Does innovation leadership enhance creativity in high-tech industries?
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater understanding of the effect of innovation leadership (participative, supportive, and instrumental) on supervisory-rated employee creativity through greater employee regulatory focus (i.e. promotion and prevention).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from dyads of 103 employees and employee supervisors working in Taiwan’s high-tech industry. A structural equation modelling approach was used to examine the relationship posited in this study.
Findings
Results reveal that both participative and supportive leadership are positively associated with the creativity of supervisory-rated subordinates when those subordinates adopted a focus on promotion. The data also show that these relationships are partially mediated by employee promotion focus. At the same time, the positive relationship between instrumental leadership and employee creativity is fully mediated by employee prevention focus.
Originality/value
The results of this study show that participative and supportive leaders cultivate employee promotion focus, which then enhances employee creativity. Instrumental leaders will induce employee prevention focus, which also enhances employee creativity. These findings imply that when enhancing employee creativity, employees with a promotion focus are more suited to participative and supportive leaders, while employees who do not have a promotion focus may be more suited to leaders who provide these employees with specific instructions on the rules, regulations, and procedures to follow to accomplish given tasks and common goals.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank those managers and subordinates of the participating high-tech companies in Taiwan.
Citation
Tung, F.-C. and Yu, T.-W. (2016), "Does innovation leadership enhance creativity in high-tech industries?", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 37 No. 5, pp. 579-592. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-09-2014-0170
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited