Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2018), 91, 896–917

© 2018 The British Psychological Society

www.wileyonlinelibrary.com

Empowering leadership and employee creativity:A dual-mechanism perspective

Shuxia Zhang1, Xudong Ke2, Xiao-Hua FrankWang3* and Jun Liu4

1Department of Management and Human Resources, The Ohio State University,

Columbus, Ohio, USA2Department of Management, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong3School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China4Department of Organizations and HR, School of Business, Renmin University ofChina, Beijing, China

Integrating empowerment and creativity theories, this study simultaneously explores the

context-specific (i.e., access to resources [AR] and access to information [AI]) and actor-

related (i.e., organization-based self-esteem [OBSE]) mechanisms in the relationship

between empowering leadership and employee creativity. Furthermore, drawing on the

interactionist perspective of creativity, it examines how AR and AI may interact with

OBSE to influence creativity. Multisource data were collected from 217 employees and

their supervisors using a three-wave, time-lagged research design. The results reveal that

OBSE and AR mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and creativity.

Moreover, AR moderates the relationship between OBSE and creativity, such that this

relationship is significant only when AR is high. Theoretical and practical implications of

these findings are discussed.

Practitioner points

� Empowering leaders may stimulate creativity by impacting their employees’ OBSE and access to

resources.

� A possible way for leaders to facilitate creativity is to simultaneously promote employees’ OBSE and

provide them with the necessary resources

As today’s organizations face an increasingly competitive external environment, creativity

– defined as the generation of novel and useful ideas – is being increasingly emphasized as

a means to stay ahead of the competition and ensure organizational success (Amabile,

1983; George, 2007). Consequently, organizational scholars have been seeking to

understand the antecedents of creativity. Perhaps one of the most important forerunnersof creativity is leadership behaviour (Mainemelis, Kark, & Epitropaki, 2015; Mumford,

Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Recently, the concept of

empowering leadership has attracted increasing attention in the creativity literature.

Empowering leadership denotes leaders’ deliberate behaviours to share power with

employees and to provide them with additional responsibility for and control over their

*Correspondence should be addressed to Xiao-Hua (Frank) Wang, School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, China (email: wangxiaohua@bnu.edu.cn).

DOI:10.1111/joop.12219

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own work (Ahearne, Mathieu, & Rapp, 2005; Hollander, 2009; Martin, Liao, & Campbell-

Bush, 2013). Evidence suggests that empowering leadership is a significant driver of

employee creativity (Zhang & Bartol, 2010; Zhang & Zhou, 2014).

Researchers have also attempted to reveal the mechanisms through which empow-ering leadership enhances employee creativity. In two different studies, Zhang and

colleagues found that the positive effects of empowering leadership on creativity are

mediated by such personal factors as employees’ psychological empowerment (Zhang &

Bartol, 2010) and creative self-efficacy (Zhang & Zhou, 2014). Nevertheless, researchers

have yet to fully elucidate how empowering leadership may affect context-specific

factors, which are also crucial in facilitating creativity.

Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin (1993) proposed the interactionist model of creativity,

which suggests that employee creativity is a complex product of the interactions betweenpersonal attributes and contextual variables. Similarly, Amabile (1983) proposed that

creativity is a behaviour resulting from certain constellations of personal and contextual

factors. To our knowledge, however, researchers have not explored both context-specific

and actor-related mechanisms simultaneously in the relationship between leadership and

creativity. To fill this gap in the literature, this study aims to investigate how empowering

leadership can promote employee creativity through two parallel mechanisms: the

context-specific and actor-related mechanisms.

With regard to the context-specific mechanism, we focus on instrumental support,which refers to the task-oriented support provided by leaders, including access to

information (AI) and access to resources (AR; Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, &Kramer, 2004;

Spreitzer, 1996). Access to information refers to the extent to which employees have

information about the goals, vision, and strategies of the organization. Access to resources

refers to the extent to which employees have the materials, space, funds, and time

necessary to effectively carry out their work responsibilities (Spreitzer, 1996). AI and AR

are two important characteristics of an empowering work context (Spreitzer, 1996).

Amabile’s (1988, 1996) componential theory of creativity proposes that employees’perceptions of their work environment are largely created by the support from their

immediate supervisor. As empowering leadership, by definition, seeks to create an

empowering environment for employees, it makes logical sense to focus on empowering

leadership as the antecedent of AI and AR (Sharma & Kirkman, 2015).

With regard to the actor-related mechanism, we focus on employees’ organization-

based self-esteem (OBSE). Self-esteem refers to an individual’s overall evaluation of his or

her competencies (Rosenberg, 1965). Tharenou (1979) was among the first to apply the

concept of self-esteem to thework setting.DrawingonTharenou’swork, Pierce,Gardner,Cummings, and Dunham (1989) subsequently introduced the concept of OBSE, which

they defined as the degree towhich an individual believes himself or herself to be capable,

significant, and worthy as an organizational member. The predominant feature of OBSE is

that it underscores the employee’s perceived competence within his or her employing

organization. As a consequence, it holds great potential for aligning the behaviours of the

employee with the behaviours valued by the focal organization (Korman, 1976, 2001;

Pierce et al., 1989).

Researchers (Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Zhou & Hoever, 2014) have called for morestudies to explore how actor-level factors might operate in conjunction with context-

specific factors to influence individuals’ creativity. Thus, this study also aims to explore

the interaction effects of eachof the two instrumental factors (i.e., AR andAI) andOBSEon

employee creativity. Such interactions are of theoretical importance because employees

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 897

with highOBSEmay not be able to demonstrate individual creativity if they lack necessary

information or sufficient resources. Figure 1 presents our conceptual model.

Our study makes three theoretical contributions to the extant research. First, we

contribute to the creativity literature by exploring both context-specific (i.e., AR and AI)and actor-level mechanisms (i.e., employee OBSE) simultaneously in the relationship

between empowering leadership and creativity. Although recent research on creativity

has begun to consider both context-specific and actor-related factors at the same time

(Zhou & Hoever, 2014), this study is among the first to treat these factors as two parallel

mechanisms. Our model pursues an innovative angle by integrating these actor-centred

and context-centred perspectives within creativity research.

Second, we contribute to the empowering leadership literature by broadening the

understanding of the effects of this leadership style on followers. Researchers havereported the positive effects of empowering leadership on a variety of followers’ attitudes

and behaviours (e.g., Harris, Li, Boswell, Zhang, & Xie, 2014; Raub & Robert, 2010;

Tuckey, Bakker, &Dollard, 2012). Nevertheless, we are not aware of any studies that have

revealed the possible effects of empowering leadership on followers’ self-evaluation. As

prior studies (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993; van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, De

Cremer, & Hogg, 2004) have demonstrated that leadership behaviour can largely

influence how employees view themselves, this study aimed to explore the effect of

empowering leadership on the self-view of employees, as represented by their OBSE.Third, we extend the interactionist perspective of creativity by investigating the joint

effects of AR/information and OBSE on creativity. The interactionist perspective argues

that both themain effects of personal and contextual factors and their interactions are vital

to obtain a holistic understanding of employee creativity. By considering the effects of

OBSE and instrumental support simultaneously, we aim to elucidate in fuller detail why

and when empowering leadership may promote individual creativity.

Theory and hypotheses

Empowering leadership and OBSE

Organization-based self-esteem indicates the extent to which organizational membersbelieve themselves to be capable, meaningful, effectual, and worthwhile individuals

Empoweringleadership

Access to resources

OBSE

Access to information

Employeecreativity

Figure 1. Hypothesized model.

898 Shuxia Zhang et al.

within their employing organizations (Pierce et al., 1989). Self-concept–based leadershiptheory (Shamir et al., 1993) proposes that leadership behaviour may have a profound

impact on followers’ self-evaluation and self-concepts. As a result, it is of theoretical

importance to explore the effect of leadership behaviour on employees’ OBSE (Chan,Huang, Snape, & Lam, 2013; Yang, Zhang, Kwan, & Chen, 2018). According to the OBSE

literature (Pierce & Gardner, 2004), an employee’s OBSE may be influenced by three

factors: (1) the employee’s work environment; (2) messages sent from significant others

(e.g., immediate leaders) in the work setting; and (3) the employee’s feelings of efficacy

and competence. We argue that empowering leadership may have positive effects on

followers from all three of those aspects.

Regarding the first factor, Pierce et al. (1989) theorized that the work environment

may lead to higher levels of OBSE if it is less structured and provides employees withgreater opportunities to express themselves in their organizational roles (Pierce &

Gardner, 2004). Similarly, self-concept–based theory argues that employees’ self-esteem is

based on “the sense of competence, power, achievement, or ability to cope with and

control one’s environment” (Shamir et al., 1993, p. 580). Leaders play a crucial role in

shaping the work environment experienced by their employees. By definition, empow-

ering leaders purposefully remove behaviour controls or bureaucratic constraints

imposed on their followers, and provide them with more autonomy for employees’ self-

expression (Ahearne et al., 2005). Such an empowering environment shaped by theleader may give a greater sense of self-control to the employees and result in higher levels

of OBSE.

In relation to the second factor (i.e., messages from significant others), an employee’s

OBSE is, in part, a social construction, meaning that it is moulded by the messages about

the self sent by significant others who evaluate the employee’s work (Korman, 1971).

Empowering leaders express confidence in their employees’ abilities and involve their

employees in the decision-making process. Such behaviour conveys a clear signal to the

employees that they are considered trustworthy, capable, and competent members of theorganization (Gardner, Dyne, & Pierce, 2004; Spreitzer, 2008). When employees

incorporate such positive messages into their self-evaluation, their OBSE will be

correspondingly higher.

Finally, regarding the third factor (i.e., the employee’s feeling of efficacy and

competence), it has been suggested that OBSE originates in part from the employees’

personal experiences (Korman, 1971). Due to the encouragement from their empow-

ering leader, those employees are more likely to feel efficacious and competent in their

capabilities. Furthermore, empowering leaders communicate the meaningfulness of thework to their employees, thereby helping themunderstand how theirwork contributes to

the goals and success of the company. Such understanding enhances the employees’ self-

perceived importance and worth within the organization and concomitantly boosts their

OBSE (May, Gilson, & Harter, 2004). When all of these factors are taken together, it is

reasonable to argue that empowering leadership may enhance employees’ OBSE.

OBSE and creativity

We expect OBSE to be positively related to creativity for two reasons. First, according to

self-verification theory, people are motivated to verify and sustain their existing self-

concepts (Swann, 1983). In a similar vein, self-consistency theory (Korman, 1970)

suggests that individuals will engage in behaviours that reinforce their self-perception.

Consequently, high-level OBSE serves as a self-regulatory system that guides individuals to

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 899

execute behaviours consistent with their self-perception in the organization (Lapointe,

Vandenberghe, & Panaccio, 2011). Thus, people with high OBSE will be more motivated

to achieve goals and seek approval from others (Pierce &Gardner, 2004). Creativity is one

of themost valued processeswithin the organization; it requires extensive knowledge andcognitive abilities to execute successfully (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). Employees with

high OBSE will be more willing to take on the challenges and engage in more creative

behaviours, in keeping with their higher self-perceived competence and capabilities

(Chen & Aryee, 2007).

Second, according to the approach/avoidance framework (Elliot & Thrash, 2002),

employees with high OBSE are more sensitive to positive information and are inclined to

adopt goals that compel them to pursue positive outcomes (Ferris et al., 2011; Judge,

Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005). In addition, they tend to have a strongly positive view ofthemselves and possess higher levels of self-confidence (Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton,

1989). In turn, they are less concerned about avoiding failures or negative outcomes and

are more inclined to embrace uncertainty and take risks in the process of generating and

testing creative ideas (Ferris et al., 2011). They also proactively seek out challenges that

facilitate learning and acquisition of new knowledge and skills, which then enhance their

creativity (Gong, Huang, & Farh, 2009).

Third, as OBSE reflects an individual’s self-perceived competence in an organization,

employees with high OBSE tend to have a strong sense of competence and believe thatthey are able to make valuable contributions to the organization (Pierce et al., 1989). In

addition, employeeswith highOBSE perceive themselves as important andworthwhile in

their organization, so they are likely to feel as although they have more autonomy and

greater control over their work behaviour. According to the cognitive evaluation theory

(Deci & Ryan, 1980), the feelings of competency and autonomy are antecedents for

intrinsic motivation. Thus, employees with high OBSE are more likely to enjoy high levels

of intrinsic motivation in regard to their work (Pierce & Gardner, 2004), which enables

them to generate creative ideas (Amabile, 1996; Grant, 2008; Grant & Berry, 2011; Zhang& Bartol, 2010). Accordingly, we propose:

Hypothesis 1: OBSE mediates the positive relationship between empowering leadership and

creativity.

Empowering leadership and access to resources/information

Empowering leaders try to create a work context wherein employees’ autonomy and

work meaningfulness can be supported and bolstered. Employees’ AR and AI are

important characteristics of such an empowering work context, because they facilitate

the work process for employees and improve the effectiveness of their efforts (Spreitzer,

1996). We argue that empowering leaders make several types of deliberate efforts to

provide employees with access to needed resources and information.

First, empowering leaders strive to assure employees’ autonomy and remove

bureaucratic constraints from their daily work (Ahearne et al., 2005). Accordingly,employees are provided with sufficient resources so that they have the necessary

discretion and freedom to decide the time, pace, and method of completing their work

(Martin et al., 2013).

Second, empowering leadership behaviours include delegating authority to employ-

ees and providing them with additional responsibility over their own work and decision-

making (Hollander, 2009). To help employees handle this extra responsibility effectively,

900 Shuxia Zhang et al.

empowering leaders offer the necessary support for those efforts, including resources and

information (Martin et al., 2013).

Third, by definition, empowering leaders involve employees in the decision-making

process and highlight the significance of their work by relating their work to the largergoals of the company (Ahearne et al., 2005;Martin et al., 2013). These behaviours ensure

that employees have access to critical organizational information, such as goals, strategies,

and vision of the company.

Access to resources and creativity

We argue that AR will increase employees’ creativity through several avenues. First,

according to the sense-making perspective on creativity (Madjar, Greenberg, & Chen,2011), availability of resources may serve as a signal that creativity is both allowed and

encouraged in the organization (Weick, 1995). Such interpretation of the situation may

propel those employees to engage in more creative endeavours, so as to meet the

organization’s expectations. In contrast, constrained or limited resources may facilitate

the opposite interpretation of the situation – that is, it may engender the belief that

creativity is neither supported nor encouraged in the organization. Such interpretation

may motivate employees to focus on routine performance rather than creative

performance (Madjar et al., 2011).Second, the development of new ideas is a time-intensive and demanding undertaking,

so the employees must allocate their time and energy more effectively when they engage

in creativity-related activities (Mumford & Hunter, 2005). When sufficient resources are

available, employees do not have to spend their time and energy on searching for or

requesting more resources from their organization. Instead, they can fully concentrate on

the task at hand, engage in in-depth thinking, and put forth creative ideas without

worrying about external constraints due to the lack of necessary resources (Cani€els, DeStobbeleir, & De Clippeleer, 2014; Unsworth & Clegg, 2010).

Third, resources may facilitate development of a capability belief within employees,

referring to the degree towhich an individual feels able to undertake creative action (Ford,

1996). Although Ford (1996) argued that capability belief was determined by an

employee’s evaluation of his or her own abilities, Unsworth and Clegg (2010) found that

such belief also depends on the resources available to the employee. When resources are

constrained, the employee may not be able to test out or implement the creative ideas he

or she has generated, which will dampen the individual’s capability belief (Madjar et al.,

2011). In contrast, when sufficient resources are available, the employee will have moreopportunities and greater latitude to accomplish creative initiatives. As a result, the

employee may develop a sense of internal control and autonomy in his or her creative

endeavours and may experience a higher level capability belief for creativity. Thus, we

propose:

Hypothesis 2: Employees’ access to resources mediates the relationship between empowering

leadership and creativity.

Access to information and creativity

Access to information is expected to enhance employee creativity for several reasons.

First, when employees have access to the information of the organization, they have a

better idea of the organization’s work flow, productivity, competition, and strategy

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 901

(Spreitzer, 1996). Such critical information gives employees a comprehensive and holistic

understanding of the urgent needs and problems of the organization – an understanding

that may serve as the foundation of their proactive and constructive creative behaviours

(Grant & Berry, 2011). Consequently, the well-informed employees are more likely topropose creative ideas that are alignedwith the goals andmission of the focal organization

and have the potential to benefit its future development in an increasingly competitive

environment (Baer, 2012; Zhou & Shalley, 2011).

Second, with the organizational information in mind, employees will be more

responsive and effective in identifying creative opportunities and will have a clearer idea

of where to start. When employees are able to construct and perceive the problem in

multiple ways in terms of organizational goals and needs, they are more likely to generate

ideas that are of great importance and relevance to the organization (Reiter-Palmon &Illies, 2004).

Third, the creativity literature has emphasized the importance of non-redundant

information or knowledge to employee creativity (Perry-Smith, 2006, 2014). Information

about the organization’s strategy, vision, and goals is distinct from and does not overlap

with employees’ task expertise, so it represents important non-redundant information in

this context. Such information is likely to enrich the employees’ knowledge domain and

enable them to examine their tasks or challenges from different perspectives (Csikszent-

mihalyi, 1996; Glynn, 1996). As a result, the employees are more likely to engage inflexible thinking and to make new associations among existing concepts (Coser, 1975).

On the basis of this argument, we predict:

Hypothesis 3: Employees’ access to information mediates the relationship between empowering

leadership and creativity.

The interaction effects of access to resources/information and OBSE on creativity

The interactionist perspective on workplace creativity posits that creativity is a function

of actor-related factors, context-specific factors, and the interactions among the two

(Amabile, 1983; Amabile et al., 2004; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; Woodman et al.,

1993). This framework predicts that, aside from the main effects of personal and

contextual factors, the interactions of these factors are crucial for researchers to obtain a

complete understanding of individual creativity (Zhou, Shin, & Cannella, 2008). Indeed,

the relationships between personal factors and creativity may be magnified or attenuatedin the presence of certain contextual factors (see Zhou & Hoever, 2014, for a review).

We propose that AR will moderate the relationship between OBSE and creativity, for

several reasons. First, given that the development of creative ideas requires intensive

resource input, sufficient resources can act as a supportive force in facilitating the creative

process (Richter, Hirst, van Knippenberg, & Baer, 2012). When resources such as space,

funds, time, and materials are readily available, employees with high OBSE will be better

prepared to explore new possibilities and test alternative solutions. Ultimately, this

experimentation process is likely to improve the effectiveness of employees’ creativeefforts.

Second, according to Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory, individuals’ behavioural

efforts are based on the availability of required resources as well as their confidence and

capabilities in using these resources. Therefore, when employees with high OBSE are

equipped with sufficient resources, they will be more strongly motivated to devote more

time and energy to their work. The application of this increased time and energy, in turn,

902 Shuxia Zhang et al.

will help them deal with challenging and complex tasks with greater confidence and

generate more creative ideas from their work (Gagn�e & Deci, 2005).

Third, the perceived adequacy of resources may affect employees’ beliefs about the

internal value and meaningfulness of their work, aside from its practical implications(Amabile, 1996). Employees’ perceived value of their work, combined with their OBSE,

may increase their interest in and enjoyment of their work. Such a positive state ofmind at

work will consequently spark employees’ cognitive flexibility and openness to

complexity, and eventually expand their generation of creative ideas and novel solutions

(Hakanen, Perhoniemi, & Toppinen-Tanner, 2008). This understanding leads to our next

hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Access to resources moderates the positive relationship between OBSE and

creativity, such that the relationship is stronger when access to resources is high.

Wealso predict that AIwillmoderate the relationship betweenOBSE and creativity, for

two reasons. First, when employees with high OBSE have AI, they will tend to take anorganization-oriented view while developing their preliminary ideas (Bowling, Eschle-

man, Wang, Kirkendall, & Alarcon, 2010). As such, those creative ideas are more likely to

directly address the problems of the organization and be assessed by the supervisor as

useful, thereby resulting in more novel and useful solutions (Baer, 2012; Zhou & Shalley,

2011). Second, AI about the organization’s work flow, goals, and strategy will help

employees better understand their own roles within the organization’s operations. While

high OBSE instils in employees the confidence that they can contribute to the goals of the

organization, AI helps themunderstand how they can contributemore effectively (Bowen& Lawler, 1992; Spreitzer, 1996). Thus, AI is expected to interact with employee OBSE to

increase organizational members’ engagement in creative work. On the basis of these

arguments, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 5: Access to information moderates the positive relationship between OBSE and

creativity, such that the relationship is stronger when access to information is high.

Method

Participants and procedure

Participants in this studywere employees and their immediate supervisorsworking in five

subsidiaries of a national petroleum company in mainland China. The company’s key

business activities include the production, marketing, storage, and transportation of oil,natural gas, and chemical products. Creativity is one of the core values of the company and

is highly encouraged by the human resources (HR) management practices of the

company. In fact, creativity is one of the key performance indices for all employees and

leaders in the company. Therefore, this company offers an appropriate context in which

to study employee creativity.

Before commencing the survey, we contacted HR managers at the company’s

headquarters and randomly selected 429 leader–follower dyads (the employees and their

corresponding supervisors) to participate in our study. With the support of the HRspecialist in charge of this survey, we delivered to each participant a small sealable

envelope containing the questionnaire and a cover letter explaining the purpose and

confidentiality of the study. A matched code was used to identify each employee’s

response and that of the corresponding supervisor. After completing the survey, each

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 903

participant puts the questionnaire into the envelope and sealed it. The HR specialist then

collected all the questionnaires and mailed them directly to the research team.

To minimize common method variance, we collected the data through three waves,

occurring 2 months apart. In Wave 1, the employees provided information on their owndemographics (e.g., age, gender, education), and their supervisor’s empowering

leadership behaviour. In Wave 2, the employees reported their OBSE, AI, and AR. In

Wave 3, the supervisors rated their employees’ creativity. In Wave 1, we received 276

employee questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 64.3%. Two months later (Wave 2),

we distributed questionnaires to those 276 employees and obtained 254 employee

responses, with a response rate of 92%. Two months after Wave 2 (Wave 3), we

distributed questionnaires to the corresponding supervisors of the 254 employees who

responded in Wave 2 and obtained 232 supervisor responses. After deleting incompletecases, we obtained a total of 217 usable cases.

Of the 217 employees, 68.3% were male. In terms of their age, 23.0% were younger

than age 30, 30.4% fell into the 31–35 age range, 30.0%were in the 36–40 age range, 12.4%were in the 41–45 age range, and 3.7%were in the 46–50 age range. As for their education,1.8% held a middle school diploma or less, 12.4% had a high school or technical school

diploma, 33.6% had an associate degree, 42.4% had a bachelor’s degree, and 9.7% had

obtained a master’s degree or higher.

Measures

As all of our measures were initially developed in English, we employed the procedures

suggested by Brislin (1980) to create the Chinese version. First, we invited two proficient

bilingual experts to translate the scales into Chinese. Then, we had the Chinese-language

versions translated independently back into English and compared with the original

English instrument. After several rounds, we were satisfied with the translated Chinese

versions. We then asked two HRmanagers of the company to comment on and revise theitems. All measures were reported on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (“strongly

disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”).

Empowering leadership

We used Ahearne et al. (2005) 12-item scale to measure empowering leadership. This

scale has been validated in the Chinese context by Zhang and Bartol (2010). It has four

dimensions: (1) enhancing the meaningfulness of work, (2) fostering participation indecision-making, (3) expressing confidence in high performance, and (4) providing

autonomy from bureaucratic constraints. A sample item was “My manager helps me

understand howmy objectives and goals relate to those of the company.” The Cronbach’s

alpha of this scale was .88. Following prior studies (Ahearne et al., 2005; Cheong, Spain,

Yammarino, & Yun, 2016;Wong &Giessner, 2018; Zhang & Bartol, 2010), we aggregated

the four subscale scores to create a single composite score of empowering leadership.

OBSE

Organization-based self-esteem was measured using Pierce et al.’s (1989) 10-item scale,

which has been validated in the Chinese context in the past (e.g., Liu, Lee, Hui, Kwan, &

Wu, 2013). A sample itemwas “I aman important part of this place.” TheCronbach’s alpha

of this scale was .86.

904 Shuxia Zhang et al.

Access to resources

A three-item scale for AR that had been developed by Spreitzer (1996) was used in this

study. A sample itemwas “I can obtain the resources necessary to support new ideas.” The

Cronbach’s alpha of this scale was .69.

Access to information

A three-item scale for AI that had been developed by Spreitzer (1996) was used in this

study. A sample item was “I understand the strategies and goals of the organization.” The

Cronbach’s alpha of this scale was .90.

Creativity

Creativity was measured by Zhou and George’s (2001) 13-item scale, which has also been

validated in the Chinese context (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). A sample item was “The

employee suggests newways to achieve goals or objectives.” TheCronbach’s alpha of this

scale was .82.

Control variablesAs prior research has suggested that employee gender, educational level, and age (e.g.,

George & Zhou, 2007; Zhang & Bartol, 2010; Zhang & Zhou, 2014) may influence

employee creativity, we controlled for the effects of these demographic variables.

Employees reported their age and education levels by selecting the appropriate

category for each variable. We measured employee age using six categories:

1 = 30 years or younger; 2 = 31–35 years, 3 = 36–40 years; 4 = 41–45 years;

5 = 46–50 years; and 6 = 51 years or older. We measured employee education level

using five categories: 1 = middle school diploma or less; 2 = high school or technicalschool diploma; 3 = associate degree; 4 = bachelor’s degree; and 5 = master’s degree

or higher. As we collected data in five subsidiaries of a national petroleum company,

we also controlled for employee subsidiary membership to remove any dependencies

in the data it may cause.

Results

Confirmatory factor analysis

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were performed to evaluate the discriminant

validity of the key variables – namely, empowering leadership behaviours, OBSE, AR,

AI, and creativity. In the CFA model, measurement items were loaded to their

corresponding latent factors, which were mutually correlated. Data were analysed in

AMOS 22.0 (Arbuckle, 2013). The major fit indices of the proposed five-factor were

v2(769) = 1251.343, v2/df = 1.627, CFI = .862, TLI = .846, IFI = .866, andRMSEA = .054. Given the large number of degrees of freedom, which indicates

extensive model complexity and could negatively affect fit indices (Bagozzi & Edwards,

1998; Hu & Bentler, 1999), we concluded that the model fit the data reasonably well.

In addition, all factor loadings were significant, demonstrating convergent validity.

Hence, the discriminant validity of the key variables was confirmed.

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 905

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations of all key

variables. As shown in this table, empowering leadership was positively related to OBSE

(c = .30, p < .01), AR (c = .19, p < .01), AI (c = .14, p < .05), and creativity (c = .32,p < .01). OBSE (c = .37, p < .01), AR (c = .33, p < .01), and AI (c = .21, p < .01) were

positively associated with creativity.

Hypothesis testing

We proposed that OBSE (H1), AR (H2), and AI (H3) would mediate the relationship

between empowering leadership and creativity. We examined the proposed mediation

following the procedure suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986). First, as shown inModels2, 4, and 6 in Table 2, empowering leadership was positively related to OBSE (b = .37,

p < .01) and AR (b = .31, p < .01), but the effect of empowering leadership onAIwas not

significant (b = .23, n.s.). Second, as shown in Model 8 in Table 2, empowering

leadershipwas positively related to creativity (b = .25, p < .01). Third, we introduced the

threemediators (i.e., OBSE, AR, AI) simultaneously into the regression. As shown inModel

9 in Table 2, the effect of empowering leadership on creativity was reduced, but still

significant (b = .16, p < .01); the effects of AR (b = .10, p < .01) and OBSE (b = .16,

p < .01) on creativity were positive and significant; and the effect of AI on creativity wasnot significant (b = .01, n.s.).

We also used the PROCESS model (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) to test the significance of

the indirect effects of empowering leadership on creativity through OBSE and AR,

respectively. The results showed that the indirect relationship was significant for OBSE

(indirect effect = .06, 95% CI = 0.03, 0.12) and AR (indirect effect = .03, 95% CI = 0.01,

0.08). Taken together, these results indicate that AR and OBSE partially mediated the

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Subordinate gender 1.31 0.46

2. Subordinate age 2.45 1.11 .19**

3. Subordinate

education

3.46 0.90 –.12 –.21**

4. Empowering

leadership

4.42 0.65 .11 .10 .04 (.87)

5. OBSE 4.68 0.83 –.01 .00 .17* .30** (.86)

6. Access to resources 4.42 1.15 .10 .17* –.04 .19** .27** (.69)

7. Access to

information

5.20 1.20 .09 .14* –.04 .14* .11 .56** (.90)

8. Subordinate

creativity

4.97 0.53 .00 .01 .02 .32** .37** .33** .21** (.82)

Notes. n = 217. Bracketed values on the diagonal are the Cronbach’s alpha value of each scale. For

gender, 1 = male, 2 = female; for age, 1 = age 30or younger, 2 = age 31–35, 3 = age 36–40, 4 = age 41–45, 5 = age 46–50, 6 = age 51 or older; for education, 1 = middle school or less, 2 = high school/

technical school diploma, 3 = associate degree, 4 = bachelor’s degree, 5 = master’s degree or greater.

OBSE = organization-based self-esteem.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

906 Shuxia Zhang et al.

relationship between empowering leadership and creativity,whereas AI did not. Thus,H1

and H2 were supported, but H3 was not supported.

We predicted that the relationship between OBSE and creativity would be moderated

by AR (H4) and AI (H5). As shown inModel 10 in Table 2, the coefficient of the interactionterm “OBSE 9 Access to resources” was positive and significant (b = .11, p < .01). The

coefficient of the interaction term “OBSE 9 Access to information” was not significant

Table 2. Results of hypothesis testing

OBSE

Access to

resources

Access to

information Employee creativity

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10

Company_1 �.20 �.14 .05 .10 .01 .05 �.05 �.01 .00 .02

Company_2 �.02 .01 �.07 �.04 .13 .15 .02 .04 .04 .08

Company_4 .14 .16 �.08 �.06 .02 .04 �.14 �.12 �.14 �.15

Company_5 �.11 �.03 �.02 .04 �.10 �.05 �.25* �.20 �.19 �.18

Male �.06 .01 �.22 �.16 �.20 �.16 .02 .07 .08 .10

Age 30 or younger �.13 �.10 �.26 �.23 �.03 �.01 .06 .09 .13 .10

Age 31–35 .05 .07 .08 .10 .00 .01 �.07 �.05 �.07 �.09

Age 41–45 .07 �.00 .43 .37 .61 .57 .21* .16 .12 .09

Age 46–50 �.20 �.14 .34 .39 .17 .21 �.39* �.35 �.37* �.39*

Education: middle

school or lower

�.53 �.35 �.04 .12 .67 .78 .11 .24 .28 .33

Education: high

school

�.02 �.01 .15 .16 .09 .10 .10 .10 .09 .16

Education:

bachelor’s degree

.20 .21 .03 .04 �.11 �.10 .07 .07 .03 .05

Education:

master’s or higher

.36 .34 .18 .16 .43 .42 .04 .03 �.05 �.01

Empowering

leadership

behaviour

.37** .31* .23 .25** .16** .17**

OBSE .16** .15**

Access to resources .10** .09*

Access to

information

.01 .01

OBSE 9 Access to

resources

.11**

OBSE 9 Access to

information

�.01

R2 .06 .15 .05 .09 .06 .08 .07 .16 .29 .33

F 1.07 2.77** 0.96 1.66 1.19 1.38 1.17 2.75** 4.88** 5.52**

DR2 .06 .09 .05 .04 .06 .02 .07 .09 .13 .04

DF 1.07 23.49** 0.96 10.20** 1.19 3.72 1.17 21.65** 12.61** 5.94**

Notes. n = 217. Gender was coded as one dummy variable with female as the reference group; age was

coded as five dummy variables with the category of “36–40” as the reference group; education was codedas four dummy variables with the category of “associate degree” as the reference group; Employee

subsidiary membership was coded as four dummy variables with company_3 as the reference group.

OBSE = organization-based self-esteem.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 907

(b = –.01, n.s.).We also tested the twomoderation hypotheses using the PROCESSmodel

(Preacher & Hayes, 2008). The results showed that the moderating effect was significant

forAR (moderating effect = .11, 95%CI = 0.03, 0.19), but insignificant for AI (moderating

effect = –.01, 95% CI = �0.09, 0.07). Therefore, H4 was supported, but H5 was notsupported.

To illustrate the interaction effect of OBSE and AR, we followed the widely accepted

procedure describedbyAiken andWest (1991) toplot the relationship betweenOBSE and

employee creativity at high and low (one standard deviation above and below the mean,

respectively) levels of AR (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003). As shown in Figure 2,

when AR was high, the relationship between OBSE and employee creativity was positive

and significant (b = .37, p < .01); when AR was low, the relationship between OBSE and

employee creativity was not significant (b = .08, n.s.).Lastly, we used the PROCESS model to estimate the conditional indirect effects of

empowering leadership on creativity via OBSE at different levels of AR. The results

showed that the conditional indirect effect of empowering leadership on creativity was

positive and significant when AR was high (Indirect effect = .10, 95% CI = 0.05, 0.17);

however, it was not significant when ARwas low (Indirect effect = .01, 95% CI = �0.02,

0.05), suggesting that the indirect effect of empowering leadership on creativity was

moderated by AR.

Supplementary analyses

Researchers have argued that there may be a “Too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect of

empowering leadership on follower outcomes, meaning that excessive empowering

leadership may lead to either no additional benefit or even undesirable outcomes (Pierce

& Aguinis, 2013). Recently, Lee, Cheong, Kim, and Yun’s (2017) tested this proposition

and found that there was indeed a curvilinear (i.e., inverted U-shaped) relationship

between empowering leadership and employee task performance. Accordingly, weconducted a supplementary analysis to test whether there was also a curvilinear

relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity in our study. Our

results showed that after controlling for employee gender, age, education, and subsidiary

membership, the quadratic term (X2) of empowering leadershipwas negatively related to

creativity (b = �.06, p < .01). The sign of the quadratic termwas negative, suggesting an

High access to resources

Low access to resources

Figure 2. Interactive effects of organization-based self-esteem and access to resources on employee

creativity.

908 Shuxia Zhang et al.

inverted U-shaped relationship between empowering leadership and creativity. Figure 3

shows that the positive effect of empowering leadership on creativity diminishes as the

leader engage in high-level empowering behaviour.

Discussion

Theoretical contributions

The results of this study reveal that AR and OBSE partially mediated the relationship

between empowering leadership and creativity, and that AR moderated the relationship

betweenOBSE and creativity such that the relationshipwas significant only when ARwashigh. Our study is among the first to empirically test the proposition that leaders may

enhance employee creativity by impacting both personal and context-specific factors

simultaneously (Mumford et al., 2002; Shalley&Gilson, 2004). Our findings offer several

important new insights that enhance the literatures of empowering leadership and

creativity.

First, we contribute to the empowering leadership literature by examining the

mechanisms between empowering leadership and creativity from the self-evaluative

perspective.OBSE is a situation-specific kind of self-esteem that results fromawell-definedcontext or relational role.Given the importance of self-esteem to humanbeings in general,

it is of theoretical significance to illuminate that the effect of empowering leadership was

mediated by employees’ OBSE (Shamir et al., 1993).

Second, our results add a new perspective to the leadership and creativity literatures

by revealing the mediating role of AR. Prior studies examining the mechanism between

empowering leadership and creativity have exclusively focused on individual motivation

or activities (Sharma & Kirkman, 2015). However, creative work is resource intensive.

Researchers have proposed that leaders must provide their employees with adequateresources and support (e.g., time, funds, materials) so as to facilitate creativity (Mumford

et al., 2002; Ramus, 2001). Our study is among the first to empirically test this

proposition.

Furthermore, we advance the interactionist perspective of creativity by showing the

moderating effect of AR in the relationship between OBSE and creativity. In doing so, we

attempt to answer calls to explore how actor-related and context-specific factors interact

to influence creativity (Amabile, 1996; Zhou & Hoever, 2014). Our findings suggest that

4

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

5

5.2

Empl

oyee

cre

ativ

ity

Empowering leadership

High Low Mean

Figure 3. Curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity.

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 909

OBSE can be transformed into creativity only when employees are provided with

sufficient resources to support their creative efforts. As the development of new ideas is a

time-intensive and resource-demanding undertaking, adequate resources are essential for

realizing the creative potential of high-OBSE employees (Mumford & Hunter, 2005;Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2009). Conversely, when faced with external resource

constraints, employees are unlikely to generate novel and useful ideas even if they

possess high levels of OBSE.

Lastly, our supplementary analysis showed a curvilinear relationship (i.e., inverted U-

shaped) between empowering leadership and employee creativity. Our result is

consistent with Lee et al.’s (2017) study, which found an inverted U-shaped relationship

between empowering leadership and task performance. Our finding is a constructive

replication of Lee et al.’s study and suggests that the “Too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect ofempowering leadership also applies to employee creativity. Although a moderate level of

empowering leadershipmay facilitate creativity, excessive empowerment from the leader

may not bring additional benefits. This is because too much empowerment may generate

risks such as a lack of managerial control, no enough guidance from the leader, or

increased work burden and ambiguity for employees (Martin et al., 2013). Such risksmay

offset thepotential positive effect of empowering leadership on creativity. To facilitate the

optimal functioning of employee creativity, leaders should be aware of the potential risks

of high-level empowering leadership and keep a balanced view when engaging inempowering behaviour (Lee et al., 2017).

Contrary to our prediction, AI did not mediate the relationship between empowering

leadership and creativity, nor did it moderate the relationship between OBSE and

creativity. One possible explanation for these findings may be related to the construal

level of the items for AI versus the items for AR. Construal level refers to the level of

abstraction by which we mentally represent objects, events, or situations (Burgoon,

Henderson, & Markman, 2013). High construal levels tend to focus on the future and

hypothetical events, and on the abstract features of objects and situations; in contrast, lowconstrual levels involve a strong focus on the “here and now,” and on concrete details of

objects and situations (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Thus, our items for AI may represent a

high construal level, because they focus on the future goals (i.e., vision) and abstract

information (i.e., strategy) of the organization. In contrast, our items for ARmay represent

a low construal level, because they focus on the concrete resources that employees can

access right now. According to the “construal level fit” proposition (Berson, Halevy,

Shamir, & Erez, 2015), people have a preference for information that fits their construal

levels. The effects of AI were not significant in our study, perhaps because mostemployees in our sample had relatively low construal levels. Unfortunately, we were

unable to test this possibility aswe did notmeasure employee construal level in our study.

We encourage future studies to explore how construal level may influence the creativity

process of employees.

Practical implications

Our research has several practical implications for managers. First, we found thatempowering leadership behaviours were significantly related to employee creativity.

Accordingly, it behoves leaders tomake deliberate efforts to highlight themeaningfulness

of the work, foster employee participation in decision-making, convey confidence in

employees’ capabilities, and remove bureaucratic constraints. Such behaviour may help

employees develop a more positive self-evaluation and, in turn, support their creativity.

910 Shuxia Zhang et al.

Second, simply enhancing employees’ OBSEmay not be enough to facilitate employee

creativity. Leaders must ensure that the employees are provided with the necessary

resources and support. Otherwise, employees with high OBSE may not be able to fulfil

their creative potential. Moreover, the leaders need to take into account both employees’self-evaluation and the external supports available to those employees simultaneously, so

that these two factors will work together in a synergistic way to enhance employee

creativity (Axtell et al., 2000).

Limitations and directions for further research

Our findings should be interpreted in light of several limitations. The first limitation is

related to the method used to collect the data. Although we adopted a multisource andmulti-wave design, our results may be subject to a “mutual admiration society” bias,

wherein employees who see their boss as empowering are, in return, likely to be seen by

their boss as more creative. Thus, future research might use objective creativity data to

replicate our findings. In addition, our research design did not allow us to assess causality

in our model. Further studies might employ a prospective design, in which the mediators

and dependent variables are measured at multiple times. Such a design would allow for

assessing the causality between the variables in our model.

Second, due to the space limits of our survey, wewere not able tomeasure and controlfor some confounding variables (e.g., employees’ empowering role identity, uncertainty

avoidance, or trust in supervisor) that might influence the effects of empowering

leadership on followers. Future studies might further explore whether our results will

holdwhen controlling for those variables. In related areas, previous research has reported

that the relationship between supervisor behaviour and employees’ reactions or creative

behaviour may be moderated by personal factors such as employee creative role identity

(Wang & Cheng, 2010), creative personality (Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002), and power

distance orientation (Hui, Au,& Fock, 2004). In the future, researchers should continue toexamine other factors that may moderate the relationship between empowering

leadership and employee OBSE.

Lastly, the itemswe used tomeasure ARwere purposelywritten in a general format, in

order to cover all possible resources necessary for employee creativity (Spreitzer, 1996).

In the literature, other researchers have also used general items to measure AR (Madjar

et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2008). However, this approach has a limitation in the sense that

we are unable to specifywhich types of resources are important for employee creativity. It

should be noted that previous studies focusing on specific types of resources havegenerated mixed results. For example, in a qualitative study, Unsworth and Clegg (2010)

reported that adequate time (a resource) is an important precondition for employees to

undertake creative actions. In a quantitative study, however, West and Anderson (1996)

found that organizational resources (operationalized as team budgets) were in general

unrelated to team innovation. Such mixed findings suggest that it may worthwhile for

future studies to adopt a more nuanced measure of resources, so that we can determine

which types of resources are necessary to facilitate employee creativity.

Conclusion

Integrating empowerment theories and important creativity theories, our research shows

that employees’ OBSE and AR both mediate the relationship between empowering

leadership and creativity. Our study also extends our understanding of the interactionist

Empowering leadership and employee creativity 911

perspective of creativity by revealing the moderating effect of AR on the relationship

between OBSE and creativity. This study provides a novel perspective for pondering how

and when empowering leadership may facilitate employee creativity.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the China National Science Fund for Distinguished Young

Scholars (71425003), the Humanities and Social Sciences Program of theMinistry of Education

of China (14YJC630128), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71472179).

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Received 18 October 2015; revised version received 12 March 2018

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