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When empowering leadership fosters creative performance: The role of problem-solving demands and creative personality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2016

Mieke Audenaert  and
Adelien Decramer
Mieke Audenaert*
Affiliation:
Department HRM and Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Adelien Decramer
Affiliation:
Department HRM and Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
*
Corresponding author: Mieke.Audenaert@Ugent.be
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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the circumstances under which empowering leadership fosters creative performance. Arguments were developed for a three-way interaction of empowering leadership, problem-solving demands and creative personality in this linkage. These arguments resulted in competing hypotheses from a fit and a compensation perspective. The results from a survey of 213 employees of a Flemish large industrial organization were used. We found that less creative employees in jobs with high problem-solving demands particularly benefit from empowering leadership. This paper adds to a more complex understanding of the effectiveness of empowering leadership by highlighting the relevance of the simultaneous interplay of contextual and personal factors.

Keywords

creative performanceempowering leadershipproblem-solving demandscreative personality
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 4 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2016 

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