration of evolving Chinese leadership behavior. Santa Barbara, CA: Fielding Institute.
42.
MilkovichG. T.NewmanJ. M. (2008). Compensation (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
43.
PetersonM. F. (2004). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49, 641-647.
44.
PieterseA. N.van KnippenbergD.SchippersM.StamD. (2010). Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior: The moderating role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 609-623.
45.
PodsakoffP. M.MacKenzieS. B.LeeJ. Y.PodsakoffN. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879-903.
46.
PreacherK. J.RuckerD. D.HayesA. F. (2007). Addressing moderated mediation hypotheses: Theory, methods, and prescriptions. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 42, 185-227.
47.
ReifW. E.LouisR. D. S. (1976). Sex as a discriminating variable in organizational reward decisions. Academy of Management Journal, 19, 469-476.
48.
ReiterR. (2004). Leadership and creativity: Understanding leadership from a creative problem-solving perspective. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 55-77.
49.
RobbinsJ. (2003). False friends: Amicus curiae and procedural discretion in WTO appeals under the hot-rolled lead/asbestos doctrine. Harvard International Law Journal, 44, 317-329.
50.
RobinsonS. L.RousseauD. M. (1994). Violating the psychological contract: Not the exception but the norm. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15, 245-259.
51.
RousseauD. M. (1990). Normative beliefs in fund-raising organizations linking culture to organizational performance and individual responses. Group & Organization Management, 15, 448-460.
52.
RyanR. M.DeciE. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
53.
ShalleyC. E.GilsonL. L. (2004). What leaders need to know: A review of social and contextual factors that can foster or hinder creativity?Leadership Quarterly, 15, 33-53.
54.
ShalleyC. E.GilsonL. L.BlumT. C. (2000). Matching creativity requirements and the work environment: Effects on satisfaction and intentions to leave. Academy of Management Journal, 43, 215-223.
55.
ShalleyC. E.ZhouJ.OldhamG. R. (2004). The effects of personal and contextual characteristics on creativity: Where should we go from here?Journal of Management, 36, 933-958.
56.
ShamirB.HouseR. J.ArthurM. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4, 577-594.
57.
ShinS. J.ZhouJ. (2003). Transformational leadership, conservation, and creativity: Evidence from Korea. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 703-714.
58.
SiS.WeiF. (2012). Transformational and transactional leaderships, empowerment climate, and innovation performance: A multilevel analysis in the Chinese context. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology, 21, 299-320.
59.
SosikJ. J.KahaiS. S.AvolioB. J. (1999). Leadership style, anonymity, and creativity in group decision support systems: The mediating role of optimal flow. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 33(4), 227-256.
60.
SpreitzerG. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 1442-1465.
61.
ThomasK. W.VelthouseB. A. (1990). Cognitive elements of empowerment: An “interpretive” model of intrinsic task motivation. Academy of Management Review, 15, 666-681.
62.
TierneyP.FarmerS. M.GraenG. B. (1999). An examination of leadership and employee creativity: The relevance of traits and relationships. Personnel Psychology, 52, 591-620.
63.
TylerT. R.LindE. A.HuoY. J. (2000). Cultural values and authority relations: The psychology of conflict resolution across cultures. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 6(4), 1138.
64.
van KnippenbergD.SitkinS. B. (2013). A critical assessment of charismatic-transformational leadership research: Back to the drawing board?Academy of Management Annals, 7, 1-60.
WaldmanD. A.RamirezG. G.HouseR. J.PuranamP. (2001). Does leadership matter? CEO leadership attributes and profitability under conditions of perceived environmental uncertainty. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 134-143.
67.
WaltonD. M. (2013). The dark side of transformational leadership: a critical perspective. Management Learning, 44(5), 560-563.
68.
WangP.RodeJ. C. (2010). Transformational leadership and follower creativity: The moderating effects of identification with leader and organizational climate. Human Relations, 63, 1105-1128.
69.
WeiF.YuanX.DiY. (2010). Effects of transactional leadership, psychological empowerment and empowerment climate on creative performance of subordinates: A cross-level study. Frontiers of Business Research in China, 4(1), 29-46.
70.
WoffordJ. C.WhittingtonJ. L.GoodwinV. L. (2001). Follower motive patterns as situational moderators for transformational leadership effectiveness. Journal of Managerial Issues, 13, 196-211.
71.
ZhangX.BartolK. M. (2010). Linking empowering leadership and employee creativity: The influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 107-128.
72.
ZhouJ.GeorgeJ. M. (2001). When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 682-696.
73.
ZhouJ.ShalleyC. E. (2003). Research on employee creativity: A critical review and directions for future research. Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, 22, 165-218.
74.
ZhouJ. (1998). Feedback valence, feedback style, task autonomy, and achievement orientation: Interactive effects on creative performance. Journal of applied psychology, 83(2), 261.
