关键词: 伦理型领导, 心理安全感, 创造力, 上下级关系

Abstract: Given the severe environment with intense competition and unpredictable technology changes, increasing number of organizations realize that employees should be encouraged and cultivated to be creative. To address this question, we built a mediated moderation model on employees’ creativity based on the analysis of Cognitive Evaluation Theory. Specifically, our study examined the interactive effects of ethical leadership, Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi on employee creativity. We also focused on the employees’ perception of psychological safety and predicted that it fully mediated the interactive effects of ethical leadership, and Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi on the employees’ creativity. Four hundred survey questionnaires were distributed to the 25 companies located in Zhejiang Provinces, covering manufacturing, high technology, real estate, etc. In the end, 380 employees returned the questionnaires (response rate was 95%). After screening out the problematic cases, the final sample consists of 328 employees. 47.9% were male, 52.1% were female; most of the participants ranged from 25-30 years old (39.6%); most of the participants had an organizational tenure under 5 years (55.4%). To examine the distinctiveness of the study’s variables, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis by using AMOS 7.0. We also employed multiple regression analysis to test the mediated moderation model by using SPSS 13.0. Based on the cognitive evaluation theory, this study proposed and tested a moderated mediation model in which ethical leadership influences employees’ creativity, with psychological safety as a mediator and supervisor-subordinate guanxi as a moderator. The results showed that 1) ethical leadership was positively related to the employees’ perception of psychological safety; 2) the employees’ perception of psychological safety totally mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and their own creativity; 3) the supervisor-subordinate guanxi moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and employee perception of psychological safety; 4) the supervisor-subordinate guanxi moderated the mediated relationship through the employees’ perception of psychological safety, that is, the higher supervisor-subordinate guanxi, the stronger the mediated relationship. Our findings contribute to employee creativity literature. Most studies have focused on the prediction of situational factors for the employees’ creativity, which may have obscured some individual factors that can explain exactly why employees engage in creativity. By drawing on cognitive evaluation theory, our study established a comprehensive model of the perception of psychological safety mediation in which ethical leadership and Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi predicted the psychological safety, and in turn, promote the employees’ creativity. Thus, our study provides a fresh window on predictions for employee creativity in organizations. In terms of practical implications, managers of organizations should engage in ethical leadership behaviors and act as role models in front of their followers. In so doing, managers of organizations are likely to encourage employees’ creative behavior by enhancing the level of employee psychological safety in their organizations. Further, our findings suggest that organizations’ leaders should place high value on building good Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi with their employees. They can also employ various socialization practices to increase the quality of relationships among leaders and followers, because of the high level of Supervisor–Subordinate guanxi encourages the followers’ creativity in the organization.

Key words: Ethical Leadership, Psychological Safety, Creativity, Supervisor–subordinate Guanxi