Close relationship with the supervisor may impede employee creativity by suppressing vertical task conflict

Abstract

Leader-member exchange as a form of supportive leadership is expected to foster employee creativity. However, empirical evidence suggested this relationship is complex. This study attempts to address this complexity by proposing and testing a curvilinear mechanism, which attenuates the overall positive effect of LMX on creativity by transmitting a curvilinear indirect effect via vertical task conflict. Results drawn from a sample of 276 supervisor-subordinate dyads provided support for the hypothesized curvilinear indirect effect. Specifically, LMX was found to negatively influence employee creativity by suppressing vertical task conflict for subordinates in high-quality LMX relationships, while the indirect effect was not significant for subordinates in low-quality LMX relationships.

Taking the Pandemic by Its Horns: Using Work-Related Task Conflict to Transform Perceived Pandemic Threats Into Creativity

“…By initiating conflict-laden conversations, employees can mitigate their resource-depleting fears about the coronavirus and its harms (Hite & McDonald, 2020). In turn, they expend energy to gain more creative solutions for improving the organizational status quo (Zhang & Zhou, 2019), which is a type of resource.…”

“…That goal might be possible if they debate productively with their colleagues about the best solutions (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). That is, concerns about the negative organizational impacts of the pandemic may stimulate people to reach out to other organizational members, initiate potentially heated discussions about how to handle the situation, and arrive at a consensus about viable solutions (Jehn & Bendersky, 2003;Zhang & Zhou, 2019). Conversely, if employees worry less about risks to their organization, they sense little threat to their own work situation and see no need to enter into difficult discussions about work issues (Swaminathan & Mishra, 2020).…”

“…Work-related task conflict generally increases creativity. When employees reach out to colleagues to exchange opinions about work-related issues, they gain better insights for developing novel solutions ( Zhang & Zhou, 2019 ). Effective solutions require new combinations of varied and pertinent knowledge, which an individual employee cannot possess alone ( Amason, 1996 ).…”

Innovation in times of pandemic: The moderating effect of knowledge sharing on the relationship between COVID‐19‐induced job stress and employee innovation

“…While a strict policy response to COVID‐19 was necessary, firms will inevitably be impacted by it, sustaining both short‐term effects and less‐expected long‐term consequences (Bartik et al, 2020). Due to these circumstances, firms in industries with fast‐changing technologies that invest in R&D activities in response to emerging global risks will be better positioned to promote not only their near‐term survival, but also their future innovative performance to stay competitive (Helfat, 1997; Blake and Burrows, 2001; Verdu‐Jover et al, 2005; Martínez‐Sánchez et al, 2011; Aghion et al, 2018; Zhang and Zhou, 2019; Marullo et al, 2020).…”

Knowledge-oriented leadership, team learning and team creativity: the roles of task interdependence and task complexity

“…At the same time, knowledge work, which is to create, apply, acquire and share knowledge, is becoming increasingly team-based and is crucial to creativity (Jacobs, 2017; Pearce, 2004). Due to the crucial role of leadership on knowledge work (Shin and Zhou, 2003), an important situational factor that is likely to have a potential impact on creativity is leadership (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Zhang and Zhou, 2019). Knowledge-oriented leadership has been viewed as a crucial condition for the encouragement and development of knowledge management practices for innovative purposes (Donate and Sanchez de Pablo, 2015; Ribiere and Sitar, 2003).…”