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

Sajjad Nazir (Business School, Hohai University–Jiangning Campus, Nanjing, China) (Department of Management Sciences, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Topi, Pakistan)
Amina Shafi (Business School, Hohai University–Jiangning Campus, Nanjing, China)
Muhammad Ali Asadullah (Department of Business Administration, Air University, Multan, Pakistan)
Wang Qun (Human Resource Management, Changzhou Institute of Technology, Changzhou, China)
Sahar Khadim (Institute of Business and Management, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan)

European Journal of Innovation Management

ISSN: 1460-1060

Article publication date: 21 September 2020

Issue publication date: 12 October 2021

1236

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

Acknowledgements

Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.The authors would like to thank Editors and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and valuable comments. This study was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (No 18BGL129).Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Citation

Nazir, S., Shafi, A., Asadullah, M.A., Qun, W. and Khadim, S. (2021), "How does ethical leadership boost follower's creativity? Examining mediation and moderation mechanisms", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 1700-1729. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-03-2020-0107

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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