Using social exchange theory and social learning theory, we examined the influence of ethical leadership on employee creativity through the mediation of knowledge sharing and self-efficacy. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 309 employees and their supervisors from 4 Chinese
companies, using a multiple mediation model. The results showed that ethical leadership was positively related to employee creativity and that this relationship was mediated by knowledge sharing and self-efficacy.
Although researchers emphasize that the construct of authentic leadership (AL) is relevant to resolving different kinds of failures and inadequacies of leadership, it remains unknown whether or not, and how, authentic leadership style intrinsically evokes employees' innovation. Using multilevel data from 76 teams sourced from 5 enterprises in China, we applied hierarchical linear modeling and found a positive relationship between AL and employees' innovation. Employees' positive emotions were found to have a mediating effect in this relationship, whereas employees' negative emotions did not act as a mediator. Our study results extend AL theory by revealing the cross-level effects of authentic leadership, and provide practical implications to help leaders perform relevant interventions in promoting employee innovation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.