不同工作任务下领导行为与员工创造力的权变关系——基于不同产权主体的研究

Leadership and Employee Creativity:the Moderating Role of Task Type

变革型领导和交易型领导对员工创造力的作用一直是研究的热点,但对于这两种领导方式与员工创造力之间的关系长久以来并未达成一致。House的领导路径——目标理论提出了任务在领导行为对下属态度和行为影响中的重要作用。基于此,本文通过权变的视角,引入任务类型变量,探讨对于不同的任务,领导行为对员工创造力的权变关系,藉此解释创造力研究中领导作用的巨大分歧的原因。对360名本科生采用实验法进行验证,结果发现:(1)贡献型任务中,变革型领导对员工想法的新颖程度和可操作性更为有效;(2)主动型任务中,变革型领导能够促进员工产生更多的想法;(3)期望型任务中,交易型领导对员工想法数量的产生有更显著的促进作用;(4)反应型任务中,变革型与交易型领导对员工创造力的作用没有显著差别。

It＇ s a hot topic in creativity research to discuss the effect of transformational and transactional lead- ership on employee creativity. However, the results of their effect on creativity were mixed. The effect of transformational leadership on employee creativity could be categried for three types ： （ 1 ） not significant （ e. g. , Jaussi ＆ Dionee, 2003） ; （2） positive significant （e. g. , Shin ＆ Zhou, 2003） ; （3） negative significant （ e. g. , Basu ＆ Green, 1997）. Similarly, scholars also found the mixed results of transactional leadership＇ s effect on employee creativity： （1） Some researchers believed that the rewards behavior of transactional leadership can undermine in- trinsic motivation and hold creativity at the minimal level （e. g., Amabile, 1998; Deci, Koestner ＆ Ryan, 1999） ployee ; （2） while the others proved that the rewards behavior of transactional leadership increased significantly emcreativity （e. g. , Eisenberger, Armeli ＆ Pretz, 1998; Eisenberger, Pierce ＆ Cameron, 1999） The path-goal theory of leadership, which proposed by House （ 1971 ）, stated that the task played a key role in the leadership＇ s effect on employee attitude and behavior. In the research of leadership theory, the different task types lead to different results. That was to say, effective leaders can adjust his/her behaviors according to different task to achieve highest performance. In the relationship between leadership and employee creativity, scholars often designed different tasks to test their hypotheses. For example, Jung （2001） designed a task to improve educational quality to obtains a better reputation of the business school, while in the research of Kahai, Sosik and Avolio （2003） , group members were asked to think ideas to resolve two ethical dilemmas. The former research found that compared to transactional leadership, transformational leadership was more effective in improving employee creativity. The latter, however, obtained a contrary result. Therefore, it was obvious that in creativity research, task type played a key role in the relationship between leadership and creativity. Unfortunately, almost no researchers fo-cused on this issue. In order to explain the large difference in leadership＇ s effect on employee creativity, task type as a variable was introduced to this paper to find its moderating role on the relationship between leadership （transformational and transactional） and employee creativity. Prior research mostly focused on the effect of job complexity on employee creativity, which bringed to two problems ： （ 1 ） it was difficult to define the level of job complexity. The level of complexity of a same task might be different for different people. Therefore, different samples would cause different results ; （2） most researchers approved of the proposition that the higher level of job complexity, the higher level of creativity would be need. But it did not mean that when emplovee encountered a complex task or job, he/she wan-ted to complete it with positive manner. Instead, he/she might shrink back from the complex task. Furthermore, Scott ＆ Bruce （2001） categoried task types depending on employee＇s occupation （such as skilled worker, engineer or scientist ）, but this classification was simple and could not include all task types. Therefore, according to the research of Unsworth （2001）, this paper categroried task types with two different dimensions ： one was the way that task generated （ internal interest or external requirements）, the other was the problem types （close or open problem）. From these two dimensions, four types could be derived： contributory task, proactive task, expected task and responsive creativity. This research used a 2 （transformational vs. transactional leadership） x 4 （contributory, proactive, expected, responsive task） factorial design, and involved 360 undergraduate students. The results found that （ 1 ） in contributory task, transformational leadership was more effective in the number of creative ideas and operability; （2） in proaetive task, employees could produce more creative ideas under transformational leadership; （3） in expected task, transaeitonal leadership was more effective in the number of creative ideas ; （4） in responsive creativity, there were no siginifieant differences in the effect of transformational and transactional leadership on employee creativity.