PurposeThis study aims to explore the impact of ethical leadership on employee creative deviance, with job autonomy as a mediator and creative self-efficacy as a moderator between job autonomy and creative deviance.Design/methodology/approachA survey was developed based on construct measures from the literature. A total of 316 responses were received from employees of information and communication technology companies located in China's Pearl River Delta.FindingsBoth ethical leadership and job autonomy have a positive impact on employee creative deviance; job autonomy plays a mediating role between ethical leadership and creative deviance; creative self-efficacy does not have a significant moderating effect on the job autonomy-creative deviance relationship.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies could explore the potential moderating role of both job autonomy and creative-self efficacy in the link between ethical leadership and creative deviance.Practical implicationsThis study recommends that organizations should adopt and promote an ethical leadership approach to manage creative deviance at work. Organizations could explore alternative methods of task completion to support the job autonomy for the employees to mitigate the dilemmas associated with creative deviance.Originality/valueThis is one of few studies that examine the impact of ethical leadership on employee's creative deviance, despite the fact that the influence of ethical leadership on the followers has been extensively examined.

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This document may differ from the final, published version of the research and has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies. To read and/or cite from the published version of the research, please visit the publisher's website (a subscription may be required.) the employability of the graduates and the efficiency of the system (Chillas, 2010; Kulkarni and Nithyanand, 2013). In recent decades, there has been a trend of shifting from an elite to a mass higher education system across developed countries and emerging countries such as China (

Following China’s “One Belt One Road” global economic expansion strategy, Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) along with state-owned, large corporations are increasingly seeking business opportunities internationally. Little is known about the process of small firms’ international opportunity creation and discovery in this particular context. This study examines the role of Chinese SME manager’s global mindset in driving their international opportunity identification through two key activities in their internationalization process: international knowledge based and networking activities. Data were collected from a survey of 191 small and medium-sized enterprises in China. The results of structural equation modelling show that Chinese SME managers’ global mindset has a positive effect on both international networking and knowledge acquisition activities, which in turn have positive effects on the development of international opportunities. The findings suggest that SMEs, while going through the internationalization process, rely extensively on social interaction with foreign business partners to obtain knowledge of the customers and institutions in the foreign market.