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Purpose The present study aims to examine how and when authoritarian leadership affects employee creativity. Based on social exchange theory and team identification literature, the present research attempts to simultaneously explore how leader–member exchange (LMX) and team identification serve as two important mediating processes in the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity. Furthermore, this research uncovers the mechanism under which conditions the effects of authoritarian leadership will be magnified or minimized. Design/methodology/approach A survey has been conducted in China by using a questionnaire to collect data. The study sample consisted of 325 employees. LISREL 8.7 and SPSS 18.0 were used to test the mediating and moderating effects, respectively. Findings Results from 325 employees revealed that both LMX and team identification mediated the negative relationships between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity. Specifically, the relationship between two mediators was that LMX was positively related to team identification. In addition, the relationship between authoritarian leaderships and LMX and team identification was moderated by power distance, such that the negative relationships will be weaker with high power distance and stronger with low power distance. Practical implications First, firms and managers should recognize and take actions to reduce the negative effects of authoritarian leadership, such as effective selection system and interventional mechanisms because authoritarian leadership is important in influencing employee creativity. Second, managers are suggested to take specific actions, such as increasing communications and team-building activities, to promote LMX and team identification, thereby enhancing employee creativity. Third, managers should engage in behaviors that motivate employee creativity, such as empowerment behaviors, other than authoritarian leadership, when the employee has low power distance. Originality/value The primary contribution of this research is that two psychological processes (i.e. LMX and team identification) have been identified through which authoritarian leadership is related to employee creativity. Meanwhile, this study explores the relationship between LMX and team identification. Moreover, the current research deepens our understanding of power distance by empirically examining the moderating effect of power distance. Overall, the findings extend our understanding about the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee creativity and contribute to literature on authoritarian leadership and creativity.

Workers’ isolation may occur in gig employment in the sharing economy, which generates a weak perception of the organization and unpredictable work performance. Drawing on social exchange theory, this paper proposes a framework to explore the effect of psychological contract fulfillment on gig workers’ task performance from the perspective of the mediation of organizational identification and the moderation of the length of service. A total of 223 samples were recruited from Didi (a ride-hailing company in China) drivers. The results show that both transactional and relational psychological contract fulfillment can directly affect gig workers’ task performance and also indirectly affect it via organizational identification. When the length of service for the current company is taken into consideration, transactional contract fulfillment, as the representation of a company’s recognition of gig workers’ effort, has a stronger effect on the organizational identification of gig workers who have been working for the company for less than a year compared with those who have been working for a longer period. The results show no difference in the relationship between relational psychological contract and organizational identification between the two groups. Transactional psychological contract fulfillment exhibits the same significant effect on gig workers’ task performance in both groups. By contrast, relational psychological contract fulfillment has a stronger effect on long-serving Didi drivers than on those who joined the company within the year. These findings generate certain theoretical and practical implications for gig employment management in the sharing economy.

In this study, we examine the relationship between department high-performance work systems (DHPWS) and employees' creative performance. Data are obtained from a sample of 335 employees in 74 departments in People's Republic of China. Results of hierarchical linear modeling reveal that DHPWS are positively related to employees' creative performance, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) partially mediates that relationship. Perspective taking, which represents a cognitive factor in which employees focus on others and adopt others' viewpoint in order to better understand their preferences and values, moderates the DHPWS-OCB relationship. However, perspective taking does not serve as a moderator between DHPWS and employees' creative performance. These findings shed new light on the mechanisms through which DHPWS influence employees' creative performance and contribute to the strategic HRM and creativity literature. We discuss implications of these results for research and practice.Keywords: creative performance, department high-performance work systems, organizational citizenship behavior, perspective taking Key points 1 Filling in the gap of extant high-performance work systems (HPWS) research which mainly focuses on the effects of organization-level HPWS, we explore the development of HPWS by focusing on department HPWS (DHPWS). 2 Adopting a cross-level approach, our study empirically investigates whether, how and when DHPWS affect employees' creative performance. 3 The results demonstrate the mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) between DHPWS and employees' creative performance and the moderating role of perspective taking between DHPWS and OCB. 4 Our study contributes not only to HPWS literature but also to the creativity literature, with our findings showing that DHPWS represent a department 'conducive environment' that can promote employees' creative performance.

Based on the social identity theory and leader-member exchange (LMX) literature, the present study examined the underlying relationship between employees' collectivism and their innovative behavior. Specifically, we explored the mediating role of team identification and the moderating role of LMX in the above relationship. Results from a survey of 457 employees in 30 organizations indicate that employees' team identification partially mediates the relationship between their collectivism and innovative behavior, and that this mediating relationship has conditional effects on the moderator variable LMX. The findings contribute to the literature by clarifying how (through team identification) and when (based on LMX) employees' collectivism is related positively to their innovative behavior.

Despite the growing attention on the topic of abusive supervision, how abusive supervision affects individual and team creativity have not yet been thoroughly investigated. Drawn from the perspective of leader-member exchange (LMX), the current study develops a multilevel model to describe the relationships between abusive supervision and creativity at both team and individual levels, with a focus on the roles played by team-level leader-member exchange (TLMX) and LMX differentiation (DLMX). Based on data collected from 319 team members and their team leaders in 71 teams, the results show that abusive supervision has a negative relationship with TLMX, a practice that is conducive to both team and individual creativity. At the team level, the negative relationship between abusive supervision and TLMX is lessened by a higher level of DLMX. In addition, the positive relationship between TLMX and team creativity is weakened by a higher level of DLMX. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

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