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Integrating the pathway model of meaningful work and the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity, the authors investigate why, when and how paternalistic leadership relates to employee creativity in the Chinese organizational context. The authors suggest that the meaning of work (MOW) mediates the relationship between paternalistic leadership and employee creativity. The authors further identify perspective taking as a moderator in the mediated relationship for the path from MOW to creativity.

The authors relied on a sample of 340 employee-supervisor dyads collected from multiple organizations located in Eastern China to test the study hypotheses.

Results indicated that MOW mediated the positive relationships between the benevolence and morality dimensions of paternalistic leadership and employee creativity, and the negative relationship between the authoritarianism dimension of paternalistic leadership and employee creativity. Further, the indirect relationships between the three dimensions of paternalistic leadership (i.e. authoritarianism, benevolence and morality) and employee creativity through MOW were more pronounced when perspective taking was higher rather than lower.

Through a meaning-based perspective, the authors demonstrate that a culture-specific managerial philosophy (i.e. paternalistic leadership) shapes Chinese employees' perceptions of meaningful work and their subsequent creative performance. This paper complements the dominant focus on Western leadership in the creativity literature and denotes that paternalistic leadership matters for employee creativity in Chinese organizations.