Drawing on broaden-and-build theory and threat-rigidity hypothesis, we theorized and tested a multilevel model to examine the moderating effects of transformational leadership (TFL) on the team-level process that links positive/negative group affective tone (PGAT/NGAT) to team innovation via information elaboration. Data were collected from 299 team members and 65 leaders from Taiwanese companies at two time points. The multilevel path analysis demonstrated support for a positive indirect effect of PGAT on team innovation via information elaboration and a negative indirect effect of NGAT on team innovation via information elaboration. The positive indirect effect of PGAT on team innovation via information elaboration was found to be stronger when TFL was high rather than low. However, TFL did not attenuate the negative effects of NGAT. Negative group affective tone was negatively related to information elaboration when TFL was high, whereas NGAT had no significant relationship with information elaboration when TFL was low. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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