The effects of transformational leadership on employee creativity: Moderating role of intrinsic motivation

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate effect of transformational leadership (TL) in stimulating employee creativity (EC) leading to organizational innovation (OI) and assess the moderating role of Intrinsic Motivation (IM) between TL and EC. The data was collected from 164 supervisor-employee dyads of 31 Pakistani software firms. A three-step approach to SEM was applied to examine mediator and moderator variables. The findings indicate that the Idealized Influence, Intellectual Stimulation, and Inspirational Motivation have a great influence on OI and EC but Individual Consideration was not found to be significantly related to OI and EC. The findings further proved the positive and significant moderating effect of IM for TL and EC. Thus, through TL style, EC can be promoted with the interactive effect of IM by inspiring employees to think out of the box leading to innovation in the organization. This paper attempts to contribute to the current literature by developing moderating role of IM. Furthermore, we have also examined how each dimension of TL is affecting EC, and OI, further some interesting discoveries are also made which other studies have not done before.