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The impact of authentic leadership
on individual and team creativity:
a multilevel perspective
Shen Lei and Cuijuan Qin
Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University,
Shanghai, China
Muhammad Ali
School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and
Hailey College of Banking and Finance, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
Susan Freeman
Business School, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and
Zheng Shi-Jie
Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University,
Shanghai, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to develop and test a multilevel conceptual model which explains how
authentic leadership (AL), through an innovative team atmosphere and promotion of self-efficacy, influences
creativity. The study delineates two pathways from AL to creativity. The first pathway is an indirect effect
through an innovative atmosphere at the team level and self-efficacy at the individual level, while the second
pathway focuses on the moderating effect of AL between self-efficacy and individual creativity.
Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected from 58 team leaders and 283 employees in a creative
industry park in the Yangtze River Delta region from China. Path analysis was conducted to test the proposed
hypotheses using the statistical package M-plus (v. 7).
Findings –The results reveal that AL is an important antecedent of creativity. Furthermore, an innovation-
based atmosphere at the team level mediates the theorized relationship between AL and individual creativity.
However, creative self-efficacy at the individual level does not mediate this relationship. Finally, the study
found that AL moderates the relationship between creative self-efficacy and individual creativity.
Originality/value –The implications of this study highlight important considerations for enterprises in
creative industry parks within and beyond China. This study provides industry leaders with a clearer and more
insightful and coherent means of understanding the mediating mechanism between AL and creativity, and the
moderating effects of AL between individual self-efficacy and creativity through a new linkage model.
Keywords Authentic leadership, Creativity, Self-efficacy, Team innovation atmosphere, China, Multilevel
structural equation modelling (SEM) framework
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In the global competitive business environment, organizations invest considerable resources
to develop the creative capabilities of their employees (Ali et al., 2019;Imam et al., 2020;Kim
et al., 2019). Researchers have discovered that leadership plays a vital role in promoting
creativity and performance outcomes (e.g. Cheng and Yang, 2019;Zhou et al., 2018).
Additionally, they have examined the use of different leadership styles, including servant
leadership (Yoshida et al., 2014), authentic leadership (Shang et al., 2019), transformational
leadership (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009), visionary leadership (Zhou et al., 2018) and
empowering leadership (Ali et al., 2018).
The research on the relationship between leadership styles and creativity is quite robust,
and thus, more recently, researchers have shifted their attention to more comprehensively
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0143-7739.htm
Received 20 December 2019
Revised 18 June 2020
4 November 2020
10 February 2021
Accepted 7 March 2021
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0143-7739
DOI 10.1108/LODJ-12-2019-0519
understanding how leadership styles can enhance creativity (Chaudhary and Panda, 2018;
Shang et al., 2019). However, while most studies have attempted to explore the antecedents of
employee creativity (Anderson et al., 2014;Zhou et al., 2018), little scholarly attention has
focused on authentic leadership (AL) (Nasab and Afshari, 2019;Sarkar, 2019) and how it is
linked to creativity (Imam et al., 2020;Shang et al., 2019).
The underlying mechanisms through which AL promotes creativity requires further
investigation at both employee level (Chaudhary and Panda, 2018;Xu et al., 2017) and team
level (Hughes et al., 2018;Yang et al., 2017). In previous studies, scholars (e.g. Arda et al., 2016;
Ribeiro et al., 2018) have called for more research focusing on the various intermediate
variables to explain the prescribed relations between AL and alternative outcomes. In
particular, the mediating role of an innovative team atmosphere and creative self-efficacy in
the relationship between AL and creativity (individual- and team-level) is still underexplored.
This study sets out to address the calls for further research by testing these mediating effects.
Furthermore, there has been limited empirical investigation into multilevel theorizing,
partly because researchers must collect data from a large number of teams from a number of
organizations. Therefore, more research is needed in consideration of a multilevel research
design (Anderson et al., 2014). Conversations about the conditions under which team
creativity emerges are limited, too (Ma et al., 2017), especially in the context of emerging
markets like China (Zhou et al., 2018).
Although some studies have partially dealt with the issues described above, they do not
examine the overall process in a comprehensive model concerning Chinese creative industries.
In China, creativity has played an increasingly important role, especially in clarifying the
processes surrounding the recent change of focus from “Made in China”to “Created in China”
(Keane, 2006). While the concept of a “Creative Industry”can be “characterized largely by the
labour inputs of creative individuals, and [is] surrounded by a degree of rhetoric as to their
significance”,itremainsa“comparatively under-researched sector”(Chaston and Sadler-
Smith, 2012).
In this study,among the different leadership styles explored, we particularly focuson AL, as
it is regarded as an effective approach due to its ability to foster positive employee behaviours
(e.g. creativity), and benefits for specific workgroups and indeed entire organizations (Lee et al.,
2019a;Ribeiro et al.,2017). Such a leadership style offers greater awareness, an internalized
moral perspective, a more balanced processing of information and relational transparency
between leaders and their followers, while fostering positive self-development (Walumbwa
et al.,2008). AL encourages followers to learn, assimilate and share knowledge, and thereby use
their intrinsic motivation to engage in creative activities (Ahmad et al., 2015). A leader who has
adopted the AL style shares the information required to make decisions, accepts others’inputs
and discloses their values, motives and sentiments (Wang et al.,2014b). AL also positively
impacts followers’attitudes and behaviours (Avolio et al., 2004) and their creative outcomes
(Xu et al.,2017). More importantly, AL not only changes the relationship between follower and
leader, it helps build employee self-efficacy (e.g. Laschinger et al.,2015;Tierney and Farmer,
2004), fosters a positive team climate (Hahm, 2017;Zhu et al.,2018) and promotes employee
creativity, employee self-efficacy and team performance (Bai et al., 2016;Meng et al.,2016).
Self-efficacy can be defined as an employee’s self-perception about their “ability to produce
creative outcomes”(Tierney and Farmer, 2002, p. 1138). The mainstream view in academia is
that team innovation includesand recognizes people’s subjective cognition and theirexperience
of working innovatively (Doronin et al.,2020).
In this study, we use the following definition of team innovation atmosphere, proposed by
Anderson and West (1998), as individuals’perception of the work environment, which can
affect their creative ability. Team creativity is defined as “the production of novel and useful
ideas concerning products, services, processes, and procedures by a team of employees
working together”(Shin and Zhou, 2007). In a specific social context, innovation represents
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the creation and implementation of a new idea (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010), whereas
creativity is important in the determinant of innovation. Both innovation and creativity
can be practised at different levels in the organization (Agars et al., 2015;Nijstad and
De-Dreu, 2002).
According to the incentive process, if the team leader encourages and supports innovation
behaviour and motivates team members, it will encourage team members to have a high level
of commitment and identification with team innovation goals. This commitment and identity
drives them to produce the necessary innovation outcomes (Wang and Cheng, 2010).
Moreover, self-efficacy will drive them to devote themselves to more innovation activities to
further promote creativity (Yang et al., 2017). Furthermore, Tierney and Farmer (2011)
revealed that an increase in an employee’s“creative role”identity and perceived creative
expectations from leaders for a period of more than six months were both linked with an
improved sense of individual capacity for creative work.
Some previous studies provided empirical support that creative self-efficacy and individual
creativity have a positive relationship (Richter et al.,2012). Zhou (2003) examined how creative
models and supervisory behaviour influenced employee creativity and found if a leader had a
creative personality, this had a moderating influence on the relationship between supervisory
behaviour, the presence of creative coworkers and creativity. Furthermore, Liu et al. (2011)
extended the research of creativity to the cultural setting and found that harmonious
passion moderated the relationship between creativity at the individual level, team level and
organizational level of autonomy, respectively. Given the above-mentioned points, it is
reasonable to expect AL to strengthen the relationship between creative self-efficacy and
individual-level creativity.
In this study, we draw on well-established theoretical approaches to form a number of
research hypotheses. Building upon the intrinsic motivation theory (Amabile et al., 1994), we
propose a cross-level model of AL and creativity and theorize that AL fosters a positive
atmosphere and employee self-efficacy that may enhance both team-level and employee-level
creativity. Furthermore, AL also moderates the relationship between employee self-efficacy
and creativity.
The contribution of this study is twofold. First, through the intrinsic-motivation theory
lens, this study takes into account the concerns raised by previous researchers and theorizes
the linkage of leadership style by presenting a conceptual model of team-level and employee-
level creativity. By developing and testing a cross-level mediational model of AL with team
innovation atmosphere, self-efficacy (as a mediating mechanism) and creativity, we attempt
to refine the theory with a more insightful means to understand how employee level and team
level creativity can be affected by AL. Based on the intrinsic-motivation theory, we contend
that a creative team atmosphere and self-efficacy can be a potential internal mechanism to
create value and enhance creativity.
Second, this study explores the use of AL in the creative industry park sector in the
Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region to respond to calls to further study how leadership
influences employee-level and team-level creativity (Hughes et al., 2018). The YRD region,
located on the east coast of China, is strategically important because it is one of the most
developed urban agglomerations and considered a major engine of China’s economic and
urban development in the last three decades (Li and Phelps, 2019). The YRD region, which
leads in terms of innovation-driven development, comprises three provinces and one
municipality: Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai (Duan et al., 2019). It is a potential
source of global knowledge linkages and the most developed region in China (Wang and
Shen, 2017). According to Li et al. (2015), China’s rapid economic growth is stunning, but the
country still has a long way to go to become a centre for innovation and creativity (Li et al.,
2015). Figure 1 outlines the research model for our study.
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. First, we develop our theoretical framework and
hypotheses. In the course of doing so, we review the relevant literature on AL, incorporating
intrinsic motivation theory in our development of hypotheses that address AL and its effect
on employee-level and team-level creativity. Next, we provide our research methodology and
measures and then present our results. Finally, we present the conclusion, managerial
implications, limitations and directions for future research.
Theory and hypotheses development
In this study, we examine the relationship between AL, team innovation atmosphere,
self-efficacy and creativity at both employee level and team level using AL and intrinsic
motivation theory (Amabile et al., 1994). According to the scholars, creativity is not only a
product of individual talents and traits, but also a cognitive and social process as well as a
personality trait (Amabile and Pillemer, 2012). We operationalized intrinsic motivation to
explain the psychological mechanism between AL and creativity, showing that external
factors may boost the intrinsic motivation of employees through creative self-efficacy and an
innovative atmosphere. Researchers (Avolio and Gardner, 2005;Ilies et al., 2005) believe that
AL may reinforce an individual’s positive attitudes and behaviours and strive for open and
truthful relationships from followers, with a number of positive consequences.
Research shows that intrinsic motivation has a positive effect on creativity (Hur et al.,
2018). Zhu et al. (2018) examined the relationships between both micro (intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation) and molar (team climate) variables with manager-rated creativity of
R&D employees. They showed that a collaborative team climate has a direct and positive
relationship with creativity, as it operates through intrinsic motivation, which, in turn, is
moderatedbyanemployee’s extrinsic motivation level.
Authentic leadership and creativity
AL is a multidimensional construct, comprising leader self-awareness, relational
transparency, internalized moral perspective and balanced processing. It refers to the
extent to which the leader is aware of and exhibits a pattern of openness and clarity, and is
consistent in their disclosure and enactment of personal values, motives and sentiments
(Walumbwa et al., 2008). According to Avolio and Gardner (2005), AL may inspire employees
Authentic
leadership
Team
innovation
atmosphere
Tea m
creativity
Team Level
Individual Level
H4
H5
H2
H3
H1
Individual
creativity
Creative
self-efficacy
Figure 1.
Theoretical framework
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to be creative as their leaders emphasize positive achievements and earn their followers’trust.
This, in turn, inspires unconventional thinking and provides emotional safety.
Various studies indicate that AL has a positive effect on employee creativity. For example,
Malik et al. (2016) explored AL and its impact on the creativity of nursing staff and found AL
positively related to the creativity of employees, mediated by knowledge sharing and
information technology. According to Hughes et al. (2018), a leader exerts a crucial influence
on individual-level and team-level creativity, because a leader is also a member of a team
whose individual characteristics and behaviours influence the team’s output the most.
Cerne
et al. (2013) empirically tested the relationship between AL and creativity from the
perspective of both the team leader and their employees, and concluded that team leaders’
perceived AL directly influences members’creativity and team innovation.
Multiple studies have shown that leadership exerts effects not only on individual
behaviour but also on team-level behaviour, even at an organizational level (Hughes et al.,
2018). It can affect employee behaviour through its influence on organizational citizenship
behaviour and work engagement (Walumbwa et al., 2014), employee trust (Giallonardo et al.,
2010) and especially employee creativity (
Cerne et al., 2013;Malik et al., 2016;Rego et al., 2012;
Ribeiro et al., 2018). At the team level, AL controls how information resources affect team
trust, team atmosphere and relationships between the team. This means that AL greatly
influences team performance (Hughes et al., 2018) by changing both individual performance
and team dynamic. Therefore, on the relationship between AL and creativity, it seems
reasonable to analyze it at multiple levels (
Cerne et al., 2013;Xu et al., 2017). Based on the
above-mentioned discussion, we propose the following hypotheses:
H1. Authentic leadership will have a positive effect on team-level creativity.
H2. Authentic leadership will have a positive effect on individual-level creativity.
The mediating effect of team innovation atmosphere
The mainstream view in academia is that an innovation-based atmosphere enhances people’s
subjective cognition and experience of working innovatively. According to Andersonand West
(1998), an innovative team atmosphere can be defined as “employees perception of the work
environment that may affect their creative ability”(Anderson and West, 1998). For instance,
Xie et al. (2018) revealed the positive effect of leadership style on the innovation atmosphere
empirically. The working atmosphere has a crucial effect on creative productivity. Team
leaders influence innovative productivity as well as the climate for creativity and innovation
(Isaksen and Akkermans, 2011).
Leaders can form a positive team atmosphere through their authenticity to stimulate the
innovation orientation of employees, and, in turn, promote employee’s creativity. Researchers
(e.g. Meng et al., 2016) have found that AL has a positive effect on employee’s creativity
through an atmosphere of trust and a psychological safety net. Another study by Xu et al.
(2017) indicated that AL could improve employees’perception of the team innovation
atmosphere through high-quality leader-member exchange relationships and further
influence team creativity. Along this line of study, this paper views AL as the antecedent
variable and discusses the mediating effect of team innovation atmosphere between AL and
team creativity. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:
H3. Team innovation atmosphere will have a mediating effect on the relationship
between authentic leadership and team-level creativity.
The mediating effect of creative self-efficacy
American psychologist Bandura (1994) defined self-efficacy as an individual’s belief that they
can organize and complete specific tasks. Extending this concept, Tierney and Farmer (2002)
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
put forward the notion of creative self-efficacy, referring to employee belief in their own
ability to be creative in their work roles. Job tenure, job self-efficacy, supervisor behaviour
and job complexity contribute to the strength of creative efficacy beliefs. Furthermore,
creative self-efficacy also predicted creative performance beyond the predictive effects of job
self-efficacy (Tierney and Farmer, 2002,2011). From the efficacy theory perspective, there
was considerable evidence supporting the notion that supervisor behaviour has an important
effect on employee creativity and that creative self-efficacy is a mediator between supervisor
behaviour and creativity.
Many studies have examined the link between transformational leadership, creative self-
efficacy and creativity, revealing a positive relationship (Gong et al., 2009;Jaiswal and Dhar,
2015;Shin and Zhou, 2007;Wang et al., 2014a). Yang et al. (2017) found servant leadership
promotes employees’creative self-efficacy and team efficacy, which, in turn, promote
employees’creativity and team creativity. According to the intrinsic motivation principle of
creativity, AL stimulates the advantages of subordinates, cultivating their thinking,
influencing their creative beliefs, promoting employees’creative performance at work and
enhancing the impact on individual creativity. Based on this discussion, we propose the
following hypothesis:
H4. Creative self-efficacy will have a mediating effect on the relationship between
authentic leadership and individual-level creativity.
The moderating effect of authentic leadership
AL is considered an important source of an authenticity-based work climate (Xiong et al.,
2016). Leaders with authenticity provide signals of relational transparency (Avolio et al.,
2004) and act in an authentic way, which helps reduce risk and uncertainty (Xiong et al., 2016)
and promotes occupational self-efficacy (Laschinger et al., 2015) and creativity (Rego
et al., 2012).
Additionally, in line with the interactionist viewpoint (Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1990),
we consider leaders’motivation in a role of situational context inhibiting the effect of
employee self-efficacy on their creativity. Gist and Mitchell (1992) had noted that employee
self-efficacy is influenced by situational resource constraints. We propose that AL behaviour
may be a moderator since leaders have a significant effect on followers’job-related
behaviours and attitudes in the working atmosphere (Shalley and Zhou, 2008). It has been
suggested in multiple studies that leadership has a critical impact on self-efficacy and
creativity (Lee et al., 2019b;Tierney and Farmer, 2002). The extent of employees’self-efficacy
determines whether employees are intrinsically motivated and engage in personalized
approaches to work, and whether AL promotes employees’intrinsic motivation to create new
things. According to trait activation theory (Tett and Burnett, 2003), leaders’motivation may
act as a relevant situational cue in the relationship between employee self-efficacy and
creativity by reducing the manifestation of employees’self-belief in their creativity. Thus, in
this study, we suggest AL motivation as a potential moderator of the relationship between
employee self-efficacy and creativity. Based on the above-mentioned discussion, we propose
the following hypothesis:
H5. Authentic leadership will have a moderating effect on the relationship between
creative self-efficacy and individual-level creativity.
Methodology
Sample and data collection
From March 2018 to September 2019, a total of 60 team leaders and 320 of their employees
from five cities and seven creative industry parks in the YRD region were invited to
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participate in the survey-based questionnaire. Of the targeted respondents, 58 team leaders
and 305 employees responded, yielding a response rate of 96.7 and 94.4%, respectively.
After deleting missing data, the final sample of 58 teams and 283 employees were used for
analysis. Each team consisted of one team leader and four to six employees. Some 46.64% of
the employees were male and the rest, female, while 51.72% of the leaders were male and the
rest, female. The majority of the sample had more than two years of work experience.
Procedures
To choose a relatively mature creative park, we systematized and classified the creative
industry parks into four categories, including R&D software patent Creative Industry Parks,
Design Entrepreneurship Industrial Parks, Cultural and Entertainment Creative Industry
Parks and Theme Culture and Tourism Parks. Then we selected seven creative industry
parks from each of the four categories. Considering the existence of regional development
differences in the creative industry park sector, we selected three parks from the Jiangsu
province, two creative industry parks from the Zhejiang province and two creative industry
parks from Shanghai, namely Chenguang 1865 Creative Industry Park in Nanjing, Donghai
Crystal Town in Lianyungang, Ruitai Technology Industry Park in Zhenjiang, Hefeng
Creative Plaza in Ningbo, Software Technology Park in Ningbo, Dobe WE in Shanghai and
Dobe Sport Loft in Shanghai.
After selecting seven creative industry parks, we contacted each in turn, and had an initial
interview with senior managers to describe the study’s objectives and gain their support. Then
we coordinated the selection of the sample senior managers through the human resources
departmentsof each of the participatingfirms. We selectedsubordinatesat random andinformed
them and their team leadersto respond to our questionnaires. A total of 60 teams were contacted,
andcontactpersonsineachcreativeindustrypark were providedwitha papercopy of the survey.
These contact persons provided information about the employees and their immediate
supervisors, which allowed us to develop codes to match them and provide anonymity.
Measures
Since all participants were Chinese, the survey questionnaires were provided in Chinese using
an “iterative translation”procedure (Liao et al., 2009). Before collecting the data, the
questionnaire was discussed with five experienced Chinese professors in the department,
which led to several items being reworded accordingly.
Authentic leadership. A shortened version of an 8-item scale was adapted from Xu et al.
(2017), originally developed by Walumbwa et al. (2008). The scale was composed of four
components with two items each: self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized moral
perspective and balanced processing of information. A sample item was “seeks feedback to
improve interactions with others”.
Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the reliability of the constructs, producing for self-
awareness (0.86), relational transparency (0.84), internalized moral perspective (0.90),
balanced processing of information (0.82) and AL (0.90). In addition, to check the degree of
inter-rater consistency among the respondents of the observed items, intraclass correlation
coefficients 1 and 2 were examined (Bliese, 2000). Also, the inter-rater agreement index R
wg
for ascertaining absolute consensus between ratings supplied by responders was used
(James et al., 1984). The minimum R
wg
of the AL was 0.94, ICC(1) was 0.804 and ICC(2) was
0.961. The values showed adequate justification and support in the data aggregation
(Bliese, 2000).
Creative self-efficacy. Employees’creative self-efficacy was measured using a 3-item scale
developed and validated by Tierney and Farmer (2002). A sample item was: “I feel that I am
good at generating novel ideas”. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.81.
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
Team innovation atmosphere. The measurement of team innovation atmosphere was
adopted from the shorter version of the team climate inventory simplified by Kivim€
aki and
Elovainio (1999). The scale was validated by Zhu et al. (2018). A sample item was, “We all
agree with the objectives of the team”. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91. We did aggregate team
innovation atmosphere, and the minimum R
wg
value was 0.96, ICC(1) was 0.746 and ICC(2)
was 0.946, which shows adequate justification and support in the data aggregation
(Bliese, 2000).
Employee creativity. A 9-item scale was adapted from Tierney et al. (1999) and validated by
Xu et al. (2017). Supervisors were asked to respond to determine how to measure and define
the performance of their employees’creativity. A sample item was “found new uses for
existing methods or equipment”. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.93.
Team creativity. Team creativity was measured with a 7-item scale adopted from Chen
(2006) and Zhu (2009), and responded to by employees’supervisors. A sample item was “Our
team often comes up with novel ideas related to the team task”. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.88.
Control variables. Similar to previous studies (e.g. Meng et al., 2016;Parboteeah et al., 2015;
Richter et al., 2012;Shin and Zhou, 2007), we controlled several characteristics of the
respondents (gender, age, team tenure and team size). The coding of control variables was as
follows: gender (1 5male and 2 5female), age in five categories (1 5less than 20 years to
5541 and above year), team tenure (the numbers of months the individual had been working
in the team) and team size.
Results
Common method variance
To test whether common method variance had a significant effect on the result, we adopted
the single factor test of Harman. The results demonstrated that in the situation of no rotation,
we obtained results that confirmed 9 principal roots were greater than 1 by principal
component analysis. Moreover, the principal components explained 78.73% of the variation,
and the first principal component explained 35.52% of the variation, which was less than the
threshold (50% of the total variation).
Descriptive statistics
Table 1 shows means, standard deviations and inter-correlations for individual and team-
level variables,. In Table 1, the results indicate that individual-level creativity of employees is
positively related to both AL (r50.159, p< 0.05) and self-efficacy (r50.262, p< 0.05).
In addition, AL has a positive relationship with creative self-efficacy (r50.651, p< 0.01).
In addition, AL has a positive relationship with team innovation atmosphere (r50.794,
p< 0.01) as well as with team creativity (r50.139, p< 0.01). Furthermore, there is a positive,
though not significant, relationship between team innovation atmosphere and team
creativity. In Table 1, since the square roots of the AVEs are all greater than the correlation
of all pairs of constructs, the results support the discriminant validity of the constructs used
in this study.
Reliability and validity
Table 2 shows composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) for all
constructs that exceed 0.70 and 0.50, respectively, confirming adequate measurement
reliability and convergent validity (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).
In addition to exploratory factor analysis (EFA), we performed confirmatory factor
analysis (CFA) for each variable, shown in Table 3. For AL, we compared alternative models
with a single factor (combining all items together) and two factors (combining the items from
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AL1 to AL4 as factor 1, the items from AL5 to AL8 as factor 2). The four factors model (four
dimensions of the authentic leadership according to Walumbwa et al. (2008)) fits the data best
(
χ
2
/df 51.486; RMSEA 50.041; CFI 50.996; TLI 50.992; SRMR 50.015). For team
innovation atmosphere and individual creativity, compared with a single-factor model, the
three-factor model fits the data best (team innovation atmosphere:
χ
2
/df 54.189,
RMSEA 50.047, CFI 50.919, TLI 50.906, SRMR 50.041 and individual creativity:
χ
2
/df 52.001, RMSEA 50.031, CFI 50.911, TLI 50.907, SRMR 50.045). For creative self-
efficacy and team creativity, the results show that a single-factor model fits the data best
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5
Individual-level
Individual creativity 5.71 0.79 (0.797)
Authentic leadership 5.70 0.90 0.159
*
(0.705)
Creative self-efficacy 5.58 1.07 0.262
*
0.651
**
(0.734)
Work years 4.20 1.52 0.318
*
0.111 0.023
Team size 4.96 0.65 0.256 0.183
**
0.163
**
0.058
Team-level
Authentic leadership 5.70 0.90 (0.797)
Team innovation atmosphere 5.85 0.92 0.794
**
(0.604)
Team creativity 5.89 0.75 0.139
*
0.228 (0.688)
Team size 4.96 0.65 0.183
*
0.134
*
0.386
**
Note(s): The square root of AVE is shown in (). *p< 0.05 (two-tailed) and **p< 0.01 (two-tailed)
Variable KMO The test of Bartlett CR AVE
Authentic leadership 0.928 0.000 0.923 0.705
Creative self-efficacy 0.832 0.000 0.917 0.734
Team innovation atmosphere 0.959 0.000 0.958 0.604
Individual creativity 0.804 0.000 0.895 0.797
Team creativity 0.853 0.000 0.909 0.688
Variable Model
χ
2
χ
2
/df RMSEA CFI TLI SRMR
Authentic leadership A single-factor
model
121.311 6.066 0.134 0.941 0.917 0.040
Two-factor model 88.035 4.633 0.113 0.960 0.940 0.034
Four-factor model 20.798 1.486 0.041 0.996 0.992 0.015
Creative self-efficacy A single-factor
model
4.876 2.438 0.057 0.983 0.949 0.017
Team innovation
atmosphere
A single-factor
model
954.713 7.072 0.146 0.842 0.821 0.054
Three-factor model 552.785 4.189 0.047 0.919 0.906 0.041
Individual creativity A single-factor
model
73.420 2.719 0.172 0.828 0.771 0.070
Three-factor model 48.035 2.001 0.031 0.911 0.907 0.045
Team creativity A single-factor
model
25.238 1.803 0.038 0.942 0.914 0.048
Table 1.
Descriptive statistic
Table 2.
KMO, CR, and AVE
Table 3.
Comparison of
measurement model
for each variable
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
(creative self-efficacy:
χ
2
/df 52.438, RMSEA 50.057, CFI 50.983; TLI 50.949,
SRMR 50.017 and team creativity:
χ
2
/df 51.803, RMSEA 50.038; CFI 50.942, TLI 50.914,
SRMR 50.048).
In addition, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to check the construct
discriminant validity of the measurement model based on the proposed construct relationship.
In Table 4, we compared alternative models with a single factor (combining authentic
leadership, creative self-efficacy, team innovation atmosphere, individual-level creativity and
team-level creativity), two factors (combining authentic leadership, creative self-efficacy, team
innovation atmosphere and individual-level creativity), three factors (combining authentic
leadership, creative self-efficacy and team innovation atmosphere) and four factors (combining
AL and creative self-efficacy). The results shown in Table 3 show that the five-factor model fits
the data well (
χ
2
53397.595; df 5979; RMSEA 50.043; CFI 50.921; TLI 50.902;
SRMR 50.048). The square roots of AVEs of the major constructs involved in individual-level
and team-level variables (as shown in Table 1) are all greater than the correlation of all pairs of
constructs and supported discriminant validity.
Hypotheses testing
Individual-level path analysis
Mplus statistical software package, version 7 (Muth
en and Muth
en, 2010), was applied to test
the hypotheses by constructing a multilevel structural equation model. As shown in Table 4,
AL has a significantly positive influence on individual-level creativity (β50.716, p< 0.05);
therefore, H2 is supported. However, when we test the mediating effect of creative
self-efficacy, we find that the correlation coefficient between creative self-efficacy and
individual-level creativity is 0.057, and the result is statistically significant at the 0.05 level.
According to the test of bootstrap 1,000 from samples, the results show that the mediating
effect does not exist because the estimate 95% confidence intervals do contain zero (specific
indirect 50.036; lower 2.5% 50.025, upper 2.5% 50.091). So H4 is not supported.
Moderating effect
Hypothesis 5 proposes that AL moderates the relationship between self-efficacy and individual
creativity. The multilevel modelling results demonstrated a positive effect of AL on the random
slope between self-efficacy and individual creativity (β50.181, p<0.01).Furthermore,
followingAiken and West’s(1991)procedures, we plottedthese interactions at higher and lower
levels of AL. As shown in Figure 2, the slopes of the lines representing creative self-efficacy
have a positive effect on individual-level creativity. The solid and dotted lines represent high
and low AL, respectively. While the slope of the solid line is steeper than the slope of the dotted
line (β150.970, p< 0.01; β250.742, p< 0.01), it demonstrates that authentic high-level
leadershipfurther strengthens individual-level creativity. The results indicate that the extent to
which AL may exacerbate the effect of individual-level creativity with creative self-efficacy is
stronger when AL is high rather than low, providing support for H5.
Model
χ
2
df RMSEA CFI TLI SRMR
A single-factor model 5301.824 989 0.124 0.646 0.629 0.089
Two-factor model 4786.835 988 0.117 0.688 0.679 0.084
There-factor model 4188.955 986 0.107 0.767 0.724 0.065
Four-factor model 3821.955 983 0.071 0.867 0.824 0.053
Five-factor model 3397.595 979 0.043 0.921 0.902 0.048
Table 4.
Model comparison
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Team-level path analysis
As shown in Table 4, the results of the structural equation model at the team level
demonstrate that AL has a significant positive effect on team creativity (β50.196, p< 0.01).
Therefore, H1 is supported. To test the mediating effect of team innovation atmosphere, we
performed bootstrap estimates based on 1,000 samples. The results show that team
innovation atmosphere has a mediating effect on the relationship between AL and team
creativity (specific indirect 50.406; lower 2.5% 50.022, upper 2.5% 50.610), which
supported H3 (see Table 5).
Discussion
This study delineates two pathways from AL to creativity. The first pathway elucidates the
indirect effect of AL on creativity through an innovative atmosphere at the team level and
self-efficacy at the individual level, while the second illuminates the moderating effect of AL
between self-efficacy and individual creativity.
In the first pathway, the results show that AL has a positive impact on both team-level and
employee-level creativity. Furthermore, it confirms the mediating effects of innovative team
atmosphere; however, our results do not support themediating effects of employee-self efficacy.
The positive effect of leadership on creativity confirmed by this study is consistent with the
findings revealed by previous studies (e.g. Imam et al.,2020;Liqun et al., 2017;Semedo et al.,
2018), both at the individual level and the team level (
Cerne et al.,2013;Zeb et al., 2019). This is
6.0
5.8
5.6
5.4
5.2
5.0
Self-efficacy
High authentic leadership
β1
β2
Individual-level creativity
Low authentic leadership
4.8
Path βP-value
Authentic leadership →individual-level creativity 0.716 0.000
Authentic leadership →creative self-efficacy 0.903 0.000
Creative self-efficacy →individual-level creativity 0.057 0.397
Authentic leadership →creative self-efficacy →individual-level
creativity
0.036, 0.025, 0.091 Not
supported
Team –level analysis
Authentic leadership →team-level creativity 0.196 0.005
Authentic leadership →team-level innovation atmosphere 0.830 0.000
Team innovation atmosphere →team-level creativity 0.456 0.000
Authentic leadership →team innovation atmosphere →team-level
creativity
0.406, 0.022, 0.610 Supported
Figure 2.
The moderating effect
of authentic leadership
on the relationship
between self-efficacy
and individual-level
creativity
Table 5.
Path analysis of the
model at the individual
and team level
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
done through the mediating role of innovative atmosphere (Meng et al.,2016). In the second
pathway, our results confirmed the moderating effect of AL between self-efficacy and
individual creativity. This means that employee perceptions regarding leaders’authenticity
influence their willingness to engage in creative activities. That is, when subordinates regard
their leaders as being authentic creators of an innovative atmosphere, they reciprocate
creativity both at the individual level and the team level. Our findings support this theory and
reveal that authentic leadership contributes to developing truthful relationships with
subordinates, enhancing motivation and promoting innovative work environments in which
creativity is fostered and encouraged (Amabile et al., 1994;Amabile and Pillemer, 2012).
Our findings confirm the strong relationship between AL and creativity in Chinese
creative industry parks and support the view that perceived leader support has a positive
influence on creativity. Good support from leaders leads to authentic relationships, seeing
leaders as role models, and inspired employees (Amabile et al., 1994). The positive effect of AL
on creativity and self-efficacy confirmed by this study is consistent with the findings of
previous studies (Laschinger et al., 2015;Lee et al., 2019b;Rego et al., 2012).
In this study, we developed and tested a multilevel conceptual model that enriches
scholarly understanding of the intrinsic motivation theory of creativity (Amabile et al., 1994).
Our model demonstrates that AL is a leadership style that may enhance creativity both at the
individual level and the team level. Second, this study indicates the significant mediating role
played by innovative atmosphere between AL and team creativity. These findings may have
an even more significant role in a collectivist society such as China, where team harmony and
collective good are major focus points. Furthermore, at the individual level, employee self-
efficacy mediates the AL-individual creativity relationship. In the path analysis, the results
provided support for the role played by team level mediating relationships, while the
individual level was not supported.
The study demonstrates that AL affects team creativity and employee creativity at
multiple levels simultaneously. These findings respond to the call for additional research on
the effect of leaders at multiple levels (Yang et al., 2017). Few studies in the creativity
literature have explored the antecedents of AL of team innovative atmosphere and self-
efficacy in regard to improving individual as well as team-level creativity (Meng et al., 2016;
Wang et al., 2014a;Yang et al., 2017). The study endeavours to study the AL style in the
creative industries and responds to calls for scholars to collect data from different sources in
comparing the variables (Yang et al., 2017) and to examine the effect of leaders at multiple
levels (Xu et al., 2017;Yoshida et al., 2014). With data from the creative industry park in the
YRD region, our study shows that creative industries should expose employees to AL to
encourage employees’self-efficacy and to create an innovative atmosphere which helps
trigger creative ideas among employees.
Theoretical implications
Our study contributes to the literature on the leadership-creativity relationship in several
ways, first, by identifying how AL influences creativity concerning the mediating
mechanisms, the so-called “black box”in a leadership-creativity relationship (Wang, 2018),
and then by providing insights regarding the mechanism underlying the positive relationship
between AL and creativity. Drawing on intrinsic motivation theory (Amabile et al., 1994), we
extended the notion of innovation atmosphere at the team level and found that team
innovation atmosphere mediated the relationship between AL and team creativity and
provides support for Amabile’s (1994) theory of creativity. In further support, Cheng and
Yang (2019) revealed that leadership creates an innovation atmosphere (Xie et al., 2018) and is
also a key predictor of employee and team creativity (Hughes et al., 2018;Meng et al., 2016).
LODJ
Moreover, leaders play a critical role in eliciting desirable employee behaviours that may lead
to creativity.
Second, we examined the cross-level perspective that integrates AL theory with important
creativity theories. Although multiple studies have examined the AL-creativity relationship
at the employee level (e.g. Ahmad et al., 2015;Alzghoul et al., 2018;Chaudhary and Panda,
2018;Rego et al., 2014), few studies have provided comprehensive, multilevel models that
reveal the directions of influences on creativity at both the individual and the team levels
(Meng et al., 2016;Xu et al., 2017). Our results showed that team innovation atmosphere
mediates the link between AL and team creativity. At the individual level, although AL has a
significant positive effect on promoting creative self-efficacy, surprisingly, the mediating
effect on the relationship between AL and individual level creativity was not found.
Third, perhaps the most important finding of our study is that AL serves as a boundary
condition for the effects of self-efficacy on individual creativity. Specifically, we observed that
this self-efficacy increases as individuals become more creative and that this only occurs
when team leaders show high levels of authentic leadership. More importantly, when AL is
low, self-efficacy is negatively related to an individual’s creativity. One possible explanation
could be that in the absence of AL, individuals may not openly discuss their ideas and are less
motivated to share their opinions to solve problems and issues at work. In such scenarios,
cognitive diversity may lead to conflict and tensions among individuals as well as make
individuals feel less joy and excitement in their routine tasks (Jehn et al., 1999), consequently
reducing creativity.
Practical implications
This study provides substantial practical implications for enterprises in the creative industry
parks within China. We found significant effects of AL on individual creativity, self-efficacy
and team creativity via a team innovation atmosphere. Organizations increasingly depend on
teams to boost creativity and their competitive advantage (Gong et al., 2013). Our results
indicate that AL is an important antecedent to an innovative atmosphere which leads to
creativity (Meng et al., 2016). It is therefore important for the organization to intensively
cultivate AL behaviour to promote an innovative team atmosphere in Chinese enterprises so
that the AL can serve as role models for their followers and attract their creative contribution.
Second, this study provides insightful implications for managers. Our results suggest that
AL has some incremental effects in fostering employee creativity (Chaudhary and Panda,
2018). Authentic leaders are characterized by having internal mobility, balanced processing,
higher self-awareness and relational transparency (Walumbwa et al., 2008). Having an AL
also enhances individuals’promotion-focused behaviour which may help to develop passion
for participating in challenging roles (Shang et al., 2019).
Organizations should train their leaders on the abilities required to be authentic in their
decision-making process. This is because authentic leaders are able to focus on existing skills
within their team and then provide information and feedback, which nurtures creative
behaviour. Organizations in the Creative Industry Park are always in search of tools and
ideas to enhance employees’creativity and might benefit from the findings of this study. This
research provides evidence to Asian organizations that there is an enormous need to develop
authenticity in leaders (Hoch et al., 2018;Imam et al., 2020;Nasab and Afshari, 2019).
Moreover, AL enhances employees’self-efficacy, an important antecedent of individual
creativity (Shang et al., 2019;Xu et al., 2017). It is therefore important for organizations to
emphasize that leaders understand the behavioural characteristics of AL and, while
interacting with employees, act according to AL standards, enhancing the degree of
employees’trust in leaders and each other (Meng et al., 2016).
Authentic
leadership and
creativity
Limitations and further research
The study has a few limitations that must be mentioned, and we also provide potential
directions for future research. First, the sample data is only from the Creative Industry Park
in the YRD region, with inherent geographical limitations, suggesting that the results must be
carefully interpreted; the results also provide generalizability challenges.
Second, this study is restricted to employee-level and team-level creativity data that may
not fully reflect the relationship between AL and creativity at the industry level. Future
studies can expand the organizational-level creativity data by including other sectors and
countries.
Third, we only considered the role of creative self-efficacy and team innovation
atmosphere as a mediating mechanism. Future studies may like to include identification-
based mechanisms that may offer additional value in understanding leader-creativity
relationships (Hughes et al., 2018). Finally, due to the limitations of time and resources, it was
difficult to address the dynamic impact of AL on creativity as we used only cross-sectional
data. Therefore, longitudinal research could be considered for future studies.
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Corresponding author
Muhammad Ali can be contacted at: alihafeez787@yahoo.com;alihafeez787@tongji.edu.cn
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