善于质疑辨析就会有高创造力吗:中国情境下的领导—成员交换的弱化作用

Critical Thinking, Creative Self-efficacy and Employee Creativity:Weakening Effect of Leader-member Exchange in Chinese Context

尽管在教育学、哲学、心理学等领域,批判性思维被广泛认为是决定个体创造力的重要个性变量,但却缺乏相关的实证研究,而关于这种关系的作用机理与传导机制的研究更是一片空白。本文试图从个体认识论的角度,将批判性思维这一概念引入管理学领域,通过211对直接领导—下属—同事的三方配对问卷调查,实证研究工作情景中批判性思维对员工创造力的影响,尤其是研究创新自我效能感的中介作用与领导—成员交换关系的调节作用。本文通过结构方程和回归分析发现,批判性思维与员工创造力显著正相关,创新自我效能感在两者之间起完全中介作用,而领导—成员交换在批判性思维与创新自我效能感之间起缓冲调节作用。

Our purpose is to build a theory calling for comprehen- sive understanding of the inner mechanism that shows how critical thinking influences employee creativity. Although critical thinking is generally considered as a core variable to individuals＇ creativity in the areas of pedagogy, philosophy and psychology, etc., In fact, the relationship between critical thinking and individuals＇ creativity is still void of empirical study. And there is a big gap about the influence mechanism of the two according to current research lit- erature. We introduce the concept of critical thinking to the field of management from the perspective of individual epistemology based on the theory of reflective judgment model. Supplement to previous research emphasizing individual characteristics such as traits and personalities, we focus on the value of individuals＇ critical thinking and its impacts on creativity in the workplace. We introduce the mediating role of creative self-efficacy and try to open the black box referring to the influence mechanism of critical thinking on employee creativity based on the theory of creative component. Also, the paper introduces the moderating variable of leader-member exchange. Previous studies support that leader-member exchange and employ creativity have a positive relationship. However, the respect for authority, tradition and social harmony are considered to be higher values. Diversity in opinion may not be well appreciated in some cultures with strong collectivism such as China. So we try to explore how the relationship between critical thinking and creative self-efficacy is influenced by leader-member exchange in Chinese context. This study regards the 442 employees in two software companies as samples, conducts pretesting on critical thinking scale and modifies the questionnaire according to the result of survey. As for formal testing, we choose one insurance firm as object of study, makes a questionnaire survey on 211 pairs with direct leader -subordinate - colleague relationship. The results, through structural equations and regression analysis, indicate that there is a positive correlation between critical thinking and employee creativity. In addition, the creative self-efficacy plays a complete mediating role between them. The leader-member exchange weakens the relationship between critical thinking and creative self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for research on employee creativity at work are discussed.